Introduction

Inviting responses

The survey was open to responses between 8 January 2024 and 15 March 2024, to give people an appropriate amount of time to respond.

We promoted the survey across a variety of communications channels, including our sector-facing Twitter account, the Archives-NRA Jiscmail list and our regional newsletters.

We also circulated the survey via the communication channels of partner organisations and networks such as the Archives & Records Association, the Business Archives Council and the Higher Education Archives Programme.

Special mailouts were also used, dedicated to the topic of the survey, and sent to all 2500 archive collections listed in our Find An Archive directory.

The response rate

We received responses from just over 400 archive services across England. We estimate that this could constitute up to a quarter of all archive services across England and is a good sample of the archive sector’s current resources and challenges, which we can use to tailor our sector support going forward.

Horizontal bar graph, titled 'Responses per Category'. The y axis is titled 'Archive Category' and the x axis 'Number of Responses'. There are 18 bars, titled (from top to bottom): 'Local Authority Archive', 'Higher Education', 'School/College', 'Independent Museum/Gallery', 'Specialist', 'Religious organisation', 'Community', 'Estate', 'Professional Association', 'Business', 'Club/Society', 'Charity', 'DCMS Organisation', 'Public Services', 'Learned Society', 'Local Authority Museum/Gallery', 'Local Authority Library', 'Arts Organisation'. The Number of responses decreases steadily from top to bottom, with 'Local Authority Archive' numbering 80 responses and 'Arts Organisation' numbering less than 5.Benefits of a sector wide survey

We identified six benefits to undertaking a sector-wide survey of archive services in the UK:

  1. Such a survey helps us gain an understanding of the varied nature of the archive sector. (18 Categories ranging from LAs to Community archives)
  2. Despite the varied nature, we managed to identify common themes and trends, some of which we will describe in our presentation.
  3. The survey allowed us to identify areas of activities undertaken by archives that require improvement.
  4. Importantly, the data gathered from such a comprehensive survey helps The National Archives and other national bodies advocate on behalf of archives to funders and stakeholders at local, regional, and national levels.
  5. The data also allows us to base our decision-making on objective information.
  6. Finally, the survey provided archive services with data that will enable them to benchmark their performance against other similar services.

Using data to solve problems

We hope to be able to use the data collected in this survey to help solve problems in the archive sector, using the following approach:

  1. Collect data – by gathering a plethora of data, we can challenge our assumptions and generate useful questions such as: How large are cataloguing backlogs? What are the most popular archive collection management systems? What is the average size of a service’s digital archive collection?
  2. Identify trends – we can use the data to spot patterns, gaps and anomalies
  3. Generate solutions – we can use the data and the identified trends to validate existing solutions or to inspire new ideas for suitable solutions. We can use the data to set goals and identify the required resources when implementing the solutions
  4. Collect more data and evaluate solutions – The new data collected in successive annual survey can help us evaluate the solutions we’ve implemented as a sector. By comparing the data before and after implementation, we can learn from our successes and failures and make adjustments and enhancements to our chosen solutions.