Mothballing archive provision in a pandemic

The National Archives (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) at Kew, near London, England, has a great article online through its blog entitled Sending the giant to sleep, in which members of the team describe how the archive prepared for a pandemic (yes, it was in the contingency planning), and what is being done to maintain its readiness as a national repository, in preparation for its eventual re-opening. You will find the article at https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/sending-the-giant-to-sleep/.

The archive sector is also documenting its own involvement within the crisis, with TNA requesting that archives across the UK fill in a survey to help it assess the impact of Covid-19 on archive provision. Here's the blurb:

The National Archives is conducting a brief survey into the initial impacts of the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.  We are keen to build up a national picture to inform our plans for support both now and in the coming months and even years. Please complete this survey to tell us how your service has been impacted so far.

We recognise that services are still adjusting to the rapidly changing circumstances and may still be establishing remote working practices for their teams. We have been impressed with the flexibility, adaptability and quick thinking that is clearly taking place, as well as the lengths people have gone to in safeguarding collections.

This is a first look at how services are working and we will follow up in 3-4 months’ time to see how services have adjusted.  It is our intention to undertake a more detailed review of these measures and to consider how business continuity planning may need to change based on the lessons learnt from the current crisis and its longer-term implications.

If you have any questions about how we will use this information, please contact asd@nationalarchives.gov.uk

The survey is available at https://smartsurvey.co.uk/s/7ADL72/

Chris

You can pre-order my new book, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 (out April). Also available, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.