Horses and Buggies

I am reading with interest Paul McPherson's article in the latest A&M and, not surprisingly, find a few issues he raises are quite contentious. Basically, his argument is that greater resources should be given to online services at the expense of maintaining reading rooms since this is the way of the future.

For example, he refers to the NAA's annual report for 2008-09 which says there were 22,290 visits to reading rooms compared with 5,249,213 visits to the NAA's online database. Impressive stats it would seem, but what do these stats really tell us about the success of any of these visits, both online and physical? Did people really find what they wanted? Did they know there were other records not online that may be harder to search (hence they have not been digitized) but will provide more accurate information to match their inquiry? Quoting this raw data is not a sufficient argument for devoting more energies one way or the other. As he says, people may well be able to find increasingly more detailed information online, but a more detailed analysis of such statistics is required to draw such firm conclusions.

Paul speaks of how cheap a digitization service is compared to maintaining reading rooms. From my experience, the series that have been prioritized for digitizing are those that are readily identifiable at an item level – making them attractive for providing to the public in this way. But I know there are many kilometres of invaluable records to the researcher that are not described at item level, or cannot easily be done so. If we were to follow Paul’s advice I think we will find the cost of digitisation will all of a sudden dramatically rise.

Finally, if what Paul says is true, then I find it highly surprising that the NAA so readily decided to reverse its decision to close their Tas, SA and NT offices and adopt a co-location model.

Thanks for starting this discussion David.

My own personal opinion is that a Search/Reading Room is a Search/Reading Room and making archives accessible digitally is another way of making archives accessible - a very useful and valuable way, but nevertheless an alternative way. At the RAPPSIG Day in Melbourne it was shown that while the number of visitors to Search Rooms remains constant over time (it is not dimishing), the numbers accessing archives digitally has increased exponentially.

Adding some hearsay evidence I would argue that the types of people now attending Archives Search Rooms are much better informed and know more about what they want to view. This is because there is much more information about archives collections on the internet. In my experience of currrent Search Rooms there is far less of the "I've not been here before - what have you got" type of reseacher that there was 10 years ago. Dealing with researchers in some ways is a more intense experince for the Reference Desk Archivist. I'm not sure we know exactly how those accessing digitised archives are using these items, but I expect the experience of them is useful in an online environment kind of way, where you liberally click, browse, etc, but it is quite different to those who are attending Search Rooms.

Will online access replace the Search Room experience of Archives?

Gerard Foley

Replies

Gerard Foley December 23, 2010 at 6:01pm

Thanks for starting this discussion David.

My own personal opinion is that a Search/Reading Room is a Search/Reading Room and making archives accessible digitally is another way of making archives accessible - a very useful and valuable way, but nevertheless an alternative way. At the RAPPSIG Day in Melbourne it was shown that while the number of visitors to Search Rooms remains constant over time (it is not dimishing), the numbers accessing archives digitally has increased exponentially.

Adding some hearsay evidence I would argue that the types of people now attending Archives Search Rooms are much better informed and know more about what they want to view. This is because there is much more information about archives collections on the internet. In my experience of currrent Search Rooms there is far less of the "I've not been here before - what have you got" type of reseacher that there was 10 years ago. Dealing with researchers in some ways is a more intense experince for the Reference Desk Archivist. I'm not sure we know exactly how those accessing digitised archives are using these items, but I expect the experience of them is useful in an online environment kind of way, where you liberally click, browse, etc, but it is quite different to those who are attending Search Rooms.

Will online access replace the Search Room experience of Archives?

Gerard Foley
Alan Ventress December 23, 2010 at 10:45am

Ideally we should all be providing reading room access AND digital access. During 2009/2010 State Records NSW had 52,586 visitors to its reading rooms in The Rocks and at Kingswood in Western Sydney. The prospect of closing off reading room access in favour of digitisation is not an option State Records NSW could or would pursue at the moment. Traditional reading room access is necessary because of the nature of the State's archives, the prospect of digitising and providing metadata for over 67 linear kilometres of archives or 8 million individual items is beyond our capabilities and will probably remain so for many years to come. Strategies in place to overcome the lack of funding and resources for digitisation have included an in house digitisation program which though small is effective in highlighting the more popular parts of the archives. However, our greatest success in digitisation has grown from our relationship with Ancestry.com who have digitised 325,000 items from our archives. In 2009/10 they were viewed more than 1.2 million times!
- David Bloomfield > Alan Ventress December 23, 2010 at 11:37am
  
  Absolutely Alan,
  
  I think the way of the future will not be mass digitisation programs but the management of born digital records in electronic archives. We will continue to digitise the low hanging fruit, but access to the bulk of our paper based archives will be either in person or (if that is not practical for folk from out of town as Paul says) via the repository's own archivist(s) or via a local researcher for the more involved inquiries.
1yb37e98nke93 December 22, 2010 at 1:57pm

Hi David

Thought provoking post David, thanks. In terms of NAA's position with co-location, maybe NAA did not reverse their decision. Maybe they re-packaged the message and proceeded with fundamentally what they had always intended to do.

I have not received my A&M, but hopefully I will soon so I can add this article to my Christmas/New Year reading list and think more about the points you have raised.

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