History and background
The idea of producing a standard for access was born at the quality forum (annual meeting) of Public Services Quality group (PSQG) in November 1998. A broadly constituted working party - involving practitioners from a wide range of repositories and including representatives from each of the home countries - produced a first draft of the current standard during the following 12 months. This was formally adopted at the November 1999 quality forum and issued, after minor changes, in the following February. A community-based document produced by PSQG but owned by the archive domain, it has been voluntarily adopted by numerous repositories even while still in its current draft form, and is widely quoted as a model of good practice.
Following its issue in February 2000, the Standard was formally endorsed by the Inter-Departmental Archives Committee (IDAC), the National Council on Archives (NCA) and the Society of Archivists (SoA). It was also welcomed by a number of other archival bodies including the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government (ACALG), and the British Genealogical Records Users Group (BGRUC).
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Development of the standard and further consultation
During the early part of 2003, PSQG consulted widely on the need for the standard, its use and application, and on any changes required to the existing text. In June 2003, Chris Pickford produced a report for PSQG with funding from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's Standards Pilot Grant Scheme: The PSQG standard for access to archives: The next steps - A report to the PSQG steering group
(103kb). The report indicated that:
- There is felt to be a need for a domain-specific access standard
- The existing document has been widely used and has proved useful in guiding improvements and raising standards of access
- There is broad support for the Standard more or less (i.e. after minor revision) as it stands
- The document should be formally published by a body with 'clout' within and beyond the archive domain
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Steps towards formal publication
From the outset, it was intended that PSQG should eventually hand over the standard for formal publication by an appropriate agency. The possibility of issuing the document as a formal British standard has been carefully explored but, despite the obvious benefits in terms of 'clout', at the current time the disadvantages have outweighed the advantages.
Consequently, it has been suggested that the most practical way to produce and publish of the standard will be for PSQG to complete the revision of the document and then hand it over to The National Archives for publication, distribution and maintenance. This parallels the solution which has successfully been adopted for the Encoded Archival Description standard, which is also community-based, and has been given to the Library of Congress in the USA to maintain.
For such a document to both reflect the wider ownership of the archive domain and to attract recognition as a proper standard, however, it is hoped that other bodies will again endorse the standard and allow their names to be associated with it. It is proposed that the names and logos of all bodies endorsing the Standard should appear on the document.
Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith
Vice Chair, National Council on Archives and Convenor of the PSQG access standard working group, elizabeth.hallam-smith@nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Public Services Quality group
Introduction
Standard for access to archives