The National Archives

Survey of visitors to British archives

The fourth national survey of visitors to British archives took place in October/November 2002 under the leadership of the Public Services Quality group and with the technical support of the Institute of Public Finance Ltd (IPF).

Introduction

The Public Services Quality group (PSQG) was established in 1996 as an informal network for those working in archives to share best practice and develop new approaches to delivering quality services. It is now formally constituted as a sub-committee of the National Council on Archives.

The 2002 national visitors survey (NVS) was developed and led by the PSQG's NVS working party. All the members of the working party contributed much time and thought its preparation but once again specific thanks must be paid to Jonathan Gordon at IPF for developing and organising the data gathering and processing, including for the first time running training sessions for archive staff responsible for carrying it out.

For an analysis of the methodology and content of the survey and its place within the spectrum of data collecting in the archive domain, two forthcoming publications will reward further study: The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's 'Digest of Statistics: data gathering and commentary' - archives and an article in 'Cultural Trends' on the development of statistics for evidence-based management in archives. Both have been written by Chris Pickford, the former national convenor of PSQG and chairman of the NVS working party. PSQG is also planning to produce an analysis of all four national surveys in 2004/05.

Geoff Pick
Chair, PSQG national visitors survey working party
London Metropolitan Archives
October 2003

Top of page

Results of previous surveys

Top of page

Background

The first survey was organised by the Public Services Quality group under the chairmanship of Chris Pickford, then of Bedfordshire and Luton Archive Service. For the running of the survey a smaller working party was set up on the understanding that PSQG would retain all intellectual control over the content and results of the survey. In June 1998 over one hundred archives of different types took part in the first ever co-operative survey of visitors to British archives and local studies collections. More than eleven thousand visitors returned questionnaires. Each repository was able to compare its own results with the national average and find out where it was doing well and where there was scope for improvement. In February 1999 a list was issued of 'Centres of Excellence', which identified repositories whose customers had given 'excellent' markings for a particular aspect of their service.

The surveys in October 1999 and February 2001 were equally successful with a steady increase in the number of participating offices. Each survey has used a core of similar questions designed to understand the profile of archive user and gauge its views on the services provided. The 1999 survey also looked at the issue of the welcome given and services available for first time users and in 2001 the issue of the measuring the wider cultural and economic role of archives in the community was tackled. The national visitors survey supplies an important body of evidence in evaluating services and assessing priorities with an impact on a range of agendas. Following the establishment of regional archive councils in England and devolved governments for the home countries, the survey report in 2001 included a regional breakdown of the survey results and a breakdown of the upper quartile benchmarks to assist local authorities in the Best Value process.

Initially the Public Record Office's reader information services department undertook the entire running, administration and analysis of the survey. But in October 1999 PSQG looked toward the organisation CIPFA for advice and its administrative support and now IPF, the commercial arm of CIPFA provides technical support for the survey in the gathering and processing of the data.

Top of page

Working party

The working party meets to plan future surveys. If you are interested in taking part in this work, please contact the convenor - Geoff Pick (London Metropolitan Archives) by email at geoff.pick@corpoflondon.gov.uk

Top of page

Links

This page contains PDF files. See plug-ins and file formats for help in accessing these file types.