Introduction to Archive Service AccreditationMelinda Haunton/Jane Shillaker

Introduction to Archive Service Accreditation: Aims

• By the end of the session, participants should:- Understand the role and potential benefits of archive service accreditation- Understand the Standard and its structure- Understand the accreditation programme in outline and know where more information can be found- Be familiar with the tools, guidance and support for action planning available when they begin their own applications- Feel encouraged to address some of the less familiar elements of the Standard in their own service

• But not: Reading out the Standard and the guidance very, very slowly from start to finish

About the scheme• A UK-wide partnership to develop and deliver accreditation

• Supported by coalition of partners (ACE, ARA, ARCW, NRS, PRONI, SCA, TNA, Welsh Government)

• Live scheme is maintained by a governing Committee

• Replaces The National Archives Standard

• Supports ongoing relationships with statutory schemes like Places of Deposit, Acceptance in Lieu

• Developed through co-creation with the sector and tested through a pilot with 20 highly varied archive services

• Planning, Performance, Profile, Patronage, Partnerships, People and Professionalism: what museum accreditation has supported, according to its applicants

What changed and why?• Change within sector: digital transformation, changes to

established delivery models, integrated heritage/info services

• Localism: importance of co-creation/sector ownership

• New-style national ‘standards’ in place: PAS197, PAS198, PD5454: emphasis on professional judgement--------------------------------------------------------------------------

• More flexibility on applicant types: broader eligibility

• Scaled requirements for different types of service

• Broadening understanding of collections and access to include digital as business as usual

• Greater emphasis on responding to the service’s community – internal/external – and particular role of service

• Above all, developmental, not a single-point assessment

Accreditation mission statement

“To improve the viability and the visibility of UK archives”

•Archive services are sustainable, effectively managed, collections are safe •Archive services are well recognised, and meet their communities’ needs •To do this… archive services plan effectively for future challenges and developments

Question:

What do you (and your service) most want to get out of working with Archive Service Accreditation?

Tell your neighbour!

Benefits of working with accreditation• The developmental angle: Archive Service Accreditation is an

improvement process, not just a badge

• Reviewing your operation: taking time to step back and think

• Effective, coherent policies and planning support your case to core and external funders: a bank of evidence

• Requirements scaled to your mission and scope; supporting quality, professionalism and delivery

• Evidence of external interest in your service: now and in future

• Publicity and celebration opportunities incl press/web coverage

• A mark of service quality, recognising the needs of archives

• Peer support and ongoing professional development

• It’s free! Including all support, advice, feedback and advocacy

Understanding the standard• Three modules:

- 1. Organisational Health- 2. Collections- 3. Stakeholders and their experience

• Requirements under each module:- 1. Mission, governance, planning and resources (premises, finance and workforce)- 2. Collections management approach, policies, plans and procedures for collections (development, information and care)- 3. Access and engagement with the service’s identified community

• Requirements are phrased with outcomes: explaining the why as well as the what

Understanding the process• Eligibility

• Scalability

• Application system (online)

• Guidance and case studies

• Submit responses with supporting documentation

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• Assessment by home nations assessor bodies

• Validation visits in some cases – role of peer review

• Panels make awards

• Feedback and ongoing development

Understanding eligibility

Setting the scope: to be eligible for accreditation, a service must:- Hold archives- Of a reasonably significant size- Give some form of external access to those archives- Hold some archives which are analogue*- Have identified workforce to manage archives (including professional staffing in public sector)- Have dedicated, secure storage for collections

*To review!

Understanding scalability• Gives the scheme its flexibility

• Recognises statutory and institutional drivers/provisions differ

• Sets broad expectations – not an exact science, your service may cross divisions

• Top level divisions reflect governance/legal position:Local authorityOther public sector(National)Private and third sector

• Scaled divisions: 1-2(-3) – mission, scale and scope varies, particularly in terms of audiences reached

Understanding how to apply• Questions

An application form which asks about how the archive service meets the standard. Largely narrative, following pilot feedback. Also asks for background information (not assessed).

• EvidenceDocuments uploaded to support application and in some cases shown at validation visits

• FlexibilityFormat-blind in most cases. If it fulfils the function effectively for your service, the name/format is irrelevant.

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Screenshot of application system

Understanding guidance and support

• Guidance underpins the standard and application form

• Specific guidance for Accreditation, understanding the Standard and ways you can respond, referencing related standards

• Scaled guidance, reflecting expectations for different types

• Tools and resources: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/accreditation

• Support available from assessor national bodies – TNA in England

• Wider guidance for service development, from key bodies (TNA, ARA, DPC, BL)

• Ongoing development: specialist templates and support

• Case studies: building evidence and examples

Understanding assessment, validation and award

• Assessment by home nations assessor body (SCA/NRS, PRONI, CyMAL, TNA) with arrangements for national bodies

• Assessment is at (sub-)requirement, not question, level

• Assessment is scaled: at a level appropriate to service’s mission

• A proportion of applications are validated by site visit (minimum 25%, aim higher in practice) which may involve peer review

• Site visits allow verification of sensitive documents and additional discussion incl with peers

• Assessments → recommendation to Panel, with feedback

• Scheme is managed by the Committee, who form the Panels

• Panels award accredited or provisionally accredited status (for set period), or make no award

Thinking About Accreditation and Your Service

Action planning• Planning your service’s response in advance is key to benefiting

• Are you clear about why and how you do things?

• What areas are new? What are you close to meeting?

• When developing plans for the coming year(s), what are priority actions that bring you closer to Accreditation?

• What will be useful to your service in future?

• Is there an opportunity for profile-raising?

• When could you (realistically) apply? What factors affect this?

• Remember we’re neither expecting perfection nor imposing specific documentation

• Action planning template available if it helps

Lessons from museums (courtesy of @emmachaplin) Museums understand where regular ways of working fit with Standard Understand where strengths and weaknesses are and incorporate them

into planning There is an understanding throughout the museum about what

Accreditation involves The Forward Plan is a key ‘living’ document for the museum Staff/volunteers get confidence and skills through work on Accreditation

Museums forget all about Accreditation in between submitting returns

There is a mad panic to ‘tick boxes’

One person in the organisation is given all the responsibility for getting through Accreditation

Policies/plans only written to fulfill Accreditation needs, not reviewed

Accreditation is seen as a “necessary evil”

Meet the Modules

Module 1: Organisational Health

Module 1: Requirement 1.1 Mission statement• The words ‘purpose’, ‘vision’ and ‘mission’ are applied variously and

often... Collectively, these terms should describe why a service or body exists; what/where it aspires to long term; and how it plans to get there.

• Archives Service Accreditation has chosen to use the word ‘Mission’ to encapsulate these terms

• For the objectives of Archive Service Accreditation, ‘Mission’ is defined as: ‘A strategic statement (or series of connected statements) which defines the purpose and direction of the Archive Service, in relation to the governing body it serves.’

• Archive Service Accreditation recognises that, in most cases, the archive service is some way removed from the main business of the organisation it serves. In these cases, the mission statement may be defined in different layers and in more than one type of document.

• All stakeholders should be aware of the mission of the archive service and the mission should direct decision making and activity.

Community• “The concept of a community which the archive service is

constituted to serve. In this specific sense the word ‘community’ does not necessarily refer simply to the population of a political unit or physical area (e.g. a local authority or town).

• “For many archive services the community will extend beyond the formal boundaries of its responsible body (government, educational institution, private or voluntary organisation).

• “The archive will probably serve multiple communities: local, national and international; different communities of researchers and of other types of direct and indirect users and of non-users.

• “Different elements of the community may attract different priorities, types and levels of service. The ‘community’ to be served is defined through the stated purpose of the archive

service.”

What makes a good mission statement?

• Link to parent organisation (if at heritage service level)

• Link to heritage purpose (if at higher level)

• Mentioning audience/community/the “who”

• Shared and actively used

Falkirk Community Trust Museums & Archives

The purpose of Falkirk Community Trust Museums & Archives (hereinafter referred to as Museums & Archives) is to engage the public with heritage, by encouraging and enabling learning and by collecting, recording, preserving, interpreting and making accessible the material culture and archival record of the Falkirk Council area.

Media Archive of Central England

MACE is an accessible organisation connecting people with the preserved

moving image heritage of the Midlands.

Network Rail Corporate Archive

The Network Rail Corporate Archive collects and manages records that are considered by Network Rail to be worthy of permanent retention because of their value to the business and to the nation.

PRONI• Vision Statement

“Protecting and Providing Archives for All”

• Mission Statement

“To identify and preserve NI’s archival heritage and promote public access to that heritage”

Cumbria Archives

Module 1: Organisational Health

Take a break

http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/5141885622/ State Archives of Queensland: Mrs Henrietta Harriet Johnstone pouring tea at her home, Mountain Park

Module 3: Stakeholders and their Experiences

Module 3: Stakeholders and their Experiences

Community• “The concept of a community which the archive service is

constituted to serve. In this specific sense the word ‘community’ does not necessarily refer simply to the population of a political unit or physical area (e.g. a local authority or town).

• “For many archive services the community will extend beyond the formal boundaries of its responsible body (government, educational institution, private or voluntary organisation).

• “The archive will probably serve multiple communities: local, national and international; different communities of researchers and of other types of direct and indirect users and of non-users.

• “Different elements of the community may attract different priorities, types and levels of service. The ‘community’ to be served is defined through the stated purpose of the archive

service.”

Module 3: Stakeholders and their Experiences• User/visitor surveys• Market research• Comment/feedback facilities• Monitoring of website/intranet

users • Monitoring of social media

users• Use of publicly available

statistics• Focus groups• Regular user groups• Open meetings

• Parent body identified priority audiences

• Business process analysis/ marketing analysis of business areas

• Work with specialist interest groups

• Workforce feedback

• Depositor liaison

• Analysis of enquiries

• Departmental/directorate meetings for relevant areas of the parent body 

• Visitors’ book

• Anything else?

Module 2: Collections

Module 2: Collections

Policies, plans, procedures...• Policies describe the overall intentions and direction of an

organisation or service, as expressed by top management

• Plans are forward looking documents that set out the objectives of the organisation and identify the actions needed to achieve those objectives. These arise from the policies which the archive service has outlined. Can be preparatory/strategic.

• Procedures describe a specified way to carry out an activity or a process (a set of interrelated or interacting activities), in order to deliver a particular output or outcome.

• They may not be known by those names in your organisation

• They may be multiple documents or a single document may represent many of these functions

Module 2: Collections

Module 2: CollectionsEyes down, ladies and gents...

AKA, it’s not what it’s called, it’s what it does for you that counts

NARA 412-DA-15741 http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/4727573934/

Module 2: Collections Management Approach

Collections Management approach

Next steps…

How to use Archive Service Accreditation

• Developing your application → looking at your available resource, your stated mission, and how the two can come closer

• Ensuring policies (why we do things), plans (how we get there) and procedures (how we deliver) all point in the same direction

• Feedback on applications leads to action planning for the future

• Successful applications → good news stories and publicity opportunities

• Unsuccessful applications or not able to apply? → Use that in advocacy and planning, work with The National Archives and home nations to develop

• Use the Standard as a development framework where helpful, for service and for individuals

More information: this is just the start!

• Scheme homepage: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/accreditation All documentation and guidance specific to the scheme is on this area of nationalarchives.gov.uk

• You can also find out more supporting information in Developing Your Archives (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/developing-your-archives.htm)

• Case studies on specific areas (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/case-studies.htm)

• If you’re interested in developing model policies and plans for particular sectors, get in touch

So: when will you apply?

accreditation@

nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk