WIREDGOV

On Monday 19 March 2018, Director of Public Engagement, Caroline Ottaway-Searle was in Kent to present two archives with their archive accreditation certificates.

The morning was spent at Canterbury Cathedral, whose archives was identified as a positive and highly professional service and a valuable component of the wider Cathedral community.

In addition to a very strong visitor offer for users of the archives on site, the service actively engages with volunteers, depositors and other Cathedral departments. The opportunities to work with academic audiences are particularly strong.

Caroline spent the afternoon at the University of Kent where she presented the accreditation certificate to their Special Collections and Archives department.

The accreditation report particularly mentioned the recent investment in the Templeman Library building which is at the heart of the long-term preservation of the collections, giving them a significantly upgraded home for them and their users.

The other element highlighted is the increased profile that the archives service has developed in the past few years. There have been clear developments in collecting, including some unique areas, such as stand-up comedy.

The accreditation scheme has now been running for four years, and there are currently only 106 services out of the estimated 2500 archive services in the UK which have achieved accredited or provisionally accredited status – which puts both archives in the top 4% of services in the country!

Archive Service Accreditation is the UK-wide standard for archive services, supported by a partnership of key professional archives bodies. It is a national benchmark and quality standard. It recognises good performance across three important areas: organisational health, collections management and access.