The
Archives Manager will provide a verbal update ot the Board.
Minutes:
The Archives Manager provided the Committee with an
update on the Archives.
Building move
Following a period
of negotiation, the National Archives gave permission for the project to go
ahead on the proviso that an upgraded area was created within the storage
facility in Spennymoor for the Public Records. This
work has now been carried out by Restore, and the different categories of
records are being stored in the appropriate conditions. The archive service
staff have carried out a lot of work on the stock to prepare for the move, by
improving packaging and labelling of the archives. This was agreed and staff
from Restore/Harrow Green have barcoded and started to move the stock. The Manager
outlined that she was extremely impressed with the service. The work began in
September and seems to be running more or less to schedule and was due to be
finished in November.
The Design Service
have prepared plans for the space for the archives in the Dorman Museum and the
tender documents have been approved. Work was due to be completed before the
end of the year, but there was a delay
due to having to wait for planning permission, and programming building works
around activity in the museum that means the work will not be completed until
the middle of 2022.
Working with
museums has been beneficial for the service as there are lots of opportunities
for partnership working, improved training for archive staff. The service will
have the opportunity to become more outward facing and work directly in all 4
boroughs. The Community Engagement officer has been able to start carrying out
activities in person, rather than relying on virtual activities. She has been
involved in events and activities in all 4 boroughs and was now starting to see
an increase in demand from schools. Staff have become more involved with
colleagues in museums and are looking to work collaboratively going forward.
Born Digital records
The service has
continued to make progress in this area, with staff having completed fairly
extensive training. Extensive work to sort out resources that are in digital
and born digital format has been carried out and a digital asset register has
now been created.
The service was now
working with the consultant, Information Governance and IT to procure a
forensic workstation that will allow for the safe receipt of records and for
their safe storage. The service will
start to work with the Information Governance teams across all 4 boroughs to
take in records in born digital format as a key action once the workstation is
installed and the service is settled into its new home.
The next steps will
be making a list for the public of what is available and providing public
access. This will require further work and some financial investment.
There has been a
pause in the receipt of new collections, partly due to the pandemic, but also
because of the move. One exception to this is the expected deposit of
additional steel related records from the site of the blast furnace at Redcar
and the South Bank Coke Ovens. There are ongoing discussions with the Combined
Authority as to how to proceed with these records as they are extensive and
will require funding for packaging materials and staff.
The Manager also
outlined that they had records from Cleveland Bridge, however these were owned
by a company, however they were ensuring these were kept at Teesside Archives
A new plan has been
drafted and will be amended as conversation with relevant staff across the
boroughs take place.
Following the
presentation, the Committee members commented that they were pleased to see
that there was more outreach work being undertaken, however asked whether it
would be possible to have an outline programme of work so that all committee
members could understand the level of activity.
AGREED- That the
update be noted.