John Wood

23 October 2010

Public History

Accessing the past - The National Archives advice service

What I am going to talk about

• The National Archives : background

• Who are our users and their triggers

• Engagement issues : matching users and their research to our collection

• How we addressed the issues of engagement, changes for users and organisation

Background

• Government archive, acquire files of government departments, only a

small selection of government files are preserved

• Files arranged by department, not subject event or individual

• 11 million files catalogued online, listing by original department for

purpose of its business

• 70% of catalogue not search specific (ditto !, 1924!) despite extensive

digitisation and cataloguing drive

• Availability of records on Internet led to more research not less

Triggers and Users

• Triggers : TV & radio, family event, holiday or local event, chance find,

education, press, internet, leisure time, online browsing

• The conscious leap link their experience to the past

• Users are serious information shoppers (big user is government)

Categorisation 60% family history, 40% academic, educational,

media, professional, business.

• 80% UK based users, onsite age demographic is 50 plus, 25% first

timers each day

Disengagement Issues

• Expectations raised from Internet and TV

• Expectation is each individual or subject has a unique file

• Research processes – internet searching, instant answer

• Most popular catalogue search technique is by name/person

• Expectation is that every file is online

Disengagement and the collection

Jim Jones

Stoke

Trafalgar

Slavery

Treasury

Ministry of Labour

Home Office

Admiralty

Traditional approach to advice and engagement

• Advice and help desks geared to how government files information• Research service arranged by type of operation and subject• Printed advice geared to subject, written by academics

Change information architecture and delivery

• Learned how users asked about their research

• Established users wanted guidance down set trails

• Redesigned written information/guidance to match user research

trail - split the website

• Redesigned onsite research trail to match online trail

• Audience tested, academic tested

• Staff advice training changed to meet research trail

Information architecture 2010

• Introduction• Looking for a person• Looking for a place• Looking for a subject• Match onsite guidance to online guidance• Interaction areas......• You tube guides

Information architecture 2010

Current progress

• Continuing to develop trails• More observation on untouched subject areas• Number of repeat users increasing• Positive feedback satisfaction at 94%• Worked for us !

• You Tube

Continued engagement

• More services – chat, twitter conferencing• Link users to other sources : museums, galleries• Resource discovery• Continue educational links• Outreach - Rijksmuseum approach

• Still have issue that it’s my history not yours!