Longmore, Bruno B W. Society of Archivists (Great Britain). Journal of the Society of Archivists; London Vol. 21, Iss. 1, (Apr 2000): 27-36.
As a profession, archivists increasingly find themselves in the front line of customer service delivery. We experience demands on services that, even a decade ago, we never imagined could reach such levels. Record numbers of people now make use of archive services, which as archivists, we tend to equate with success. Usage totals are seen as a key indicator of good service, and a justification of the service in its own right. The dilemma for the archivist is that user demand takes us away from some of our primary roles, namely identifing, accessioning, cataloguing and preserving the collections in our care. Demand levels can, of themselves, threaten the very preservation of the records we hold, and result in poorer quality service provision. The 'tyranny of the customer' is that as demand levels increase, they undermine the high service that as a profession we strive to achieve.
Allow me to start with a story to set the scene. The source of this tale is not new. It was told to a previous annual conference of the Society when it was held in Edinburgh in 1986 by Andrew Broom, then Deputy Keeper of the former Scottish Record Office (now the National Archices for Scotland).2 It goes something like this.
A keen youkg archivist, fresh out of archive school, had not long joined the National Archives. As one of his first jobs, he was asaigned to help a senior and venerable colleague of many years standing, in the arrangement of a collection of records that had not long come in. The records had more or less been scraped off the floor of the attic of some ageing Scottish manorial pile.
The first task was to sort the stuff, out and to attempt to put it into some kind of order-no luxury of archival provenance here! The senior colleague instructed his willing recruit, separating the documents into pathetic sodden little piles labelled 'writs'; 'accounts'; 'letters'; and so on. There was the inevitable large pile marked 'miscellaneous', but the youngster's attention was drawn to two groups in particular; one was labelled 'GOK', the other 'ATH'. Keen to learn about the sacred truths of his newly chosen profession, the new recruit politely asked his colleague what 'GOK' stood for? Some unusual Scots vernacular grouping of documents perhaps? 'God only knows'/ came the curt reply. Work proceeded apace, mainly in silence, but intrigued, and not to be outdone, the youngster plucked up the courage to ask-'And ATH?' "Ach, tae hell!' came the response.
This story was originally told in an entirely different context, to describe the work of the British Standards Institution and the very real need to set standards for storage of archival records (the then new standard being BS 5454). Andrew illustrated the importance of standards and whether there had been any real change in attitudes towards storing records correctly, but I think that the tale reflects on another area of archival life, namely how we as a profession categorise and deal with the public, our users-our `customers'.
Business orientation
The Archive Customer
As a profession we like to sort and categorise, and that includes our customers. At the top of our schematic heap, we place great store on the likes of the learned academic, the `writs' of the story, the person who has frequented our archive for years and who imbues the searchroom with a sense of learned greatness simply by virtue of their being there! We follow them with the students and the specialist users-the lawyers, the architects, the engineers (some of them paying) who add industry and justification to the retention of the legal groupings and some of the more obscure collections that we hold-perhaps these are the `letters' and `accounts' of the story. Then we have a very large indefinable `miscellaneous' collection of users, those who add bulk to our statistics, people that we are just happy to see around. These are followed closely by the specialist enthusiast-the bus fanatic or train-spotter-those who pore for hours over railway maps and timetables of journeys long since run, the `God only knows' category of user. Finally, we reach the bottom of our customer heap. We arrive at the all-demanding, awesomely enthused, all-tiresome reader-the archivists' friend, the genealogist-for whom the category of `Ach tae hell!' is, sadly, all too often attributed by our profession.
The Business Opportunity
Yet, perhaps it is this latter category who are most deserving of our attention. After all this is the category that is continuing to grow. This is also the category that, certainly for most national archives (over 50% in Scotland), and many local council or county record offices, makes up the majority of users. This is-in business terms-our growing market share, and it is also a category of user that has shown it is prepared to pay. This is our business opportunity, when suddenly certain business principles present themselves.
I must confess to a degree of self interest here. I have a soft spot for genealogists. My own office-the General Register Office for Scotland-deals primarily with them. They account for over 95% of my business, `God bless `em'.
As a profession, archivists increasingly find themselves in the front line of customer service delivery. We experience demands on services that, even a decade ago, we never imagined could reach such levels. Record numbers of people now make use of archive services, which as archivists, we tend to equate with success. Usage totals are seen as a key indicator of good service, and a justification of the service in its own right. The dilemma for the archivist is that user demand takes us away from some of our primary roles, namely identifing, accessioning, cataloguing and preserving the collections in our care. Demand levels can, of themselves, threaten the very preservation of the records we hold, and result in poorer quality service provision. The 'tyranny of the customer' is that as demand levels increase, they undermine the high service that as a profession we strive to achieve.
Allow me to start with a story to set the scene. The source of this tale is not new. It was told to a previous annual conference of the Society when it was held in Edinburgh in 1986 by Andrew Broom, then Deputy Keeper of the former Scottish Record Office (now the National Archices for Scotland).2 It goes something like this.
A keen youkg archivist, fresh out of archive school, had not long joined the National Archives. As one of his first jobs, he was asaigned to help a senior and venerable colleague of many years standing, in the arrangement of a collection of records that had not long come in. The records had more or less been scraped off the floor of the attic of some ageing Scottish manorial pile.
The first task was to sort the stuff, out and to attempt to put it into some kind of order-no luxury of archival provenance here! The senior colleague instructed his willing recruit, separating the documents into pathetic sodden little piles labelled 'writs'; 'accounts'; 'letters'; and so on. There was the inevitable large pile marked 'miscellaneous', but the youngster's attention was drawn to two groups in particular; one was labelled 'GOK', the other 'ATH'. Keen to learn about the sacred truths of his newly chosen profession, the new recruit politely asked his colleague what 'GOK' stood for? Some unusual Scots vernacular grouping of documents perhaps? 'God only knows'/ came the curt reply. Work proceeded apace, mainly in silence, but intrigued, and not to be outdone, the youngster plucked up the courage to ask-'And ATH?' "Ach, tae hell!' came the response.
This story was originally told in an entirely different context, to describe the work of the British Standards Institution and the very real need to set standards for storage of archival records (the then new standard being BS 5454). Andrew illustrated the importance of standards and whether there had been any real change in attitudes towards storing records correctly, but I think that the tale reflects on another area of archival life, namely how we as a profession categorise and deal with the public, our users-our `customers'.
Business orientation
The Archive Customer
As a profession we like to sort and categorise, and that includes our customers. At the top of our schematic heap, we place great store on the likes of the learned academic, the `writs' of the story, the person who has frequented our archive for years and who imbues the searchroom with a sense of learned greatness simply by virtue of their being there! We follow them with the students and the specialist users-the lawyers, the architects, the engineers (some of them paying) who add industry and justification to the retention of the legal groupings and some of the more obscure collections that we hold-perhaps these are the `letters' and `accounts' of the story. Then we have a very large indefinable `miscellaneous' collection of users, those who add bulk to our statistics, people that we are just happy to see around. These are followed closely by the specialist enthusiast-the bus fanatic or train-spotter-those who pore for hours over railway maps and timetables of journeys long since run, the `God only knows' category of user. Finally, we reach the bottom of our customer heap. We arrive at the all-demanding, awesomely enthused, all-tiresome reader-the archivists' friend, the genealogist-for whom the category of `Ach tae hell!' is, sadly, all too often attributed by our profession.
The Business Opportunity
Yet, perhaps it is this latter category who are most deserving of our attention. After all this is the category that is continuing to grow. This is also the category that, certainly for most national archives (over 50% in Scotland), and many local council or county record offices, makes up the majority of users. This is-in business terms-our growing market share, and it is also a category of user that has shown it is prepared to pay. This is our business opportunity, when suddenly certain business principles present themselves.
I must confess to a degree of self interest here. I have a soft spot for genealogists. My own office-the General Register Office for Scotland-deals primarily with them. They account for over 95% of my business, `God bless `em'.
Comments
Post a Comment