In September 2004 The National Archives ratified a Services to Academics Strategy. This provides an over-arching long-term plan for our services to academic users ensuring effective communication both internally and externally. Recommendations were made and an action plan drawn up, which is included below. Academics are, for this purpose, defined as post-graduate students, and teaching staffs in the higher and further education sectors. Academics by this definition form about 12% of our onsite users.

What The National Archives requires

We value our academic users and welcome any prospect of increasing access to our records and greater use of our National Advisory Services. Networking with the academic community enhances our own knowledge and understanding of our holdings, which is to the benefit of all users.

Attracting academic users

Not all historians are aware of our holdings and activities and we are keen to fill this gap. We also want to work more with historians of specific subjects for which we have holdings of considerable, and often, untapped, interest. These include music, drama, art, gardens, textiles, ceramics, diet, and medicine. We also want to interact with historians from other disciplines, such as social scientists, geographers, natural scientists and archaeologists.

We are co-ordinating and extending existing activities especially our academic inductions to new post-graduates and the use of actual and online teaching sessions and tutorials. A newsletter for academics is also planned.

What our academic users require from us

Suggestions for Catalogue enhancements and new publications are always welcome. Academic publications are the subject of a separate strategy and are being taken forward by advisory panels and an academic publishing and content creation board. Digitisation of document images, better onsite facilities and the staging of academic events are also planned. Records expertise among our staff is valued and offers important networking with the academic community. Access information is important to modern and contemporary historians, and born digital records have challenges of their own which we are starting to address.

Pivotal in all of these areas is external partnership, whether this be funding from bodies such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council or Leverhulme Trust, or working with volunteer groups.

The action plan

Asterisked Items are being taken forward in the current year to March 2006.

To establish a methodology for surveying more accurately the number of academic users*

To devise a strategy specifically for third-year history undergraduates, to aid preparation of their dissertations

To set up a The National Archives-wide forum to report on services to academics activities and allow opportunity for questions and discussion

To expand user advisory groups etc, or the involvement of academics in our activities

To take into account the needs and requirements of academics with regard to all activities relevant to this sector, using surveys as appropriate

To continue to review and update the services to academics webpages annually

To continue the present system of academic inductions

To establish at least one contact with every university history department in the UK and set up a contacts database*

To disseminate information to contacts as appropriate

To carry out a survey of what students and university staffs know (or do not know) about The National Archives, and draw up a remedial action plan. This action plan to include the offer of an induction, onsite or offsite, to every history department, and specialist inductions where desired and practicable; also an information pack

To plan onsite and online tutorials, as to subject, content and design

To disseminate information to academics via the e-newsletter*

To take forward a programme for academic digitisation

To continue to support records expertise in The National Archives

To set up a forum to assist with advice and information sharing concerning funding bids, and setting up and managing all types of partnership projects*

To set up a procedure for input from academics on access issues

To consider expanding our services to specific areas of history and to non-historians, as well as overseas historians

To set up a procedure for information gathering concerning the users of the National Digital Archive of Datasets, and to market the same*

To set up a working party to disseminate information about digital and contemporary records and discuss specific requirements and considerations in this area

To consider setting up a commercial/contemporary sector for marketing

The strategy already needs revising, which is encouraging, because it demonstrates real achievement in the last year. It was put together as a result of extensive internal consultation, but external input into a second version will be sought.