The final Recordkeeping

It's not about an imminent day of reckoning and judgement, but an announcement that the April issue of TNA's quarterly publication Recordkeeping for archivists, records managers, and all involved and interested in archives and records will be the last.

There's lots of good material included in this final issue.

I enjoyed browsing the self-assessment of how various local authority archives assess themselves.

Living the poor life, by Paul Carter and Natalie Whistance, describes TNA's project, working with local archivists, local studies librarians and around 200 family, local and other historians will see over 100 large volumes of poor law union correspondence from 22 areas across England and Wales catalogued, made key word searchable and their collective 126,000 pages digitised and made available for free to download via The National Archives’ website. This is the project described in the presentation I was fortunate to hear while a Kew recently.

There's much more. You can download the issue here.

The editor's welcome explains why this is the final issue, and what will replace it. Food for thought for all trying to balance the books and with a hefty publishing expense.

"However, we are finding that considerably more people are choosing to download the online version rather than receive the paper magazine, making it a very costly way to distribute news. At the same time, the Society of Archivists’ magazine, ARC, has seen a vibrant redesign and offers a similar platform for many of the news stories we have carried in Recordkeeping in the past. In response to this and after much consideration, we have decided to replace the magazine with an online newsletter. This will allow us to meet the demand for online news, but also, in these challenging economic times, it will be a more cost effective way of reaching those interested in archives and records. Although we are aware many people will be saddened by the closure of Recordkeeping we hope that the online newsletter will fill much of the gap and ensure that people do not feel they are missing out on any vital news relating to The National Archives."