Series details: CRDA/60

The mapping projects were initiated by the Public Record Office to enable the archive sector to identify funding needs throughout England and Wales and to alert funding bodies to specific regions and areas of provision. Three archival mapping exercises were completed during the period 1997 to 2001. These were the English Archival Mapping Project (Phase 1), the Archival Mapping Project for Wales and the English Archival Mapping Project (Phase 2). For each of these mapping exercises, every archive was allocated a statistical score according to the returned questionnaire information. This facilitated the national, regional and inter-regional comparisons of services and facilities and provided an indication of where services were managing well and where improvements could be made.

The mapping projects built upon a significant amount of other empirical work such as Historical Manuscripts Commission reports, the annual publication Archive Services Statistics, and the comprehensive Survey relating to Local Authority Archive Services (SOLAAS) conducted in 1992 and 1996. The Historical Manuscripts Commission first carried out a pilot Archival Mapping Project in Wales in 1996-97. The results of this project were invaluable, and the experience laid the foundations for future mapping initiatives. Ultimately however, the Archival Mapping Project for England set the pattern and methodology for future mapping projects.

While the mapping projects documented in this series were therefore not surveying completely uncharted territory, they nevertheless took the surveying process a stage further (at least for those areas of provision which were eligible for Lottery funding) and were designed to achieve the following more specific objectives: 1

• A more precise measurement of the unevenness of provision by giving each local archive service a priority band for each major area of activity;
• An overall assessment as to whether some areas of provision stand in greater need of funding than others;
• An analysis of any regional variations from the national pattern;
• An identification of those record offices which are centres of excellence in one or more areas of provision and therefore merit support for innovative projects, which will help to provide a benchmark and raise industry standards.

The Public Record Office managed and cooperated on a series of surveys to gather quantitative and qualitative data about archival facilities and services in the UK which are collectively known as the Mapping Projects. A Mapping Project Board was created in 1996 and comprised members of the Archive Inspection Services Unit of the Public Record Office and representatives of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Society of Archivists, and the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government . For the equivalent project in Wales in 1998, the council of the Archives Council Wales acted as the project board with support from the Archive Inspection Services Unit.

From April 2003 the Public Record Office and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) merged to form a new organisation called The National Archives (TNA). For further information on the history of the Public Record Office, see the Administrative History of the Lord Chancellor's Department.

The initial Access database application for archival mapping projects (ie England, Phase 1) was owned and created by the Archive Inspection Services Unit of the Public Record Office.

The datasets encompass the three archival mapping exercises which were undertaken during the period 1997 to 2001. These were the English Archival Mapping Project (Phase 1), the Archival Mapping Project for Wales and the English Archival Mapping Project (Phase 2). The data within each dataset largely corresponds with the content and composition of the questionnaires that were issued to the individual archival Places of Deposit (PoD). In addition to the main mapping project questionnaires, a separately compiled outstores questionnaire was also issued to PoD's. (See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/60/DD/2, for copies of the respective questionnaires).

The mapping projects requested information about the following key areas:

• Accommodation and storage
• Public access and services
• Preservation and conservation
• Finding aids and reference services
• Information and communications technology
• Electronic records
• Training and development

For every mapping exercise, each archive was allocated a statistical score according to the returned questionnaire information. This facilitated the national, regional and inter-regional comparisons of services and facilities and provided an indication of where services were managing well and where improvements could be made. Individual participating record offices received copies of their own scores to assist their work on the development of regional archival strategies. In each case, however, no league tables or ranks of results were published for any purpose. The mapping projects were initiated to enable the archive sector to identify funding needs throughout England and Wales and to alert funding bodies to specific regions and areas of provision.

An extensive amount of dataset documentation was transferred and retained by NDAD as the mapping projects largely focused upon the production of scoring bands and the compilation of graphical representations to indicate and compare levels of service provision. The many graphs and comparative analysis (largely displayed via Excel spreadsheets) were compiled by the creating agency to be an effective visual aid to the presentation of general data and are considered equal in research value to the datasets themselves.

Archives have gained significant ground since Phase One (1997-98) of this series of archival mapping surveys, both in profile and strategic capacity. The establishment of Regional Archive Councils by the National Council on Archives, and the creation of a new government advisory body, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, have been major landmarks. The National Archives have advocated that this is conclusive evidence that the archive sector is now firmly established in the context of the regional cultural agenda, and recognised by central government on equal terms with the partner domains of museums and libraries.2

No further accruals expected at this stage. It is not presently known as to whether there will be future updates to the archival mapping projects.3

This series of datasets and related dataset documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts, 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the dataset and documentation the class reference PRO 71.

While a significant amount of data and related documentation is available for public access, access to certain data and documentation which identify individual record offices is restricted for 30 years so as to maintain the confidentiality of the respondents. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 s.41(1) defines this data under its absolute exemption criteria. Sensitive data on the performance of local record offices throughout England and Wales was accepted in confidence by The National Archives. This data has also been closed in accordance with the FOIA s.35 exemption relating to the formulation of government policy.

The Archival Mapping Projects datasets and related dataset documentation are Crown Copyright. Copies may be made for private study and research purposes only.

This series of datasets are not subject to registration under the Data Protection Act.

The language of the materials is English.

An extensive amount of documentation relating to this series of datasets have been transferred to NDAD and can be consulted via the Dataset Documentation Catalogue.

For material concerning related mapping projects such as the Missing Link and Scottish Archival Mapping projects, see the National Archives' Mapping Projects publications and the National Archives of Scotland public catalogue, reference SRO33.

The National Archives' Mapping Projects web resource provides background project summaries and downloadable PDFs of final survey reports as they relate to all archival mapping projects undertaken in the United Kingdom. These include: Phase 1 - Survey of English Local Authority Record Offices (1997-98); Phase 2 - Survey of English Local Authority Record Offices (1999-2000); Archives in Wales (1998-99); The Scottish mapping project; and The Society of Archivists' Missing Link survey of specialist repositories in the UK. Copies of final survey reports relating to the three datasets held within this series are also located within NDAD’s Dataset Documentation Catalogue.

Not known.

The system was run on the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The database application was owned and developed by the Public Record Office, and based upon Microsoft Access 97. In addition to data entry, the application also provided components for data querying and mapping.

The Archival Mapping Project data input module comprised a number of Access forms based upon the main sections of the survey questionnaire form. See Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/60/DD/10 for sample screenshots of this user interface. The interface also provided access to a lookup selection list containing the names of the Archival Places of Deposit. The main data processing was primarily undertaken using scoring systems that were processed within Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

The Archival Mapping data transferred to NDAD comprised three datasets. The data structure for tables was defined by the archival mapping questionnaires issued for the respective mapping projects. The datasets were transferred with original field descriptions which indicate the questions to which the fields relate. The English Phase 1 and Welsh archival mapping project datasets are identical in structure in view of having adopted the same data gathering methodology. Most records in each dataset include the key field 'PoD' (Place of Deposit). This key remains confidential. Further information about the structure of the individual datasets is provided in the Links to the dataset catalogue.

The Archival Mapping Project datasets are closed, in the sense that once the data from the survey was entered and validated, no further changes were made to the data.

Data was input initially onto the paper questionnaire form issued to Archival Places of Deposit. Copies of the forms can be found in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/60/DD/2. In order to easily capture, manipulate and extract data for the purpose of compiling the final mapping project reports, data (ie actual responses to survey questions) was then transcribed from the questionnaire forms into a customised Microsoft ACCESS database application. This application provided a number of data input forms corresponding to the major paragraphs of the questionnaire. One of the central functions of the structured Access database of questionnaire results was to ensure that statistical validity could be incorporated into the final survey report. ACCESS input forms were exclusively used for data entry for all datasets in this series.

No data entry was undertaken within Excel in terms of recording responses from the questionnaire. Excel was solely used for the purpose of analysing scoring results based upon established scoring systems. This type of data processing was used in order to produce statistical data of the kind required by major funding bodies, planners and senior managers. For example, graphical representations of regional aggregate score pivot tables and pie charts, national aggregate score pie charts and the creation of individual record office score tables and graphs. Such documentation, now available within the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, acts as an effective visual aid to the presentation of the general data and is therefore considered to be equal in research value to the datasets themselves.4

Levels of provision were assessed by placing record offices in 4 priority bands (see table below). Many of the graphs compiled were expressed as percentages of the number of record offices falling within each of these priority bands. These were rounded to the nearest whole percent, for ease of comparison and analysis. Scores resulting from the evaluation of the questionnaires were expressed in priority bands as follows:

Excel data in the form of scoring results/priority bands was validated in order to identify and address any anomalies that were apparent. The Mapping Project Board decided that in certain instances where scores were seen to be unusually high or low, scores would be revisited and assessed for their anomalies by undertaking a reanalysis of the questionnaire returns submitted by particular record offices. The central purpose of identifying and moderating anomalies was to ensure that the returns provided a fair reflection of the state and conditions of those record offices surveyed. For further details, this validation process is documented for each of the mapping projects within the Scoring - anomaly subseries located in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue.

Interpretation of the data is constrained in a minor respect by there being some additional data documented within the original questionnaires which was not captured within the datasets themselves. For example, certain entries for a number of fields in the dataset may include an asterisk '*' symbol. This symbol is often qualified in the comments field of an entry to indicate that the user must refer to the archive's original questionnaire form in order to obtain further comments relating to these answers. Please refer to The National Archives for further enquiries.

A number of text-based results however (eg useful quotes taken from the respondents' own comments) were distilled from the questionnaires and have been partially captured within some of the documents held in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue. For example, for the Welsh and England Phase 1 projects, there are two documents titled Mapping Project - Comments from record offices [references CRDA/60/DD/5/3/4 and CRDA/60/DD/7/3/3 respectively]. These can also be supplemented by referring to files titled Summary Topsheets for both the England Phase 1 [CRDA/60/DD/5/4] and Welsh mapping projects [CRDA/60/DD/7/4]. 'Comments' for the England Phase 2 mapping project are self-contained within the dataset and no additional sources need be consulted.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):

1. Public Record Office - Archival Mapping Project Board: Our Shared Past: an Archival Domesday for England - Local Authority Archive Services in England: Funding Opportunities and Development Needs, (Mar 1998), p.11; National Archives website, Statistics and Surveys – Mapping Projects (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives/surveys/pdf/sharedpast.pdf) consulted on 29 October 2004; Dataset Documentation Catalogue reference CRDA/60/DD/4/1.

2. The National Archives website (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives/surveys/sharedpasttwo.htm), consulted on 1 Oct 2004.

3. Note of communication from The National Archives to NDAD on 10 September 2004.

4. Note of communication from The National Archives to NDAD on 10 September 2004.