It has been suggested that I should start a series of occasional short pieces (rants even) on issues under discussion by our committee.  It seems fitting that I should start with our concerns for the state of the archive world over the past few years.  We are living in tough times for archivists as many posts have been lost in the public sector and major changes to services have occurred.  I have witnessed this at first hand as - courtesy of a generous grant from the Leverhulme Trust - I have visited over 25 record offices in the last year alone.

The redoubtable Laurie Taylor has made the University of Poppleton justly famous in the pages of The Times Higher for his lampoons on the state of higher education.  Maybe we could do with something similar to capture what is happening in our record offices?  And just as his columns often appear far too outrageous to be true, so with sadness we might record apparently crazy events amongst the archives.  It is usually better to laugh than to cry.

In my travels, I have been struck by how rarely I now encounter someone called a ‘County Archivist', how often I am referred to a computer rather than a catalogue, how frequently I am told that documents don't exist, and how occasionally old paper catalogues have been misplaced/lost in the strong rooms.  I am usually helped out by a senior archivist shortly about to retire...

This is not to complain, but merely to lament, for I appreciate how hard pressed are the few archivists that remain at the helm, rarely described as such these days, more often ‘lead managers', ‘outreach officers' and ‘searchroom assistants'.  And we in the HA, through our prize awards for early career archivists, appreciate just what innovative and imaginative work is done behind the scenes.

Yet things are going crazy.  Over the past few years we have lost education officer posts and education rooms, once dedicated record offices have been opened to use by other departments in local government, and there is now much talk of ‘outsourcing' of records.  And here comes the gem for a Laurie Taylor column, one record office is even being asked to use the remnants of its education room as a venue for ‘mid-price' weddings with smaller congregations!

I invite readers of this piece and supporters of the work of our committee to write to Head Office with examples of ‘crazy practice' in our archives.  We need to maintain an ‘archive watch', for although we may not be able to do much, we should at least chart the decline for the benefit of future historians - should they exist and have evidence to draw upon.

Andrew Foster