Good to see them re-opening but with only six documents a day and open for less than five hours it isn't cost or time effective for those outside of London. I wonder if those restrictions will ease in the future?
In short. They'll be open Tues. to Fri. 10:00 to 14:50. You must book two weeks in advance of the date you wish to attend (first come, first served). You may request only six documents which you have ordered in advance. You may not be able to access documents recently requested by other visitors as they will be 'quarantined'. Only the First Floor Reading Room will be open. Computers unavailable Car park free! Looks like I'm not getting the documents I need this year... Historical research & cricket: far too risky; mass political demonstrations and public drinking: hell, yeah!
With some of the anti-historical arseholes that are about at the moment, I'm not sure I'd want to let anybody in. Better safe than sorry. That aside, the next update will be that they're only opening for two hours, two days a week because no-one's interested in coming...
Sadly, I think they will take full advantage of Coronavirus to implement their original plans of moving permanently to advance ordering only. On the day ordering will never return. Oh, it also sounds like they have greatly reduced the number of copy stands available.
It would be interesting to know how much revenue has been lost from copying, parking, cafe and shop etc.
If they are quarantining documents has anyone told the Post Office that they could be spreading the virus delivering letters and cardboard boxes? Perhaps its a different kind of paper like different leaves ?
The delays I’ve been experiencing with Royal Mail deliveries I’m beginning to suspect that they’re already quarantining letters and parcels for 72 hours before they think about delivering them.
The good ship SS Kew Ching sails on merrily, formally labelled "Brand II " according to the minutes of the Kew Executive Team Meeting. See here ( also the Satisfaction Survey item ) towards the end of the collection in the pdf: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/executive-team-minutes-2020-01.pdf " Brand II The Executive Team was asked to note progress on brand to date and decide whether to green light the proposed next stage of the brand project. RC noted that Phase 1, which focussed on rolling out the new visual identity, is due for completion by the end of this financial year. A second phase of brand work was proposed. JS spoke about the difficulties with the scale and scope of rebranding all our digital services. JS and RC discussed the best way to take forward the brand work for Phase 2 RC asked the Executive Team to approve the procurement of a brand partner on a call-off contract. The Executive team approved the request. Action: RC to cost out work and put forward to 2020-21 budget discussion as part of the Business Priorities."
What on earth is an Inclusive Archive? Especially as it is "perhaps the element of the overall strategic vision with the most radical implications for The National Archives as an institution". Call me naive but I thought its role as an institution was to simply safeguard and make the nation's historical documents available for study to all. No more, no less.
Hi, Is anyone else experiencing continuing problems with the National Archives website? It seems to be constantly down at the moment and when I finally managed to connect, it crashed half way through while I tried to order some online COS documents. I don't know about an Inclusive Archive, I'd just be happy with an accessible to anyone at all archive at the moment. Regards Tom
For the last couple of mornings I have been trying to access Discovery on Kew's website but I get a message after a Google or Bing search saying the page is not available. The main National Archives Kew website is available but when I click their link to Discovery it is not available. I have looked to see if they are taking it down for updates etc but can't find anything on the main site. Can others help explain what is happening?
Morning, You are not alone. Its been on and off for a couple of days now. I managed to download a couple of WDs yesterday early afternoon, but then it went off again, Regards, Graeme
Been having trouble this week too, believe it is down to Jeff changing the archive section of the website to change the font to what look like Courier. If only they spent more time digitising than making their website worse.
Worked for me this morning. Downloaded 10 files from CAB79 so hopefully gremlins have been furloughed! Regards Tom
An explanation for the new look Discovery is to be found here: https://www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk/new-brand-national-archives/ Quote: " In this way, the simplicity of the branding itself becomes a visual representation of two of The National Archives’ key values; openness and inclusivity." Eh ?