Nelson & His World

There is now an online petition to the government regarding the restriction of access to the collections at the Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/caird-library/

I am sure we are all grateful to Justin for agreeing to sponsor the petition.

I am happy to give it my support and hope others here will do so by signing promptly and also by encouraging personal contacts who have an interest in this matter to sign too. The deadline for signing up is 13 March 2009; please don't delay.

I would like to add my support for this petition here as well as by signing the petition itself.

The NMM did of course announce some adjustments to their plans on the 19th December, which provide some reduced access to manuscripts for the next two months before a three month closure from March until June of all direct access to manuscripts other than designated public records and manuscripts already held off-site. These adjustments have addressed to a small degree some of the short term concerns, but the major issues about cuts in services for the next three years remain, as does the concern about future service provision beyond 2012.

In the announcement, the Museum admitted that it had underestimated the ongoing demand for access to its library and archives collections, and of course all of its future planning will have been based on that underestimated demand.

Now is the time to voice dissatisfaction with the future service provisions.

The Library is now open three days per week, for a total of approximately 20 hours per week. This is approximately half the minimum of 40 hours per week promised and promoted in the Museum's own current published Library Access policy.

In March, the Museum will close direct public access to the major part of its manuscripts collection while it is moved to off-site storage to allow building work on the Sammy Ofer wing. Although the decant of manuscripts will be complete by June 2009, the reduced opening hours (of 20 hours per week) apply all the way through to 2012, and the service will be further limited by fewer document retrievals per day because of the retrieval from off-site storage. In response to questions, the Museum has offered no explanation for the ongoing reduction in opening hours.

The reduced service is incompatible with the 2008-11 funding agreement with the Government, which commits the Museum to a strategic priority of maintaining a core public offer providing opportunity for research to visitors during the development.

None of the £35 million project budget for the Sammy Ofer wing has been allocated to this strategic priority of maintaining the core Archive and Library service provision to researchers during the development.

There is great concern that the reduced opening hours may become permanent as, despite requests, no commitment has yet been made to restore or to increase the opening hours when the new research centre opens in the Sammy Ofer wing in 2012.

In its announcement on 19 December 2008 the Museum admitted that it "simply underestimated the ongoing demand for access" to its library and archives collections. This is perhaps not surprising, given the lack of consultation, but it is deeply worrying that the Museum is considering cuts in its activities without understanding the demand for its services. As Mira pointed out, the minutes of the Trustee Board meeting in February 2008 record that the "Trustees were acutely aware of the risk of all the management and financial attention being focused on the [SW Wing] project and the core work of the museum being put at risk", and the chairman stated "that the NMM had moved from a cash rich environment to a cash stretched environment", and that "this would mean that even without the SW Wing Project, choices would have to be made and some activities either stopped or cut".

It seems ominous that the Museum has offered no justification for the reduced opening hours of the Caird Library all the way through to 2012, and that it has not committed either to restoring or to increasing opening hours when the new research centre opens in 2012.

During the last few months, the Museum management has been working on a 5 year Strategic Plan, divisional business plans, priorities and key performance indicators at the very same time that they have been underestimating demand for access to their archives. However, none of these plans have yet been published. Public accountability demands that a publicly funded body should consult with its users and potential users before taking such decisions.

As long ago as 2002, the Department Of Culture, Media and Sport, in its review of the Museum, recommended that "Consideration should be given to the introduction of further consultative panels, to provide more direct consultation with the visiting public", and that "The Museum should continue its work to provide wider access to its library and archives and to improve the facilities it offers to the non-professional researcher".

The Museum's own Library Access Policy states that "The Library will collect statistics to show the number of physical visits to the Library each year, and undertake to survey its customers at regular intervals to assess performance and seek to improve services". The last such survey published dates to 2001, which hardly demonstrates commitment to improving services.

It is also worth noting that before the current reduction in opening to 20 hours per week, the Museum had already, for months during 2008, reduced access to its Archive and Library collections to 32 hours per week, failing even to adhere to its promised minimum of 40 hours per week published in its Library Access policy.

It seems to me that the Museum has ignored DCMS recommendations, failed to carry out promised performance assessments, ignored its funding agreement, failed to adhere to its published policies, and has underestimated demand while planning future service provision.

At the same time it is not at all clear what improvements the new research centre will bring for the ‘serious’ researcher of naval history. The improvements mentioned so far consist of:

1. A new treasures gallery for iconic objects
2. An interactive gallery
3. More retrievals than is currently provided
4. Enhanced online catalogue records
5. More electronic resources
6. Zoning into quiet and less quiet zones

Obviously the enhanced online catalogue and the electronic resources can be delivered without a £35m building project, and most of the other improvements are aimed at the more casual visitor, rather than the ‘serious’ researcher.

If you are at all concerned, please sign the petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/caird-library/

I'd like to thank Tony, Tycho, Mira and others for their sterling work on this problem. Without that the Downing Street petition would not have happened. In particular Tony's masterly outline of the issue - concise and clear - has been the lynch-pin.

I have given the petition URL to a major amateur global naval history online group and have noted that several UK-based Lissuns have already signed up. I will now send it to my personal contacts within the major naval history bodies, but it ought to have wider publicity to the full memberships.

Unfortunately due to the Data Protection Act - quite rightly - one cannot just blanket email unsolicited addresses, so we are unlikely to achieve the coverage for the petition which would make a difference in sheer numbers - we are unlikely to match the numbers achieved by the country sports universe in favour of fox-hunting for example, and I have heard today of another petition in respect of the BBC's coverage of horse-racing which again is likely to gain many more signatories than our eclectic cause. My hope is for quality rather than quantity in this respect!

I know of groups with quite large numbers of people many of whom would share our concern. The SNR, for example, has over 1500 members, nearly all of whom have email addresses, but of course we cannot email them with this information, unconnected as it is to SNR activities, without their permission, and the SNR is unlikely to adopt the cause due to internal pressures, even though many - perhaps most - members agree with our stance.

The alternative route, of a call to arms in the hard-copy journals, will take us beyond the time limit.

My suggestion - which several are all already doing - is to email our personal contacts with the petition URL, attaching Tony's outline of the issue as a Word document, and ask our friends to pass it on. We might then achieve a greater awareness of the issue and positive action.

Justin

I hope you don't mind, but I put a link and a brief description of the issue on a general chat forum I visit. Although it isn't an academic forum, there's a real mixture of folk on there including quite a few academics and researchers who are likely to be concerned at the removal of access to a publicly funded resource such as the Caird.

It's not likely to make a huge difference but has already garnered you half a dozen extra signatures from people who probably wouldn't have heard about the petition otherwise.

Just a reminder: when you draw the attention of interested parties to the petition, it is important, in fairness, to point out that the NMM has shifted its position somewhat from that stated on the petition. Though the planned total closure from January to late spring/early summer will not now be implemented, there will still be drastic cuts in service which are of profound concern.