19 May 1998
Meeting summaries
The Committee held its ninth meeting in the basement meeting room of the Historical Manuscripts Commission on 19 May 1998. The following topics were discussed:
New Library-the People's Network
John Dolan, Chair of the Library and Information Commission (LIC) Content Creation Task Group, attended for this item. He described the remit of this Task Group, which would look at existing content available from government services and the private sector, as well as the need to create entirely new content for the network. The Group would attach particular importance to the identification of material which supported lifelong learning. It would also would seek to establish relations with the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the New Opportunities Fund (NOF).
Members of the Committee emphasised the important part which archive services could play by way of providing unique content for the network. It was agreed that archives needed to adopt a balanced approach to digitisation and to come forward with projects both for the retrospective conversion of catalogues and the digitisation of the most popular records. Dick Sargent (HMC) would be representing the archival community on the Content Creation Task Group.
Wales
It was noted that an amendment to the Government of Wales Bill (now Act) would enable the Welsh Assembly to make provision for the care of its own records and those of other Government bodies in Wales. These provisions would be expected to meet the standards which applied to UK Public Records.
An Archives Policy for the United Kingdom
The Committee put the finishing touches to the submission for the Lord Chancellor, who would consult relevant Ministerial colleagues and then respond to the President of the Society of Archivists on behalf of the Government as a whole. [post-meeting note: the Lord Chancellor has approved the submission and is currently consulting his Ministerial colleagues. It is intended that the Government's response will be sent by the end of September].
Europe
The Keeper of Public Records stated that there were three main reasons why UK archives needed to be involved in European Union activities. The European Commission was currently sponsoring work on digital records management; EU directives could affect UK archival legislation; and Europe-wide content creation schemes presented opportunities for collaborative projects involving UK archives. It might be timely to hold a seminar on EU funding opportunities for UK archivists soon.
Finance Bill
At present manuscript collections which are worthy of public display are eligible for exemption from capital taxation if there is public access to them. The Secretary of the Historical Manuscripts Commission drew the Committee's attention to a clause in the Finance Bill which would have the effect of making fewer archive collections eligible for conditional exemption. DCMS officials intended to point out to colleagues in the Inland Revenue that the Government's general policy was to widen public access to heritage collections.
