With 176 archive services now accredited, we are pleased to announce that the second review of Archive Service Accreditation is about to commence, five years after the last review in 2017/2018 and ten years after its initial launch in 2013.
The review itself is an essential element of Archive Service Accreditation that allows all of us to reflect on how well the standard meets the needs of archive services, current archival practice and ever-changing circumstances and to think about what changes may be needed to keep the standard relevant to archive services. As such, the UK Archive Accreditation Partnership is committed to a review of the Programme every five years to help with this.
The Archive Service Accreditation Committee and initial conversations with the archives sector have identified the following themes as a focus for the 10-year review, although other areas of focus may emerge as the work progresses:
- Embedding Inclusive Practice
- Digital Preservation delivery
- Environment and sustainability
- Audiences and future user expectations
We’ve appointed an external contractor to carry out the review and there will be a period of consultation with out stakeholder groups, archive services and individuals who work with archive collections, offering opportunities to influence any changes to the Archive Service Accreditation Standard as follows:
- November to December 2023 – We are inviting you to take part in a short online survey, to contribute your views as to how Archive Service Accreditation should develop.
- January to February 2024 – A series of online focus groups
Please look out for invitations to contribute your ideas in the coming months.
We’re looking forward to hearing your views about the above themes and how these may be incorporated into the Standard. To ensure that any proposed changes are realistic and match current and developing practices in archive services across the UK we then expect to test these with a variety of archive services before implementing them in Accreditation.
At the moment we expect the revised standard and supporting documentation to be published during 2024 with the first archive services applying under the revised standard at least six months after the new documentation is published.
We’ll keep you informed with regular updates as the review progresses during 2023 and 2024.