Why accessible?
Archives must be shared widely and be easy to use to remain integral to our society.
It is through using archives that people can learn, invent, innovate, make decisions, uncover the past, connect with others and achieve justice. Archives must continue to evolve to enable this, sharing collections, engaging communities and embracing hybrid models of physical and virtual access.
New technology brings fresh opportunities as well as challenges. Archives are now often multimedia collections and many are accessible globally. However, users expect jargon-free approaches, simplified searches and intuitive platforms.
Using artificial intelligence has the potential to share archive collections more widely, but cataloguing and digitisation backlogs mean that many collections remain inaccessible. Archives will keep expanding access to their collections and connect with individual users and communities where they are, enriching people’s lives and unlocking the collections’ social, cultural and economic value.
Why now?
We are at a tipping point. Archives are a cornerstone of public and private organisations alike, but each archive is often run by a small team. Limited staffing, unsuitable spaces and incompatible systems threaten the ability of archives to reach their users and to preserve both physical and digital records that users wish to access. Without appropriate cataloguing, storage and conservation work, we risk losing physical records that past generations have left in our care for centuries.
Many born-digital records are already lost. Without action, many more risk being lost forever as records become corrupted or unusable in obsolete formats. In a society that is creating new, often digital, records at exponential rates, this is an urgent challenge to address. Archives will find ways to increase their digital capacity, infrastructure and investment so that our shared history is not lost to humanity for ever.
What next?
In collaboration with partners, archives will:
- continue to develop new approaches, ideas and skills for reaching users onsite and bringing the significance of their collections to life
- use more engagement tools such as social media, podcasts and multimedia projects to expand their reach to a global online audience
- remove barriers to access as appropriate and champion the development of simplified search functions
- assess the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence
- seek out innovative collaborations spanning academic institutions, cultural organisations and technology firms to provide access to an even wider variety of records for all
- increase their digital capacity through training and sector-wide working to protect digital and physical records at risk of loss