There were two main aims for the placement at Archives at NCBS. The first was to investigate and formulate how archives handle access to material while taking into account a multitude of factors from copyright to data protection to sensitive content. The second aim was to experience and understand the culture of a young archive. Archives at NCBS has only existed for four years which is considerably less than my partner institution the National Trust.
The first aim, surrounding access in the Archives, manifested into two mini projects. The first was creating a takedown policy and the other was developing a sensitivity check. The former had three iterations with the first version containing a basic spiel on how a visitor of the archive can contact the Archives to request material is to be taken down. The following versions expanded into a fully formed how-to guide on a takedown process and included a variety of reasons for and against takedown, ranging from copyright, defamation, and changes in the law. In addition, the final version was expanded again to become a takedown and alterations policy, meaning this process could be used by visitors and archive staff to make and document any changes to the archival material. The other mini project, the sensitivity check, only required two versions as a lot of the research done for the development of the takedown policy could also be applied to the sensitivity check. The sensitivity check ended up being a two page document which is to be used during the cataloguing process in order to clear non-sensitive material to be put online as soon as digitised. This is to ensure the Archives is able to make material accessible to the public as soon as possible after accession. What I learnt from this work is how the various ethical questions which surround archival material are woven into the entire process of acquisition and cataloguing. This principle was then used during one further activity developing a framework for an acquisition and cataloguing workflow.
The second aim of the placement was to experience and understand the work culture at Archives at NCBS. Initially there were no distinct activities attached to this aim, although during the Archives annual away day I did end up creating some activities. These activities were designed to get the archiving team to bring together their individual thoughts on the Archives and get everyone on the same page. One of the activities also helped the team to discuss their gripes and praise with and for the work environment of the Archives. Overall my experience at Archives at NCBS led me to conclude the Archives has two distinct identities the first is a public archive and the other is a knowledge hub for the development and innovation of archiving methods. However these two identities require very different work environments, which can cause stressed and disfunction under the staff if they are not managed correctly. The Archives therefore needs to review and reflect on how they manage these two different types of workloads across the team.