WEB ARCHIVING SERVICES AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

NOTES FROM A WEBINAR – BY CLARE BROWN

Webinar: “Web archiving services at the National Archives” (Wednesday 3 February 2021)

Speaker: Tom Storrar – Web Archiving Service Owner at The National Archives

Chair: Fiona Laing (currently Chair of SCOOP – Standing Committee on Official Publication)

Do you remember when we used to pay educational visits to physical archives? These events were always a privilege; to go behind the scenes and breathe in the organisational magic of rolling stacks and special storage units. When I read that Tom Storrar, Web Archiving Service Owner at The National Archives (TNA), was presenting a webinar, I immediately signed up and was excited to join CILIP GIG colleagues online.

We weren’t disappointed. Tom and his colleagues (7 full-time and one part-time) have the important role of officially preserving the UK government’s online material. Technology has often run ahead of government, which has left researchers stranded. The issue of missing or inaccessible online government information has caused problems in the past, and was raised in parliament, for instance in 2006 and 2009:

👉 Digital Documents Volume 449: debated on Tuesday 25 July 2006

Mr. Heald: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs what steps she is taking to ensure the long-term preservation of documents held in digital form.

Ms Harman: The National Archives is working with the Government’s Chief Technical Officers (CTO) Council to address the problem of the survival of electronic records with a mid and long-term value across Government. The National Archives has implemented a Digital Preservation Programme to ensure the long-term preservation of documents held in digital form. It has established a Digital Archive facility, in which it preserves a wide range of electronic records transferred by Government departments;

Read further

Government Information Group newsletter April 2019

The GIG Awards 2019 Each year the Government Information Group presents two awards which recognise major contributions to the government knowledge and information management profession. GIG launched its annual award in 1998 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Group’s formation and now, having reached our 40th birthday, nominations are invited for the 2019 awards. The GIG Annual Award – is granted to mark a major contribution to government knowledge and information management during the previous year: Nominations can be for a piece of work that relates to government information and has been developed for use within a single department or Agency or other body, such as a university. Alternatively the nomination can be for something that relates to government information but has a wider application i.e. a concept which could usefully be introduced elsewhere. It can apply to a publication (in whatever format), a system development, development of a policy or procedure, a working practice, work on a committee, and so on. The Awards are open to anyone, individuals or groups, working in government KIM functions, irrespective of whether they are members of the Government Information Group, CILIP, or the profession. They are also open to GIG members, students and others, who do not work in government, but who can produce evidence of a piece of work which meets the key criterion of being a major contribution to government knowledge and information management. In 2018, the Annual Award was presented jointly to: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Grenfell Fire Public Inquiry – response team: Adebola Dada; Anna Canning ; Tim Granville; Carol Homans ; Maian Leach ; Annie Parsons; David Smith; Ruth Walbrin. For their highly-efficient role as the public inquiry response team which provided KIM support to those working on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government response to the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster. Diane Murgatroyd (FCO) & Karen Ball (DSTL – Defence Science and Technology Laboratory). For the nominees determined work on agreeing a new copyright license for HMG and their dedicated work to raise the profile of copyright within Government. The second award is the GIG Lifetime Achievement Award which is given in recognition of a major contribution to government knowledge and information management over a sustained period. You can read the citations for last year’s winners, and view a list of previous winners, on the GIG website. This is an ideal opportunity to achieve wider recognition for the innovation, hard work and commitment which is found throughout the government KIM function and beyond, so please consider submitting a nomination. This year the closing date for nominations for the 2019 GIG awards is 30 May 2019. It is anticipated that the Award winners will be presented with their certificates at the GIG AGM in the autumn. If you would like to nominate yourself, your team or a colleague, please complete the nomination form on the GIG website and email it to Info.GIG@cilip.org.uk Karen George, GIG Vice Chair

Government Information Group (GIG) Bursaries – CILIP Conference 2018

Want to go to the 2018 CILIP Conference? Our bursary call is now OPEN! Also remember nominations for our GIG Annual Award and Lifetime Achievement Awards are NOW OPEN. Find out more on our GIG Awards page. The closing date for nominations is 31st May 2018. The CILIP Conference is returning to Brighton this July with a fantastic line-up of keynote speakers, thought provoking seminars and essential workshops. Meet like-minded colleagues and make new connections for two days of knowledge sharing, discussion, debate and networking opportunities. The conference aims to leave you feeling inspired and passionate about the work that we do as professionals. To keep up to date on conference developments, follow @CILIPConf18 and #CILIPConf18 and visit the website cilipconference.org.uk. You can also register for the conference. Don’t worry – if you receive a bursary place, CILIP will refund you. The Government Information Group (GIG) is delighted to be able to offer two bursary places to its members for attendance at the conference: • the first bursary is offered by CILIP in recognition of GIG’s involvement with the conference; • the second is being funded by GIG itself. We particularly welcome applications from GIG members who have not previously attended the conference. Find out more and apply. Applications close on Friday 13 April.

Royal Botanic Garden’s Library , Edinburgh – Government Information Group visit

Report on the visit by Sarah Louise McDonald, Sherrif Court Librarian

On the 7th of July GIG group members visited the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Library, Scotland’s national collection of botanical and horticultural literature. Scottish Working Forum for Official Publications (SWOP) and Edinburgh Libraries Information Services Agency (ELISA) members were also invited to attend.

The main entrance to the Library and Archive can be accessed via the main entrance off Inverleith Row, though my colleagues and I took a brief stroll through the gardens before meeting Lorna Mitchell, the Head of the Library and Archives, in the Herbarium foyer which set the scene nicely!

The collection houses around 4,200 journal titles and 70,000 books, the earliest of which dates from 1485 and is a record of herbal medicinal plants which belonged to the Regius Keeper. Books were bought at this time by the Botanical Society of Edinburgh but treated like personal possessions so it was common for them to be sold off to supplement members’ incomes. After the establishment of the library in 1873 they were bought, returned or donated to form part of the early collection. It was only in 1964 when the library moved to their current building that the accessions were all housed together, though even now some treasures may be hidden away in offices!

Visit to the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh 7th July 2017 3pm

The CILIP Government Information Group have arranged a visit to RBG on the 7th July 2017 3pm-4.30.

This visit is open to all SWOP colleagues.

The Library at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) houses Scotland’s national reference collection of botanical and horticultural resources with more than 70,000 books, the earliest of which date from the 15th century. During this visit, attendees will have the opportunity to view some of the treasures from the Library and Archive collections, many of which have never been on public exhibition.

The visit will last for 90 minutes and will include tea and coffee on arrival.

Please reserve your place here 

CILIP Government Information Group

Here is the latest GIG Newsletter giving details of bursary for attendance CILIPs Conference and GIG Awards.

Dec issue of GKIM matters now available

The joint Journal from CILIP’s Government Information Group, and the Network of Government Library and Information Specialists contains an article for a GIG visit to the Supreme Courts Library in Edinburgh and the CILIP conference.

More information on the CILIP Government Information Group can be found here

GKIM matters now available

The latest edition of the  joint Journal from CILIP’s Government Information Group, and the Network of Government Library and Information Specialists is now available.

Articles include

• A Comparison of Government Libraries in Ireland and the United Kingdom
• Information Literacy in the Workplace
• A visit to the National Library of Scotland

Making connections

It’s all about making connections.

Joining SWOP and the CILIP special interest group on government information (GIG)  can help you make these connections. It can give you opportunities to call on others expertise when you need it, widen your knowledge in a particular area, give free training and bursary opportunities, be inspired by others and share your challenges and solutions.

So SWOP you knowlege and expertise or attend the next GIG and see what you are missing.

Digital content in the National Library of Scotland

Review of NLS Digital content event by Stephanie Longmuir, Information Specialist, NBS:

“I recently spent a fascinating afternoon at the National Library of Scotland (NLS), with a tour of the building, with behind the scenes access to the collections, reading rooms and a presentation about a digitisation project.

Fiona Laing, Curator of the Official Publications collection, started the tour off in the NLS exhibition space, currently highlighting their holdings and interesting items relating to plague in Scotland. The information walls also displayed statistics about how big the library is, what collections they have and what the type of material they cover. More information can be found here: http://www.nls.uk/collections

It is staggering in comparison with our library which includes approximately 30, 000 items relating to the construction industry!

We then went behind the scenes to one of the floors to see examples of items readers may request to view, how they are stored, organised, reserved and distributed as well as learning about current security, safety and conservation measures in place. We also discovered more about the role of a legal deposit library and how the agents obtain items. It was astounding to think this vast space held only a fraction of the entire collection.  After this we headed back up to one of the meeting rooms to find out more about a digitisation project from Jan Usher, a Social Sciences Curator. This project aimed to digitise the House of Lords papers between 1806-2000. The project remit had undergone several stops and starts and changes along the way, but they are nearly there, with a soft launch imminent.

The final part of the afternoon was spent exploring the vast digital collections which are available on their website. Some of the resources are only available to those who have registered as a reader ticket and an address in Scotland, but there are several worth exploring which are available as open access resources.

The visit was very useful to gain an understanding of current issues facing legal deposit libraries, as well as collating digital publications and websites.”

Stephanie Longmuir,
Information Specialist, NBS

Stephanie is a chartered and revalidated librarian who works as an Information Specialist at RIBA Enterprises in Newcastle upon Tyne. She works as part of a team of technical editors for The Construction Information Service, a specialist subscription product for architects, engineers and other construction industry professionals. This product is run as a joint venture with IHS who is based in Bracknell.

This visit was organised on behalf of the CILIP Government Information Group