Survey of Onsite Visitors to Archives live from 5 October 2026
The ARA National Surveys Group is launching this year’s ‘Survey of Onsite Visitors to Archives’ on Monday 5 October, working in partnership with The UK National Archives for the first time! The survey will invite people who visit archives in person to share feedback on various aspects of their experience including reasons for visiting, travel, staff, facilities and any barriers faced. The survey is available in both English and Welsh.
The survey is open from Monday 5 October to Friday 18 December and you can run the survey at your archive for however long you’d like within this period. We just ask that participating services run the survey for a minimum of two consecutive weeks for statistically significant results. The survey data from all participating archives will be made available online in early 2027.
Benefits of taking part
Thanks to our new partnership, there will be no charge for your service to take part!
So sharing the survey at your archive will allow you for free to:
Collect vital feedback and ensure your services meet the needs of your users.
Improve services including access to collections, online resources and customer support.
Provide evidence of the value and impact of your archive, strengthening the case for further funding and support.
Benchmark your results against other archive services, helping you to identify best practice and opportunities for sector-wide development.
How to run the survey at your archive
Our new digital-first approach means that it’s never been easier for your archive to get involved:
Print the survey posters (available below in English and Welsh)
Display the posters on reading room desks
Visitors scan the QR codes on the posters and complete the 5-minute survey online themselves
That’s it! No signing up, no spreadsheets, no sending back printed copies in the post.
Please do encourage visitors as they arrive and leave to complete the survey. Some visitors may need more support than others with an online survey so please be on hand to help. All the questions are multiple choice, with users either ticking a box, moving a sliding scale or occasionally starting to type to find an option (such as your archive name).
You may wish to scan the QR code in advance of the survey opening to familiarise yourself with the questions and to check that the wi-fi in your archive is strong enough. All test answers will be deleted at 9am on Monday 5 October. The ‘back-up options’ section below describes some ways to support visitors who are struggling to access or use the online survey.
Download the survey posters
Please note that this survey is only for users who visit your archive in person between 5 October and 18 December – do not share this survey with your email contact lists or online audiences, even if they have visited in person in the past.
Download the English poster here.
Download the Welsh poster here.
Back-up options
For most visitors, scanning the QR code will be the quickest way to access the survey. However, if a visitor doesn’t have a mobile or other device that can scan a QR code, there is a web address on the poster that visitors can type into their browser instead.
If a visitor doesn’t have a device that can access the internet or the wi-fi isn’t strong enough in your archive, you could set up the survey (using the website listed on the poster) on any available computers in your archive.
If a visitor can’t or doesn’t want to complete an online survey, you can also print a copy of the survey for them to complete by hand. Please note that a member of staff will later need to transfer the visitor’s answers into the online survey as only online responses will be part of the final dataset.