Opening Closed Records

Thursday 28 July 2022. 2pm to 3.30pm Online via Microsoft Team

ARA Northern’s July meeting will explore the procedures and benefits of opening up closed records. This is undertaken systematically by the UK’s national archive services, but perhaps has not have received a great deal of attention from local authority and specialist repository archives.

Given the role government and local authority services play in supporting democracy through opening up official records, ought there to be more thought given to what local and specialist services do and consider if there can be improved benefits from releases. There are records in deposited collections that are subjected to closure periods – do we formally record when they are open to inspection and what value they might contribute to researchers? And do we make sufficient use of the stories embedded in newly opened records?

Our two speakers will explore procedures and processes in releasing records and issues of privacy and access once records are available to be opened. We would welcome participants brining their own experiences to the discussion session.

Although this session is being organised by the Northern Region, we welcome participants from all the ARA’s nations, regions and sections. We are grateful to the Chair of the Chief Archivists in Local Government section for support in developing this session.

To book your place contact Paul Stebbing: PaulStebbing@barnsley.gov.uk

Please note that this session may be recorded for the ARA Northern Region web pages of the ARA website.

Programme

2.00pm

Welcome and session introduction

2.10

Secrets from the files: PRONI’S annual release of Northern Ireland’s departmental records. David Huddleston, Head of Records Management, Cataloguing and Access, PRONI

2.40

Archives in the Real World: issues surrounding privacy and access in local authority and university archives. Geneive Silvanus

3.10

Discussion session

3.30

Thanks and close

Speaker biographies

David Huddleston is the Head of Records Management, Cataloguing and Access at PRONI having worked across a range of roles in PRONI over the past 27 years. David has a post- graduate certificate in Information Rights and Practice from the University of Northumbria.

Geneive Silvanus began her archive career in 2003 working at Durham University, followed by 8 years at Durham County Record Office. These experiences (and those of colleagues and researchers) formed the background to her PhD at Northumbria University, which forms the basis of her talk.. After two years working in a private school archive in Newcastle-upon- Tyne, she moved to Cambridge and Geneive has worked for a number of college archives. She is currently works for Christs College and Corpus Christi.