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<\/p>\nDorset History Centre is delighted to report that in July 2024 it received confirmation of its Accredited status from The National Archives.\u00a0 This is the second full accreditation review that the service has undergone \u2013 the first being in 2017.\u00a0 This was supplemented by a mid-point \u2018light touch\u2019 review in 2021.<\/p>\n
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Accreditation<\/a> is an important part of a public archive service\u2019s ability to gauge its performance, standards and delivery across a wide range of factors and considerations.\u00a0 These are both qualitative and quantitative.\u00a0 The process (which mirrors the accreditation process within the museum sector, administered by Arts Council England<\/a>) is robust but supportive.\u00a0 The National Archives<\/a> (TNA), part of the Ministry of Justice is empowered to review all archive services that hold Public Records and are thereby designated as PoDs (Places of Deposit<\/a>).\u00a0 The latter means that DHC is deemed a proper place for records created by government bodies (e.g. hospitals, prisons, port authorities, courts and others \u2013 e.g. Coastguard Service) to be held locally in order to promote simpler public access.\u00a0 DHC is the only PoD in Dorset with the exception of the Tank Museum which holds material specific to its core collections.\u00a0 Accreditation is also an important means by which an archive service can demonstrate its ability to deliver statutory functions<\/a> relating to the preservation of and accessibility to information and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n Accreditation reviews are broken down into three broad areas:<\/p>\n Information on the above areas is submitted via an online portal.\u00a0 It is then scrutinised by the TNA team responsible for Accreditation.\u00a0 This is then followed up by a \u2018validation visit\u2019 from a TNA representative along with a peer reviewer.\u00a0 The day-long visit involves a full tour of the service and meetings with a wide range of staff including senior leadership.\u00a0 In our case, we were really pleased to be able to involve our three apprentices in this proceedings so that they have now experienced this important process by which the sector is scrutinised and evaluated.<\/p>\n Accreditation is a relatively onerous and time-consuming process by its very nature.\u00a0 However, it is also a very helpful mechanism \u2013 obliging the archive service, in this case DHC, to examine all its procedures and practices and in some cases to realise that change and\/or improvement is required.\u00a0 It is also something to which all staff can contribute \u2013 each member of the team brings specific skills and knowledge which are drawn upon to shape the submission.\u00a0 In June, we welcomed Dr Melinda Haunton from TNA along with a peer reviewer from the Transport for London archive.\u00a0 We were questioned on all aspects of DHC\u2019s service provision.\u00a0 It was good have areas of strong performance reflected back to us \u2013 such as the progress we are making with digital preservation and some of the outreach work with communities less represented in the archive.\u00a0 Equally, it was important to have confirmed detail of where the service needs to change and develop; most pressing for DHC is the need for additional storage for archives.\u00a0 We intend to return to this with a new project in early 2025.<\/p>\n Perhaps most significantly, Accreditation helps to re-affirm that acquiring, preserving and making accessible unique and often fragile information so that it is available to future generations is a valuable and multi-faceted activity, \u00a0one that DHC hopes to carry out for many years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dorset History Centre is delighted to report that in July 2024 it received confirmation of its Accredited status from The National Archives.\u00a0 This is the second full accreditation review that the service has undergone \u2013 the first being in 2017.\u00a0 This was supplemented by a mid-point \u2018light touch\u2019 review in 2021. Accreditation is an important… Read more Accreditation by The National Archives and why it matters<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[640,82,206,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4398,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4394\/revisions\/4398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/files\/2024\/10\/D_FSI_ASC_1-Edgar-Charter-4-scaled.jpg\")
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