RSS feedsWhen Natalie Ceeney was appointed CEO of the National Archives in October 2005, eyebrows were undoubtedly raised.
Ceeney is a relative newcomer to the information industry and some felt that the appointment of someone who regarded archives as part of the knowledge industry would not help strengthen wider perceptions of the archivists’ profession.
A year on, Ceeney has certainly made a mark. She has moved the CEO’s office out of the “executive corridor” to a more accessible part of the National Archives’ modern headquarters. In the process she has gained one of the best views in government, across an artificial lake and over the roofs of leafy Kew.
The past few years have seen a lot of restructuring among the bodies that deal with government information and copyright. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) grew out of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) to advise on and regulate the re-use of public sector information. OPSI has now been merged with the National Archives.
The aim is to make government information policy clearer, with the National Archives handling records management, OPSI looking after crown copyright and re-use, and sister department DCA looking after information rights.
The merger of OPSI and the National Archives took place in October 2006, achieving one of the main objectives of Ceeney’s first year in office. Ceeney is keen to ensure that both sides of the merged organisation’s activities are clear.
“There are two completely different sides to what we do,” she says. “Our most well-known role is the public side. We have a very high reputation with the public and our website is in the top five most popular government websites. But our other side goes back to 1838 and the founding of the Public Record Office. That is all about information management in government.”
Staffing at the National Archives is heavily skewed towards its more public-facing role. Only about 60 of the organisation’s 580 employees are involved in ensuring that government information is appropriately captured and stored. But the role is an key aspect of government, particularly in an increasingly digital age, points out Ceeney, and was one of the main reasons for the merger with OPSI.
A Cabinet Office review at the end of 2005 recommended consolidating the work of ensuring that government handles its information management effectively. This led to several months of consultation between Ceeney and Carol Tullo, head of the OPSI, to look at the details of the merger.
“Both the organisations are really good, successful organisations, so we had to make the whole more than the sum of the parts,” says Ceeney.
OPSI had offices in Norwich and central London, but the merger means a move to Kew, which Ceeney acknowledges has been unsettling for staff. She says every effort has been made to retain staff. A similar exercise is being carried out for those working at the Family Records Office, which is being moved to Kew from central London.
Ceeney believes the merger will reinforce the importance of the role of information management within government as a whole.
“We have to make more people see both sides of what we do. It is important that government people understand our role. We need to be seen to be important players round the table.”
Ceeney’s plans are laid out in a document entitled A New Vision for the National Archives. This five-year plan lays out three key aims for the organisation: leading and transforming information management, guaranteeing the survival of today’s information, and bringing history to life for everyone.
Born digital
These ambitious aims are a response to what Ceeney sees as three major
challenges. First, as the world moves from paper to information of all kinds,
government and the wider information sector need better information management
to strengthen accountability and get the most from their assets.
Second, there is a need to preserve the nation’s existing paper records and rise to the new challenge of ensuring digital information survives.
And, third, people increasingly expect to find, use and learn from information online. Thus, one of the key aims is to provide access to records and expertise, online where ever possible.
It’s a challenging programme, but Ceeney is not one to shrink from a challenge. Before her appointment as CEO of the National Archives in October 2005, she was director of operations and services at the British Library, where she managed all its services, including its reading rooms and remote delivery services.
She has had experience of private and public sector, but her heart, she says, is in the public sector. Ceeney began her career working for the NHS at several hospitals, including Great Ormond Street, before moving into the commercial world.
“I wanted to be a really good public sector manager and felt I could do best if I had some private sector experience,” she says. So she joined management consultant McKinsey for what she describes as “four glorious years, with no sleep”.
At McKinsey, she worked with blue chip clients in a range of different industries. “It was high-level strategic work and it gave me a great insight into many of the UK’s top companies,” she says. “One of the key skills McKinsey teaches is how to take a complex problem and break it down into manageable chunks.”
Although Ceeney enjoyed her stint with McKinsey, she says she missed the public sector. “I missed the sense of making things happen,” she says. “As a consultant, you advise people on what to do, but you aren’t making it happen in the same way.”
When a job at the British Library came up, Ceeney applied for it, despite her lack of background in the area. “I didn’t know anything about information management,” she admits, “but I saw this was a change management job and I felt that was something I could do.” She stayed five years at the British Library an d found herself immersed in an industry that was indeed full of change.
“If you want something interesting, the information industry is it,” she says. “There are a lot of challenges, particularly around digitisation.”
Information age
Digital information has highlighted the importance of joined-up archival
thinking. In the context of an information age, information management matters
more than ever. At the same time, those looking for information have higher
expectations about being able to find it.
Again, the National Archives has a dual role. On its government-facing side, it is developing a programme of information reviews, to work with government departments on assessing their information management policies, and it is working on an assessment of archiving within local government.
On the public-facing side, demand for information is rising, driven by greater access to online information and growing interest in family history and other historical records.
“The public wants information and they don’t care if that information is in a book or online,” says Ceeney. That said, providing easy access to records increasingly means digitisation and a major digitisation programme is under way at the National Archives. The aim is to provide almost all that customers want online, either through access to pre-digitised records, or through digitisation on demand, which will provide, at the moment, up to 10 pages and delivery within 24 hours for £8.50.
The National Archives has developed its own in-house digital preservation system, which will be operational next year. “We will be the first archive to have a fully scalable digital preservation system,” says Ceeney. Other archives have built storage systems, but the National Archives is proud of being the first to address the issue of actively preserving the content of digitised records.
It all costs money, but Ceeney is diplomatic in talking about the financial pressures.
“We are certainly suffering from success in every area,” she says. “Demand is certainly going up, but in any period of tight resources we have to prioritise, and having a clear vision gives us that ability. We have an ambitious programme, but we also have a clear direction, so I don’t see those conflicting.”
Within the five-year programme, there is an emphasis on “trusted partners”. The National Archives has a close relationship with software supplier Autonomy, which has developed the search software used on the National Archives’ website, and is working with other commercial partners to produce information access systems.
“The reality is that using an archive is not always easy,” says Ceeney. “But we are working with commercial partners to make it as easy as possible, and of course it is so much easier these days than it would have been before, in the days of microfiche.”
Ceeney believes her background has helped her with the National Archives’ work with government as well as with the general public.
“A lot of senior civil servants have come from outside the public sector and are increasingly business-focused,” she says. “It’s about talking the language of the business, which in this case is government, rather than talking about compliance and regulation. So, for instance, we would look at the risks to everyday government of not having an effective information management policy.”
The emphasis, for Ceeney, is on persuasion, rather than enforcement. “I’m not sure having a rule necessarily works,” she says. “It’s about winning hearts and minds.”
The nation's archives
The National Archives was created in April 2003 from the merger of the Public
Record Office (PRO) with the Historic Manuscripts Commission (HMC).
After absorbing the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) in October 2006, the National Archives now employs some 600 staff and brings together PRO, HMC and OPSI (including HMSO).
The National Archives looks after the records of central government and the law courts. Its records stretch back more than 900 years to the Domesday Book.
The National Archives is based in Kew, near London. The Family Records Office, in central London, which is part of the National Archives, will be transferredto the Kew site by 2008.
The National Archives has a five-year plan, which has three major elements:
1. To lead and transform information management. This covers
government information policy, everything from creation to re-use. The National
Archives says it will “show leadership” in helping the public sector understand
the importance of good information management, and will create a common
infrastructure of services and guidance to support these aims.
2. To guarantee the survival of today’s information for
tomorrow. This includes the preservation of records of all kinds, both
physically at the National Archives and through the organisation’s influence
elsewhere. It will also work with others in the UK and across the world to share
expertise and innovation and ensure that the right information is preserved for
today’s business and tomorrow’s history.
3. To bring history to life for everyone. The National Archives
will increasingly focus its reading rooms on being “a centre for expert help
and specialist research”. It will also provide people “wherever they are” with
easy access to records and expertise, almost all delivered online, through the
use of “trusted partners”.
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