From B H Bertram.
It is just what the doctor ordered!

The prescription proposed by Dr Norman James (JEP October 4, 2008) to improve public access to the Jersey Archive, through the provision of the proper resources, should be followed up by the powers that be at the earliest opportunity.

He comments that the current staff are doing an excellent job, a fact that current Archive users, like myself, would strongly endorse. But, opening just three days per week normally does deny access to many who go to work over that period, and if the present ‘What’s Your Story’ programme is anything to go by, Saturday opening is proving a great success.

Doctor James can offer the National Archive at Kew as a benchmark. It is a first-rate facility complete with bookshop, restaurant and coffee shop, open six days per week and, from my limited experience, always well staffed with an army of people ready to guide the researcher through the intricacies of the vast range of documents there. Of course, it has a scale of operation of a considerably larger magnitude to that of Jersey’s Archive and that is understandable.

Kew also provides access to documents online via its website.However, that is even surpassed by the National Archive of Australia, where ‘warts and all’ material can be accessed in the comfort of one’s own home, as was so ably demonstrated with the discovery of a Jerseyman serving with the Australian Imperial Forces who became a Great War casualty by contracting a sexually transmitted disease.

Improving public access in both a ‘physical’ and ‘electronic’ sense is essential if Islanders are going to learn more of their heritage and knowledgeable of past decisions made on their behalf. Keeping that heritage ‘hidden’ makes the general public less informed, and the Island’s powers would surely not want that.
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