Worcestershire Archives celebrates Accreditation award at Houses of Parliament
- 22nd October 2014
On 15th October we attended a celebratory event at the Houses of Parliament to celebrate the first 14 UK Archive Services to become accredited under the new Archive Service Accreditation scheme. Worcestershire was one of the first 6 archive services to become accredited in November 2013, and one of the first 3 local authority archive services.
The event took place in the Churchill room, a beautiful room displaying some of Churchill’s own paintings, and was hosted by Lord Clark of Windermere, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Archives and History. In his speech he praised all services present for their hard work and willingness to be pioneers for the wider sector. There was also a speech from Bruce Jackson, Chair of the Archive Service Accreditation Committee, and Worcester MP Robin Walker popped in to congratulate the Worcestershire team.
L-R Victoria Bryant, Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service Manager; Lord Clark of Windermere; Cllr Lucy Hodgson; Lisa Snook, User Services Manager.
Photograph courtesy of Simon O’Connor
Achieving Accreditation so soon after moving to The Hive is particularly gratifying, and the feedback received from the assessors praised the services that we deliver, especially “…the speed of service transformation in recent years and how the opportunities presented by The Hive have been grasped to bring benefits across the service… and were interested in the innovative approach of the archive service at The Hive. They were also very keen to recognise the strong customer focus and how we strive to understand and meet customer requirements, something we are justifiably proud of.
We are thrilled to be one of the first accredited archive services. The application was a true team effort, with all areas of the service inputting information required from the Accreditation Panel. It is a great accolade, and a national recognition of the service that the team provide at The Hive, from managing and conserving the archive collections, making them available to our customers on site and taking them out to school and community groups.
Being able to celebrate in such amazing surroundings, with colleagues from the wider profession, really brought home to us what a great achievement this is.
This is great news, and a well-deserved award. Congratulations to all involved.