Helen Dafter is Archivist at The Postal Museum
Why Preserve? That’s a big question and there are as many answers as there are organisations carrying out preservation activities. My answer is we preserve for future use. How far into the future and who will be using the material may vary, but there is no point in preserving anything unless there is a reasonable expectation of it being used.
I’ve been considering our existing digital collections and how these have been or may be used. This should give some more tangible reasons for preservation, than just ‘Access’.
Our collections are diverse, covering those of Royal Mail, Post Office Limited, and The Postal Museum itself. We also have museum collections, including oral histories.
We hold records of a capital project by The Postal Museum. These were produced as we worked to open the museum to the public in 2017. This means the records are eight or more years old and require preservation. We recently carried out a project to enhance some parts of the museum, which meant we needed to refer to the original construction specifications. Those records were in our digital preservation system and available for colleagues to use.
The records of Royal Mail and Post Office Limited include records produced by the Company Secretary’s Office, postcodes, counters instructions, and marketing material. Among the marketing materials are television and radio adverts for Pricing in Proportion (the change to postage rates to being size and weight based) introduced in 2006. This was a significant change to how postage was charged, and we are often asked about postal rates to help date items, or to check historical accuracy in period dramas. This content is also used as an easy, relatable way to engage people with the archive.
Over the years the museum has run a few contemporary collecting projects. These have largely resulted in digital materials, requiring digital preservation. For example, modern sorting equipment is too large for the museum to realistically collect, so digital video of the equipment in use was collected to document this stage of postal history. This will be useful future researchers understanding how sorting offices worked in the early 2000s.
The museum also holds a significant collection of oral histories. These offer a different perspective on the postal service. The personal accounts are often easier for visitors to engage with than more ‘official’ sources such as Board papers. As such this content is preserved for future social history research. It also has potential for use in museum exhibitions to give a personal perspective on the postal service.
As you can see there are lots of reasons to preserve? The challenge is how to preserve all this material in the face of limited resources. Almost every organisation is facing challenges with funding and staffing. We also need to consider the environmental impact of preservation and the planet’s limited natural resources. However important preservation is, selection is equally important – we need to consider what not to preserve, as well as making the case for preservation. Ultimately, we need to ensure we put our limited resources into preserving the right stuff which has enduring value to the businesses today and to future researchers, whoever they may be.