The National Archives User Advisory Group – An Opportunity to Feed Into Its Work

This blog post was written by Gary Willis, IHR alumni and Academic & Environmental Representative of The National Archives’ User Advisory Group.

This is an opportunity for historians associated with IHR to feed their experience and expertise into the work of The National Archives at Kew.

I did an MRes in Historical Research at the IHR ten years ago, and then an environmental history PhD at the University of Bristol.  Recently I have been appointed as Academic & Environmental Representative of The National Archives’ User Advisory Group.  My profile and email address can be found here.

My position is a voluntary one for up to four years.  Representatives meet with senior staff of TNA three times a year to provide input from a user perspective on forthcoming TNA plans, and to act as a conduit between users and TNA on issues which they have been made aware of through their outreach work with that section of the academic community they have been appointed to represent. I have been appointed to represent academic users of TNA, with a particular—but not exclusive—focus on the service TNA provides to academic users who have an environmental focus to their work.  So do have a look through the research guides and let me know if there are, from the perspective of your research interests, any glaring omissions.

You can access the research guides here.

And if you have used any of the research guides and found them helpful or indeed unhelpful then that would be good to hear about too.  It would be great if you could send your replies to me by the end of March 2025, so I can then collate the responses and present to a future meeting of the User Advisory Group.  And if you have any substantive issues about TNA’s service either now or in the future then do contact me.

BlueSky: @garywenvhist.bsky.social

X/Twitter: @GaryW_Env_Hist

Banner image National Archives Photo Attribution: WikiCommons CC-BY-SA-4.0; photograph by Mike Peel. www.mikepeel.net

The post The National Archives User Advisory Group – An Opportunity to Feed Into Its Work appeared first on On History.