Archives important for us all

Published: 16 June, 2011

• ARCHIVES are a luxury according to Sabrina Francis (Letters, June 9). 

They are not, they are essential to any civilised society that is not to suffer from a collective form of Alzheimer’s disease when its collective memory is wiped and lost forever.

I admit that as a historian, writer, lecturer and archivist, and one who has used and spoken at Camden Local Studies and Archives, I am biased. 

Yet that bias gives me an insight into archives’ importance for understanding not only the past but also the present. Archives help us to understand what has happened in all its true complexities and avoid the mistakes of the past. 

For one of my books I looked at the original archive material relating to the Tuskegee Experiment in which black American sharecroppers were denied treatment for syphilis in order to study the long-term effects of the disease. To my horror it wasn’t a simplistic case of racism but started out from the best of intentions from progressive doctors, but became perverted by institutional pressures. 

If we understand how something like that can happen, we can be aware of the dangers in similar situations and try to avoid them. Without archives we wouldn’t have known what actually happened.

Archives are not élitist and not about élites. Recently, I have been doing some research on to the use of Ely House here in Camden as a naval hospital during the Commonwealth period. It may have been built as a townhouse for the Bishops of Ely, but it is perhaps most interesting when it was requisitioned for treating ordinary wounded sailors. 

Camden Local Studies and Archives has done a lot of work on the story of Little Italy which has connected with local people of all classes whose origins lie in that immigrant community. There is great potential for using the archives with school children.

Archives a luxury? Surely, a necessity for the good society.

KEVIN BROWN
Bollo Bridge Road, W3 

We’ll keep them here

• THANKS to all the archivists and library users who wrote to me about the local archives in Camden. 

We have decided to change the planned quantum of cuts and we will ensure that Camden’s archives remain in the borough and that staff with local knowledge are retained.

We have set up a working group with key stakeholders and councillors who will strive to increase access to the archives by modernising and digitising them to make them available online. 

In the face of government cuts the Labour administration will do its best to guarantee the future of Camden’s archives.

CLLR TULIP SIDDIQ
Cabinet Member for culture

Invaluable

• I WAS extremely disturbed to read the June 2 article suggesting Camden Local Studies Archive is at risk.

During the period that I was the MEP for London Central, I used this archive on a number of occasions and was deeply impressed by the content of the collection.  

It is surely vital that this irreplaceable treasury of local history should be preserved and should be accessible both to people living in the borough and those who visit from outside, often because of family connections.

I very much hope that this invaluable archive is preserved.

STAN NEWENS
MEP for London Central 
1984-1999

No luxury!

I WOULD ask the writer of the letter (Hyperbole, June 9) are the libraries indeed a luxury in the current environment, when one in three children in London does not own a single book?

We’re told one in five school leavers is unable to read confidently. Yet 85 per cent of children aged between eight and 15 own a games console. Perhaps each school should make it a priority to take children to the nearest public library. 

Many children probably have never been to one. Who knows what effect such an excursion might have on their lives? It would definitely not be a waste of time. But, imagine the immediate benefit and potential rewards! This is a kind of investment that would pay us all (including the author of that letter) good returns.

Incidentally my local library was humming the other day with youngsters revising for their exams. Several elderly people were using computers; lots of people were reading the daily newspapers and magazines (not everybody can afford to buy these). My friend, recently made redundant, is in the library every single day to scour all the papers for job advertisements.

No… the public library is not a luxury.

ELIZABETH WOJTOWICZ-LOBB
King Henry’s Road, NW3

Look ahead

• IN the south of the borough we have long been proud of our lovely library which had its 50th birthday some months ago.  

We are equally proud of the Local Studies & Archives centre whose home is here and whose team produced a fascinating exhibition on 50 years of Holborn Library.  

So we thank Councillor Tulip Siddiq, the cabinet and the culture & environment scrutiny committee for listening to representations from Camden History Society, ourselves, and many supporters who wrote in, and rejecting a recommendation to move the archives out of the borough.  

We are grateful that this damaging proposal, thought up in the face of enormous government cuts to the council’s budget, was rejected and look forward to being part of the new working group which will, we believe, show that the best place for local studies and archives, now and in the future, is in Holborn Library.

SHAKU WOODROW
Acting Chair, Holborn Library Users Group
WC1 

Think again

• IN the June 9 New Journal Councillor Theo Blackwell echoed the claims of councillors Pat Callaghan and Tulip Siddiq that the proposed Camden Public Library Users’ Group (CPLUG) scheme to save three public libraries would cost £800,000. 

They suggested this extra cost was caused by a delay. However, the only delay requested by CPLUG was to the making of the final decision to approve the council’s disguised library closure scheme. No delay was requested to the implementation of the finally approved scheme and no delay was requested to planning for redundancies (a similar level of redundancies were expected by CPLUG).

We are expected to believe statements from a council which has lost all credibility. In the long run, this administration has lost the political game because library users vote. 

However, the officers will continue in office and will, no doubt, serve the next administration just as poorly. 

The damage inflicted on the borough by the disguised library closure policy will be extremely difficult to repair by whichever political party replaces this weak-kneed group. 

The legacy bequeathed to the next administration will be one of accelerating illiteracy and an all-powerful bureaucracy.

It is still not too late to think again, but there is simply no appetite for reappraisal of any sort. Prepare for an avalanche of weasel words, but no action.

ALAN TEMPLETON
Chair, CPLUG, NW6 templeton_alan@hotmail.com