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29-710: Such repositories employ specialist staff to administer and conserve the historic and the semi-current records of the parent body. They usually also preserve written materials from a great variety of independent local organisations, churches and schools, prominent families and their estates, businesses, solicitors' offices and ordinary private individuals. Archives may have been acquired either through donation or (more generally) by deposit on long-term loan. Local authorities in certain larger cities sometimes administer their own separate city record office , operating along similar lines. Archive repositories are frequently – but by no means exclusively – used by local and family historians for

58-439: A Church of England bishop for the collection and preservation of historic archives, both from the diocese and also from local ecclesiastical parishes. The Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1929 permitted bishops to designate such places as approved repositories for parish records. A new Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978 made it obligatory to designate at least one diocesan record office in each diocese of

87-629: A royal charter and which is formally designated as the national standards body (NSB) for the UK. The BSI Group produces British Standards under the authority of the charter, which lays down as one of the BSI's objectives to: Set up standards of quality for goods and services, and prepare and promote the general adoption of British Standards and schedules in connection therewith and from time to time to revise, alter and amend such standards and schedules as experience and circumstances require. Formally, as stated in

116-638: A 2002 memorandum of understanding between the BSI and the United Kingdom Government , British Standards are defined as: "British Standards" means formal consensus standards as set out in BS 0-1 paragraph 3.2 and based upon the principles of standardisation recognised inter alia in European standardisation policy. Products and services which BSI certifies as having met the requirements of specific standards within designated schemes are awarded

145-470: A common method for such a specification. The Kitemark can be used to indicate certification by BSI, but only where a Kitemark scheme has been set up around a particular standard. It is mainly applicable to safety and quality management standards. There is a common misunderstanding that Kitemarks are necessary to prove compliance with any BS standard, but in general, it is neither desirable nor possible that every standard be 'policed' in this way. Following

174-481: A formal association with one or more of their county’s principal local studies libraries, although the two professions of archivist and librarian generally remain quite distinct. Public access to central government archives (technically known as public records ) and by extension to local government records was previously regulated in accordance with instruments such as the Public Records Act 1958 and

203-484: A reader's ticket system. Some, but not all, operate a fee-paying postal service for those who are unable to make personal research visits. All county record offices attempt to work in accordance with the appropriate official British Standard . The earliest county record office in the modern sense was the Bedfordshire Record Office , established by George Herbert Fowler in 1913. To some extent it

232-487: A special muniment room had actually been provided for these as early as 1617. There are also many broadly similar repositories in Scotland, Ireland, and overseas. To varying extents, they will also help with the care of the county's semi-current or "modern records" using records management principles, as well as with the selection and preservation of today's records (both paper and digital) for future generations. During

261-413: A whole does not produce British Standards, as standards work within the BSI is decentralized. The governing board of BSI establishes a Standards Board. The Standards Board does little apart from setting up sector boards (a sector in BSI parlance being a field of standardization such as ICT, quality, agriculture, manufacturing, or fire). Each sector board, in turn, constitutes several technical committees. It

290-430: Is a living document and after two years the document will be reviewed and a decision made with the client as to whether or not this should be taken forward to become a formal standard. The term PAS was originally an abbreviation for "product approval specification", a name which was subsequently changed to "publicly available specification". However, according to BSI, not all PAS documents are structured as specifications and

319-457: Is a sponsored piece of work allowing organizations flexibility in the rapid creation of a standard while also allowing for a greater degree of control over the document's development. A typical development time frame for a PAS is around six to nine months. Once published by BSI, a PAS has all the functionality of a British Standard for the purposes of creating schemes such as management systems and product benchmarks as well as codes of practice. A PAS

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348-523: Is provided by Janet Foster and Julia Sheppard’s British Archives (4th edition, 2002). Select lists for certain specialised categories covering many UK repositories have also been issued by a variety of other publishers, notably the Federation of Family History Societies . British Standard British Standards ( BS ) are the standards produced by the BSI Group which is incorporated under

377-402: Is the technical committees that, formally, approve a British Standard, which is then presented to the secretary of the supervisory sector board for endorsement of the fact that the technical committee has indeed completed a task for which it was constituted. The standards produced are titled British Standard XXXX[-P]:YYYY where XXXX is the number of the standard, P is the number of the part of

406-696: The Anglican communion , in Scotland, Wales and elsewhere, normally operate in accordance with their own specialist legislation – as do many other Christian denominations. The status of various Welsh county record offices as diocesan record offices was the result of an agreement with the Representative Body of the Church in Wales , made in 1976, which gave Welsh parishes the option of claiming facsimile copies of their deposited registers. Prior to that date

435-562: The Kitemark . BSI Group began in 1901 as the Engineering Standards Committee , led by James Mansergh , to standardize the number and type of steel sections, in order to make British manufacturers more efficient and competitive. Over time the standards developed to cover many aspects of tangible engineering, and then engineering methodologies including quality systems, safety and security. The BSI Group as

464-806: The Public Records Act 1967 . The 1958 Act enabled county repositories to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor to hold individually specified classes of Public Records – including local court records. Access to material within record offices in England & Wales is now largely regulated by the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 , although these do not necessarily cover privately deposited items, and closure periods may apply in certain cases. Since 1929 many county record offices in England have also been designated by

493-474: The 19th and 20th centuries, some older libraries had also begun to maintain archive collections from their local area, although their facilities and the scope of their collections could vary considerably – as might their official legal status. There are often overlaps between local studies and record office collections, particularly with respect to printed ephemera , maps, photographs, old newspapers and local reference books. A number of record offices now operate in

522-571: The BSOL platform. Librarians and lecturers at UK-based subscribing universities have full access rights to the collection while students can copy/paste and print but not download a standard. Up to 10% of the content of a standard can be copy/pasted for personal or internal use and up to 5% of the collection made available as a paper or electronic reference collection at the subscribing university. Because of their reference material status standards are not available for interlibrary loan. Public library users in

551-626: The Church of England. Usually the diocesan record office will now be within a city record office or an ordinary county record office . However, there are some exceptions: the Canterbury Cathedral Library and the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York are similarly designated. The Parochial Records and Records Measure relates solely to the Church of England. Other churches within

580-495: The UK may have access to BSOL on a view-only basis if their library service subscribes to the BSOL platform. Users may also be able to access the collection remotely if they have a valid library card and the library offers secure access to its resources. The BSI Knowledge Centre in Chiswick, London can be contacted directly about viewing standards in their Members' Reading Room. Diocesan record office Originally within

609-516: The United Kingdom the title of diocesan record office would frequently have referred to a church-owned diocesan registry or chancery. This would have been where the episcopal registers, administrative papers and title deeds were preserved under the general superintendence of the diocesan chancellor . In modern usage it generally refers to an approved repository, frequently operated by a local authority, which has been specially designated by

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638-459: The addition of new materials can make these go rapidly out of date. Furthermore, many offices also have considerable backlogs of uncatalogued materials. From the 1990s onwards, an increasing number of offices have launched online catalogues of varying completeness, linked to their respective websites. An earlier summary of archive repositories, including brief details of the development of each office together with outlines of their principal holdings,

667-857: The local bishop as a diocesan record office , latterly operating under the terms of the Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978 . Such record offices are often also formally recognised by the Master of the Rolls as approved repositories for manorial and tithe records (in accordance with the Law of Property Act 1922 and the Tithe Act 1936 (as amended by the Local Government Records Act 1962 ). Many county record offices have issued printed guides to their collections, although

696-533: The move on harmonization of the standard in Europe, some British Standards are gradually being superseded or replaced by the relevant European Standards (EN). Standards are continuously reviewed and developed and are periodically allocated one or more of the following status keywords. BSI also publishes a series of Publicly Available Specification (PAS) documents. PAS documents are a flexible and rapid standards development model open to all organizations. A PAS

725-538: The purposes of original research, since many records can very often have a continuing administrative or legal significance. A record office will typically include public search rooms (including reference books, archive catalogues and other finding aids), environmentally controlled strongrooms, administrative offices, and quite often small exhibition areas together with a conservation room for the specialist repair of documents. Search rooms are generally open at their advertised times without charge, although many offices operate

754-418: The second local office to become established. The whole network now includes repositories – which operate largely independently of each other – throughout the whole of England and Wales (the most recent being Powys Archives, opened in the 1980s). Often the foundations of many of the earlier collections were the extensive surviving archives originating from a county's quarter sessions – in the county of Somerset

783-475: The standard (where the standard is split into multiple parts) and YYYY is the year in which the standard came into effect. BSI Group currently has over 27,000 active standards. Products are commonly specified as meeting a particular British Standard, and in general, this can be done without any certification or independent testing. The standard simply provides a shorthand way of claiming that certain specifications are met, while encouraging manufacturers to adhere to

812-609: The term is now sufficiently well established not to require any further amplification. Copies of British Standards are sold at the BSI Online Shop or can be accessed via subscription to British Standards Online (BSOL). They can also be ordered via the publishing units of many other national standards bodies ( ANSI , DIN , etc.) and from several specialized suppliers of technical specifications. British Standards, including European and international adoptions, are available in many university and public libraries that subscribe to

841-611: Was operating within established traditions set by the London-based Public Record Office (now The National Archives ), which first opened in 1838, or by other repositories overseas. Although the statutory operation of such county record offices under the Local Government (Records) Act 1962 was permissive rather than mandatory, the network has gradually expanded. Bristol Record Office (now Bristol Archives ), opened in 1924, has been identified as

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