Many archivists, archive conservators and records managers in the United Kingdom and Ireland belong to the Archives and Records Association. It mainly caters for professionals, but it has a number of other types of membership, including a Supporter grade – free for 18 months – aimed at local history and heritage groups, which are not-for-profit and have turnovers less than £25,000. The ARA website provides a window on the activities and current thinking of a wide range of individuals in the field.
Members receive a monthly digital newsletter. The April 2019 issue covered items on business archives, the preservation of digital information, and the new Archives and Museums arm of the ARA. It also reported on the new Archives Card, which is planned to provide a new single card for visiting more than 40 archives and county offices. It is not intended in the short run to replace the CARN card. In Hampshire the new card will be adopted at the HRO, but not at Portsmouth History Centre, which will have its own card.
Other news covered:
The ARA Conference in Leeds, 28-30 August, sponsored by Ancestry, which has as it keynote subject the use of archives by art-rock groups such as Public Service Broadcasting.
The Community Archives and Heritage Group meeting on 10 July in Glasgow, supported by a UK National Archives grant, with the key theme of “migration in community archives”, covering such minorities as the Irish, Jewish, Turkish, Ukrainian and LGBT communities.
The marking by the Workers’ Educational Association of the centenary of the Ministry of Reconstruction’s final Report on Adult Education, which in 1919 “set the groundwork for a liberal approach to adult education for the rest of the 20th century”.