Should Users Have a Role in Determining the Future Archive? The Approach Adopted by the Public Record Office, the UK National Archive, to the Selection of Records for Permanent Preservation

Abstract

The Public Record Office (PRO) is the UK national archive, preserving the records of the government of the UK. This paper will describe the PRO’s approach to determining which government records merit permanent preservation, paying particular attention to the role that users play in this process. The paper is in two parts: the first section deals with the theoretical underpinnings to the approach while the second describes its actual implementation.