From January 2019, AfL Seminars will be held at LMA on the 4th Wednesday of each month. November Seminars will be held at LMA, and December will be a moveable feast, falling as it will in the Christmas period.
Archives for London works closely with its ‘home’ archive and base, London Metropolitan Archives. The AfL Board is supportive of the changes LMA is making to its services, and pleased to work with LMA by altering our evening seminar to fit in with the changes they are making, which LMA explain below. AfL, like LMA, understands that this may initially be felt a little disruptive, but it is in a good cause – keeping AfL, and LMA good value for all users.
Anne Barrett Chairman Archives for London
CHANGE IN LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES EVENING OPENING
Why we are changing our evening opening hours
LMA has looked at the use made of our evening opening hours at intervals over the last few years and found that they are not heavily used by researchers.
We specifically conducted a survey during October 2017 as October is normally one of our busiest months for on-site usage and therefore a good trend indicator. This showed that the average number of readers in the building at 6pm was 13 and this had fallen by 7pm to 6. The number of staff required to keep the building and service running each evening until 6pm is 7 and from then until 7.30pm is 5. This is a significant and not very efficient provision of resources for the usage made of them.
Our new pattern of open evenings starts from Monday 3 September 2018
Consequently, from the beginning of September 2018 we will be reducing our open evenings from three to one and this will be a Wednesday. This evening does not duplicate The National Archives’ current Tuesday and Thursday late evenings and is already used by a number of LMA led groups. To help researchers make the most of the new arrangements, we will be extending the last time original documents can be ordered from the strong rooms on Wednesday evenings from 5.40pm to 6.40pm which will give the opportunity for more material to be consulted.
In summary, from Monday 3 September 2018 LMA will be open:
Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 09.30-16.45; Wednesday 09.30-19.30; Friday closed; and 11 Saturdays a year (usually the second in the month) 09.30-16.45.
We appreciate that this may cause some initial inconvenience for some researchers but we hope the advance notice will help minimise any disruption. When planning a visit, please do check our website https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/Pages/default.aspx and do get in touch to ask any questions you have in advance of your visit https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/visitor-information/Pages/enquiry-service.aspx