A few days ago at the National
Historical Archive, when I asked about obtaining copies of a 19th
century record, I was told by a member of staff that the Urgent
Photocopy Service (a policy that allowed archive users to obtain up
to 50 copies a month within 24-48 hours) has been 'suspended
indefinitely' and, perhaps as a result of this, the backlog wait time
to receive any amount of copies requested through 'normal' service is
now around SIX MONTHS.
In these conditions reprographic
services at the principal archive operated by Spain's Ministry of
Culture are not merely unworthy of the 21st century; they don't even
limp up to the benchmark for the 20th century. I am certain this is
not the fault of the searchroom staff; I'm not sure whether what is
lacking are photocopy machines or supplemental, even temporary, staff
to operate them, but neither seems like they would require a heroic
effort to provide. I think this lack of material and/or human
resources reveals officialdom's disinterest, if not disdain, for
archives mainly but also for researchers. Let's imagine a
hypothetical research project requiring work in several different
archival units of records. Suppose they are especially long bundles
of documents, perhaps written in one of the more challenging hands
(such as the 'encadenada' script used by the Inquisition) which
really puts our palaeographical skills to the test. Well, in what
would be normal conditions for the year 2018, a researcher could:
either request, using the Urgent Photocopy Service I mentioned above,
copies of the most crucial pages in the record, have them in hand
within 48 hours and then take as much time as needed to decipher
them; or, take his or her own photographs of whole record (paying, if
the archive charges it, the appropriate daily fee for use of a
camera) and then later select and work on the passages of interest;
or, order photocopies of the whole thing and then spend extra time on
the records, nights and weekends - but not after having had to wait
for half a year to even get started! Under current conditions the
only way to work with the records at all is to spend however many
hours it takes on-site at the archive, conditions detrimental in many
ways to researchers: those who travel from outside Madrid will have
to pay for more nights at a hotel; those who aren't students or
researchers on a grant will have to take more time out from their
other obligations to spend more hours sitting at a desk in the
searchroom. Those who have doubts about the meaning of a specific
abbreviation or have trouble making sense of some ancient record's
archaic syntax won't be able to take home a copy to spend more time
with, but instead will have to make snap decisions about the
contents, with all the possible pitfalls that come with rushing one's
work. I have no doubt that such logistical hurdles will lead to more
than one research project being abandoned altogether, owing to the
sharp increase in the number of hours they require researchers to
spend on-site at an archive, compared to what it could and should be.
And all this when Spain's government
happily pours millions into the bottomless pit of bailouts for banks
and toll roads. Further comment is superfluous, shame sadly lacking.
