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At 19:22 03/11/2013, Andrew wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=2 color="#000080">
This would seem a fair argument, but as is well-known in some quarters,
the attitude of Whitechapel to genuine requests for information from
their archives is in stark contrast to that of Taylors. However, having
one inadvertently caused offence by opening that particular can of worms,
I will make no further comment.</font></blockquote><br>
The bell founders are both privately owned companies and their archives
are private property, which in some instances probably have commercial as
well as historical value. I think there is a tendency within some
ringing circles to regard these records in some sense as 'public
property' with access 'as of right' . Surely it is entirely up to the
foundries how and when they decide to make their archive material
available to people and I think they are perfectly at liberty to either
refuse access or make a charge, especially if giving supervised access is
going to incur costs to their business. <br><br>
With regard to Rod Bickerton's earlier point - we get a quite lot of
requests at the RW to help with research of all kinds (particularly
family-history related queries and background for tv/radio broadcasters)
and occasionally it is possible to give a quick hint about where people
might best pursue their search (eg via the Central Council librarian or
Biographies/PR Committee, etc.), but we really don't normally have the
resource to go hunting directly for things ourselves. Moreover none of
our current admin. staff are actually ringers and if the enquiry demands
some knowledge of ringing or ringers then it is likely to fall on my
desk. I can (and often do) help as far as I can, provided that it is not
going to interfere unduly with our weekly production work. <br><br>
RAL <br>
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