Charging for research

SIR – Since my letter was published (August 21) I am pleased to report that Northamptonshire county council has bowed to public pressure and revised its decision to restrict free access to its record office, pending a review.

One can only hope that any future decision on this matter will respect the principle that historical records should be freely available to all. Jonathan Allard

Oundle, Northamptonshire

SIR – Roy Bailey (Letters, August 23) writes regarding fees for research by museums. The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum is privately funded. Its prime purpose is to demonstrate the links between the county and its two county regiments. It has no public funding and has built its own museum.

We have a band of volunteers who research our archives to provide us with information for our exhibitions. We make, I believe, a valuable contribution to the social history of the county. That can be done only by raising revenue to keep us going.

Our volunteer researchers help us to raise revenue. It is true that we charge a fee for their services, on a sliding scale, according to the requirements of the user. I am afraid this is the reality of running privately funded, much-needed, museums. Brigadier Ian Inshaw (retd) Chairman, Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum

Woodstock, Oxfordshire

SIR – When I started work in the field of architectural history in the Seventies, both public record offices and private archives were unfailingly helpful and free of charge, seeing the encouragement of scholarly research as part of their raison d’être.

Unfortunately, in the past 20 years or so both categories have increasingly come to be run by people who seem to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

At this rate scholarship will become the exclusive preserve of those with private incomes or fat research grants. Roger White

Sherborne, Dorset