Sadly, these thick volumes are quite fragile now and when looking at these you have to be extremely careful with the spines of the volumes. I can see a day at some point in the future when members of the public such as myself will no longer be able to access these due to fragility.
Any archives main remit should be to preserve these records AND enable the public to access the info about our history and heritage. Not much point in preserving if no one can ever learn about them. Super though it is to actually see the originals, it must be damaging in the long term, no matter how careful people are.
Its shortsighted not to digitise their holdings, so that visitors can access the info in the future while still preserving the documents.
Yes, I know archives - any archives, this is not aimed specifically at TWAS, are short staffed, probably underfunded and scanning is time consuming, but at least make a start, they must know which ones are regularly requested. I've been asking about this for years at various archives and usually get the response that 'we don't have time', well if they'd started 15 years ago, even at a few hours a week, they'd have a lot done by now. WHy not ask the LDS for copies of the records they have digitised to be used at the archives? I'd bet my boots they would agree.
The ones who 'have' digitised starting with the most accessed records like PRs, such as Seax where you can pay a fiver and spend the next 24 hours getting the records you want from the comfort of your own home get an income.
I'll happily pay a fiver, to firkle and download, but a £30 'research fee' from a lot of local archives, if I don't have the exact date and want just one record, is way outside my budget so I can't / don't give them any income - if the BMD record is post 1837 its cheaper to pay the GRO for a pdf copy than attempt to get a PR record.
Other than that I'll go to my local LDS FHC, if they have digitised the records I want I can get them for free or I make do with a transcription from Free Reg, Family Search, etc etc. Which is nice, but I WOULD support the regional archives centres if it were possible without a mortgage.
Apologies to Battista for taking your thread (which I have enjoyed reading and watching it develop) off topic with my mini rant.
I'm only little, and am getting a bit dizzy up on top of this soapbox, so I'll get down now :-)
Boo