Rachael Muir

Written By Deborah Mason

Vote for Rachael Muir here

I wish to nominate Rachael Muir, Business Archives Surveying Officer for the ARA

Record-Keeper of the Year award in recognition of the contribution she has made to developing the profile and sustainability of the role of Business Archives Surveying Officer in Scotland in the last eighteen months.

Rachael began her record-keeping career with a graduate traineeship at the University of Glasgow in 2011 before completing her MA in Archives and Records Management at University College London in 2013. Roles with Barts Health NHS Trust and then 8 years at the Bank of England Archives followed before Rachael became the eighteenth Business Archives Surveying Officer for Scotland in November 2021.

Rachael’s role as Surveying Officer builds on her wider interest in the UK business archives sector developed through her time serving as Chair of the ARA’s Section for Business Records between 2016-2018. She has also been a member of the judging panel for the Business Archives Council’s annual cataloguing grant since 2020.

As Surveying Officer, Rachael’s role is to carry out surveys of business records to ensure that those records most valuable to Scotland’s business heritage are preserved and to undertake activities to promote the preservation and use of Scotland’s business heritage.

When Rachael started in late 2021, she quickly made a great success of the Business Archive Surveying Officer role, building on the work of previous Surveyors and existing relationships with businesses to take forward a variety of projects including consultancy research work with whisky companies, a cataloguing project in Stornoway as well as surveying work as part of the Fieldwork project. It was in terms of the broader surveying activity that Rachael excelled in balancing the need to develop different thematic or regional survey projects for proactive work whilst monitoring potential records at risk cases and responding if needed to these crisis situations. An understanding of the challenges in managing this balance led Rachael to start to create a detailed handbook of procedures and guidance for the role as well as collecting improved statistics for her work going forward.

It is in the last eighteen months that Rachael has been able to see the impact of this work in her Surveying Officer role take effect. Her work to formalise procedures and working practices has led to improved relationships with key partners like the National Register of Archives for Scotland with more than 40 surveys submitted to the Register under a new workflow arrangement in the last few years. Increased visibility of these collections held in private hands opens up access to this archive material for a variety of research purposes and helps owners of the records to recognise their wider value also.

Further new partnerships have been developed with the introduction of regional surveys by Rachael and a successful first regional survey was completed in 2023 on behalf of Tasglann nan Eilean, the archive service of the Western Isles. Their archivist, Seonaid McDonald reflected afterwards that “the partnership worked very well… I was able to provide local information while Rachael brought specialist expertise and perspective to the work. The overall result is that local businesses have more awareness of where to turn to for advice in future, and of the importance and advantages to them of caring for their archives”.

Rachael’s understanding of the value of the data gathered during the Fieldwork project led her to start to record enhanced statistics on the surveying work she carries out. These statistics now include the number of surveys, location and extent of records surveyed, lists of business approached and outcomes, including where collections have since been deposited. Having this information available has meant for better reporting on the role each year but crucially contributed to a successful approach to the Keeper of the National Records of Scotland in August 2023, whereby a two year funding agreement to support the role from 2024/25 was secured.

Rachael’s also developed an excellent model of delivering on thematic surveys by carrying out background research, identifying businesses to target and having a well thought out process for checking in on businesses to try and secure surveys and improve the engagement and take up rate by businesses. This has seen success with a response rate of 20% for recent surveying work.

Key achievements in the last eighteen months have been:

  • The completion in 2023 of the first regional surveying pilot undertaken by Rachael in partnership with Tasglann nan Eilean, the archive service of the Western Isles based in Stornoway. Along with the archivist’s essential local knowledge, Rachael developed a list of notable businesses in the area to contact and undertook two surveys including that of a 125- year-old legal firm.

  • In 2023/24 more than 130 businesses were contacted with 27 surveys completed, resulting in an overall response rate of 20% rather than the average 12% response rate for surveying work.

  • Increased monitoring of records at risk cases saw 23 active investigations in 2023/24. More positively, this reporting period also saw the deposit of three collections from records at risk cases. These were the records of Alexander Wilkie Ltd, est.1898 (retailer) and Peter Greig & Co., Scotland's last linen factory to Fife Archives, and a small number of records left following the closure of Cairncross of Perth, est.1869 (jewellers) to Perth & Kinross Archives.

  • Thematic surveys for Scots-Italian ice-cream manufacturers, independent bakeries and the outdoor economy have been completed or launched. These projects have included surveys of Crolla’s Gelateria, est.1895 (ice-cream manufacturer), Glencoe Mountain Ltd, est. 1956 (resort), Stephens, est. 1873 (bakery) and John Muir Trust, est. 1983 (conservation charity).

  • The creation of a permanent archivist post at Johnston’s of Elgin following recommendations provided by Rachael to the business in August 2022.

  • Recording testimonials and feedback from businesses and colleagues across the sector to capture the value of the service provided, importance of the role and its wider impact. Text from these testimonials have been used to create promotional postcards and shared through the Surveying Officer website.

As well as surveying Rachael has worked to promote awareness of her role, the services offered and the wider value of records surveying as a professional tool to fellow archivists. She has presented at conferences, meetings and written articles for a variety of online publications.

  • Presented at ‘A Re-appraisal of Surveying: A Vital Tool for Contemporary Collecting’ - ‘Reflections on Surveying in Scotland: Challenges, Partnerships and Opportunities’.

  • Presented at the Business Archives Council for Scotland Conference 2022 - ‘Records surveying tools and techniques in 21st century Scotland’.

  • Presented to the Archivists of Scottish Local Authorities Working Group following development of regional pilot with Western Isles Council.

  • Presented a Business Bites session on ‘The Importance of Record Surveying’.

  • Completed an article on records rescued from the Caledonian Brewery for the STICK newsletter and also the Scottish Brewing Archive Association’s newsletter no.56

  • Submitted an article on the Surveying Officer’s past year as part of the Scottish Council on Archive’s ‘The Year in Review’.

  • Wrote an article titled ‘Backchat’ for the ARC magazine of the Archives and Records Association to provide further information on the role of the Surveying Officer.

I’m nominating Rachael in recognition of the way in which she has professionalised the work of the Surveying Officer role, developing methodologies for thematic surveys and capturing statistics and written testimonials from clients. All of this work greatly contributed to our ability to demonstrate the value of the role and secure important funding for this national service and has created a sustainable framework for the role to develop into the future.

Evidence

  • Testimonials on BASO website https://surveyingofficer.co.uk/testimonies/ and sharing of postcards via twitter https://twitter.com/BusArchScot/status/1753078821270769741

  • Article in the Scottish Council on Archive’s ‘The Year in Review’ for 2023 https://www.scottisharchives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/SCA-Year-in-Review- 2023.pdf

  • Resources made available on BASO website https://surveyingofficer.co.uk/resources/

  • Johnstons of Elgin archivist role https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa- jisc.exe?A2=ind2310&L=SCOTARCH&P=R17907

  • Annual reports of the Ballast Trust which include a full report of Surveying Officer activities in our reporting year are shared under the publications section of this web page https://ballasttrust.org.uk/about-us/

  • Testimony from Andrew Dowsey, Archives & Local Studies Manager at Fife Archives: “When Peter Greig & Co went into liquidation I was worried that their archive had been lost. I am grateful to Rachael Muir, Business Archives Surveying Officer, for tracking the records down, identifying the records worth permanent preservation and for helping to persuade the owner to donate the records to OnFife Archives. Thanks again for your help with these records - they are a significant addition to the records we have for the linen industry.”

Deborah Mason
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