My book relied on archives. Keep them open

As a passionate devotee of the BBC and a lover - and user - of archives, I feel like weeping with despair at our national broadcaster’s statement about its sudden restriction of access to its written archives: “Given the level of resource available, we are moving to a series of structured content releases rather than individual requests for specific content, which will open up the written archive further and deliver greater value for licence fee payers.”

- Erica Wagner

It’s worth explaining how an archive works, because many people don't have the chance to use them. “Individual requests for specific content” is the whole ballgame. I wrote a book about Washington Roebling, chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. In order to see his archive, I arranged to visit, made an individual request and was handed a sequence of grey archival boxes, rolls of microfilm and photographs. This was the only way I could write my book. This is what an archive is, and how it functions.