The National Archives, based in Kew, London, houses 900 years of UK history. From the Doomsday Book to present documents, it has records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to recently created digital files. The National Archive building has recently undergone a change, with the family records centre moving from Islington into its premises to create the largest collection of UK historical documents in the country.

With this change came the need for an improved security system to protect the thousands of priceless documents. Security and Operations Manager, Jack Lincoln, prepared a non-technical spec for the requirements of the new system and put it to tender.

Objectives

Where historical records of government are released into the public domain, the National Archives then provides a function to provide access to the documents by the public. Once a member of the public has gone through its registration process as a reader, then they are entitled to have that access to any document they need. If a document has an element of damage to it and requires special care then there is an invigilation room where Lincoln and his team pay even closer attention to how the documents are handled. The ethos of the National Archives is to maintain documents for future generations as well as existing generations. The Archives therefore needed a security system comprehensive enough to be able to effectively manage the use of the documents.

Lincoln explains, “The required system was dedicated to public access and solely operated through the public opening hours. The general building and external areas are operated by a different control room and kept very separate as they are two very different functions.” West London Security headed by George Rohan won the tender

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