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Recent Survey Results

Posted in News on 10 Jun 2022

The Berkshire Record Office participates in national visitor surveys undertaken by the Archives and Records Association (UK and Ireland) in conjunction with The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) in order to see how we are doing from our visitors' point of view and where we might be able to improve using the resources that we have.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented the usual in person visitor survey taking place in 2020 but it is hoped that this will take place again in 2022. Whilst the pandemic did not prevent the Distance Survey from taking place in 2021, it did affect our ability to receive and publish the results for the 2019 survey. However we are now in a position to be able to publish both the 2019 and 2021 results for the BRO.

Below are the results of the survey for the BRO as downloadable PDFs as well as in plain text format should you like to read them.

2021 Distance Survey

Distance survey 2021 digest.pdf

These are the results of the 2021 Distance Survey. Please read them if you would like to.

The distance survey was undertaken between 17th to 28th May 2021. The Berkshire Record Office sent out 90 requests to people contacting us remotely via email. 57 responses were received giving a response rate of 63%.

Scores for the Berkshire Record Office

Overall results:

  • 98% think the service overall is very good/good
  • 97% think the quality of content is very good/good
  • 98% think that the clarity of response is very good/good
  • 97% think that the promptness of response is very good/good
  • 75% think that charges for goods and services is very good/good
  • 83% think that (the archive’s) social media is very good/good
  • 94% think that the ease of navigation to (the archive’s) website is very good/good
  • 91% think that (the archive’s) website is very good/good

Our typical distance user:

  • is a first time user (67%)
  • has an average age of 49.1 (39% were between 65 and 74; 27% between 55 and 64)
  • is female (56%)
  • is retired (64%)
  • is from Europe (82%; [90% born in England])
  • does not have a disability (89%)

Ethnicity is not given per archive, but nationally, 98% of respondents indicated that they were white.

The main reason for contacting the BRO was for family history research (59%).

53% contacted the BRO for specific research and 25% for copies.

The main reasons for using the distance enquiry service rather than making a personal visit were:

  • (they) live too far away to visit (49%)
  • email/phone/letter/other electronic method (is) more convenient (39%)


2019 Distance Survey

Distance survey 2019 digest.pdf

These are the results of the 2019 Distance Survey. Please read them if you would like to.

The distance survey was undertaken between 8th and 25th October 2019. We sent out 101 requests to people contacting us by email; 66 responses were received giving a response rate of 65%.

Scores for Berkshire Record Office

Overall results:

  • 95% think the service overall is very good/good
  • 97% think the quality of content is very good/good
  • 96% think that the clarity of response is very good/good
  • 96% think that the promptness of response is very good/good
  • 80% think that charges for goods and services is very good/good
  • 91% think that the ease of navigation to (the archive’s) website is very good/good
  • 91% think that (the archive’s) website is very good/good

Our typical distance user:

  • is a first time user (63%)
  • has an average age of 64
  • is white (98%)
  • is male (57%)
  • is retired (54%)
  • is from Europe (85%)
  • does not have a disability (82%)

The main reason for contacting BRO was for family history research (65%).

The main reasons for using the distance enquiry service rather than making a personal visit were:

  • (they) live too far away to visit (45%)
  • email/phone/letter/other electronic method (is) more convenient (36%)
  • to see if the office held relevant information (31%)