That all depends. If you have never read a Guiding history book, never run a Guiding history activity with a Guiding group, never read a Guiding history website such as this one, then probably not. But given you’re here reading this, then it automatically does matter to you. A lot.
Why? Because every word in a Guiding history book, radio programme or TV documentary, every plan behind a history activity you run in your unit or with your District or Guild, every word on this Guiding history website or any others that you may read – has been researched using Guiding archives. And if those archive sources are lost, so is the opportunity both to access the sources we already know about and quote here, and to discover more gems that await discovery within the pages of reference books and log books, old magazines, leaflets and posters, and records of meetings. If the sources are lost, then any further research grinds to a halt, and the evidence behind the information we have already found and quoted is also lost. Forever.
From my point of view, there have already been a number of losses of access in recent years which have limited my researches. Two of my local Guiding archives are in storage, and with their being no sign of buildings to house them, they are likely to stay in storage for at least the foreseeable, not only not tended to, but also not added to – no records of what happened in the early 2020s for future generations to see. So I have no accessible resources within my own Guiding Country/Region, and have to travel to do research.
The UK national Guiding Archive is also in storage and has been for over a decade, so again will have the same ‘hole’ in it – it is currently being catalogued, and we await to hear what will happen once that work is completed – but again, there isn’t any sign of a building to house it, and thus the future is uncertain. With the closure of Broneirion, I no longer have access to the library room there, which housed a number of books which I accessed and used. And now both Foxlease and Waddow’s archive rooms are at risk – if either closes, their collection is to be transferred to the national collection, but the knowledge of those who have tended them will not be transferred. I and other archivists from across the world are scrabbling to arrange visits to these archives while we still can, to try to capture what we can – but it will be a mere fraction of what is held. And if transfer happens the collection(s) will be catalogued alongside the national collection, and then face the same uncertain future as it.
It means that unless the campaigns to save Foxlease and Waddow are successful, I, and thus you, will be left with one accessible source beyond what I’ve been able to collect for myself – the ARC in Coltishall. All of our eggs in one basket. That is, unless the campaigns to save Foxlease and Waddow, and the other Guiding centres are successful, and that’s down to people like me and you:
Leslie's Guiding History 