Trouble in store: the crisis facing UK archaeological archives

There is an interesting account by Heritage Action of the RESCUE meeting:

 ‘Trouble in store: the crisis facing archaeological archives‘. 

The bald facts are that many museums simply cannot keep pace with the scale of developer-led archaeology and, largely due to swingeing government cuts simply do not have the resources to deal with the finds and documentation archives created by development such as those from  Kingsmead Quarry, visited earlier in the day. The point was made that although publication and deposition of findings is often a legal requirement attached to many developments, there is no associated legal requirement for local authorities a) to provide museum facilities or b) to provide deposition facilities, which creates a very large problem.

Which is I suppose one argument for letting collectors walk off with lots of archaeological material. There is obviously much work to be done to try to resolve some of these issues, but with very few easy answers forthcoming.