Just over 24 hours after having sent our letter to the Director-General of IWM regarding changes to the Research Room, we have received the following response.

Dear  Clare and signatories,

Firstly, I want to thank you collectively for your interest in the future of IWM and its collections.

One of IWM’s foremost corporate priorities is the effective stewardship of its collections. It is for that reason we are investing substantially in how they are stored. As part of IWM’s next phases of transformation, we will be building new state-of-the-art storage facilities for our collections at IWM Duxford to ensure they are developed and cared for now and for generations to come. Given our limited capacity at IWM London, this development is vital to enable us to continue to grow our collection, which is imperative as a national museum.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly or without consultation. As well as extensively consulting with The National Archives, we have also profiled the most frequently used items within our collections to ensure these remain at IWM London. This decision was, of course, also signed off by our Board of Trustees who represent a broad cross-section of industries and expertise. We appreciate that this is a change to our traditional process of access, but we hope this move will enable our users to better plan their research in advance as well as be reassured that their request for collection material will be fulfilled in its entirety.

We entirely agree that the collection should be made as accessible and widely‐available as possible. We have no plans to close the Research Room at IWM London and we are also looking to introduce publically-accessible research facilities at IWM Duxford. IWM also intends to offer better systems for users to access our collections by increasing the digitisation of collections online to effectively reduce the need for physical object movement in the longer term.

As experts, we have carefully risk assessed the movement of collection items being transported between our sites and believe we can manage this. IWM already moves items between branches on a regular basis using well tested methodologies, to enable our public programme, loans, research and access needs. Dedicated staff at IWM London and IWM Duxford already ensure that this is carried out safely and accountably.

I hope this response will go some way towards explaining that this decision was taken solely to ensure we can continue to fulfil our purpose of safeguarding the museum, and its collections, for generations to come.

Yours,

Diane Lees