25.11.1997 (updated 4.2.1999)
The Archive and Study Centre exists to promote and encourage research and study, publication, and communication about the therapeutic community movement and the ideas and issues of planned environment therapy, its pioneers and pioneering institutions, and ongoing work and development in the field. An essential tool is the Research Library which, together with the archival and oral history collections, forms the core of the Centre.
The Research Library holds books, journals, pamphlets, articles, audio and video materials, and some unpublished materials related directly or indirectly to the archive collections and to the general aims and programmes of the Centre. The Research Library is intended to reflect, support and augment the archive collections, and to facilitate related research, study and training through a comprehensive holding of key texts and secondary materials.
The Research Library is also designed to suggest to users of the facility new areas or directions of research about specific individuals and institutions (or types of provision), about the development of techniques and ideas, and about the contexts within which techniques and ideas have developed.
Priorities
1.
1.1 We are interested in every work by or about any individual, institution or organisation whose archives or related papers the Archive holds.
1.2 We are interested in every work by or about any individuals, institutions or organisations who are or have been active in the field of therapeutic community, milieu therapy, planned environment therapy and cognate approaches.
1.3 We are interested in every work by or about past and present Trustees of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust.
2.
2.1 We are interested in every work about therapeutic community and its processes. We are particularly interested in those works which are identified by practitioners or through frequency of citation in other books, articles or other media as key or formative sources.
2.2 We are interested in all British government documents, reports and legislation relating to children and to families, to health and education, to crime and punishment, to mental health, and so on.
2.3 We are interested in documents, reports and legislation relating to children and to families, to health and education, to crime and punishment, to mental health, and so on generated by the European Union, the U.N., and by governments outside the United Kingdom.
3.
3.1 We are interested in any material about specific residential units, whether these be homes or hospitals, schools or hostels, prisons or borstals, and whether personal stories or sociological/anthropological studies. Indeed, the primary nature of the former might, if anything, make them more of a priority. Similarly, we are interested in the biographies or autobiographies of individuals who have founded, worked or lived in such places, or which can throw light on them, and particularly on the recognised '‘pioneers'’. We have a particular emphasis on work with emotionally or behaviourally disturbed, deprived, delinquent or deviant people, with a separate emphasis on progressive education.
3.2 We are interested generally in works about residential work with children and adults.
3.3 We are interested in materials about non-residential work with deprived, disturbed, disaffected or delinquent individuals – e.g., club-work, day therapy.
4.
4.1 We are interested in works about the causes and treatment of delinquency, emotional and/or behavioural disturbance, and so on. These fall into two categories: Those of historical interest, i.e. those which provide an example of the way in which a particular phenomenon or issue was viewed and discussed at a certain time and by a certain section of the public; and those which are of interest to the student or scholar trying to understand the phenomenon itself and as it is regarded at present. The two are not mutually exclusive, but some works will be acquired which are clearly ‘dated’, and the value of which lies precisely in this. This priority covers sociological works, as well as psychoanalysis and other research/practice based approaches.
5.
5.1 We are interested in works about the history of the educational, penal or mental health services in Britain and abroad, which provide a background for works more specifically related to the concerns of the Archive and Study Centre.
5.2 We are interested in materials which shed light on the social, political and cultural milieu in which pioneering work with disturbed, distressed and delinquent individuals has been carried out – social histories, studies of government departments, biographies of influential individuals, readings on educational or penal theory, and so on.
5.3 We are interested in materials which show the way that the field and the ‘client-population’ have been understood, portrayed and used in popular as well as high and folk culture – novels, short-stories, poems, songs, comic-books and so on including, where appropriate, physical objects and images.
In every case, in judging whether or not to acquire a specific item, we are weighing its cost against its significance against the resources of the Archive and Study Centre. The policy is opportunistic: where we come across a book on social history which is in reasonable condition for, say, 50p we would trend to buy it unless it were clearly outdated or based on secondary rather than primary sources. A book by Maxwell Jones or David Clark, which is very difficult to come by but central to the Archive and Study Centre, would be immediately bought unless the asking price were clearly outrageous. On the other hand a book by Cyril Burt, which would be considered important but which is not particularly rare, would be bought only after shopping around. A video featuring Northfield would be important to acquire.