by Geoff Douglas
Below is a list of the countries from which enquiries were received by the library in 2010. These are only the enquiries entered into the Research Enquiry System, not enquiries dealt with immediately over the phone or for personal visits to the library. In total 252 enquiries were received and dealt with, some received via the museum website, others via e-mail, snail mail, telephone or personal visit.
As you would expect most of the enquiries are of British origin, the rest are varied and from all over the world. Some of them were simple enquiries taking a short time to deal with, others were extensive and took a considerable amount of work. The break down is as follows.
Australia 15
Canada 8
Cayman Islands 1
Chile 1
Eire 1
France 1
Germany 1
Hong Kong 1
Isle of Scilly 2
New Zealand 5
Netherlands 1
Orange Free State 1
South Africa 1
Spain 1
Switzerland 1
Tasmania 1
UK 200
USA 9
Uknown 1
To put this into context, we have over 3000 records going back to 1988 including those from the old Maritime Museum. The yearly average between 1988 and 2002 was 33 per year, with one particularly busy year, 1999, when 137 enquiries were dealt with.
The yearly totals increased dramatically after the opening of NMMC:
2003 373
2004 319
2005 312
2006 288
2007 295
2008 290
2009 279
2010 252 (one for every working day)
