Sluggish sales prompt appeals for help

The PROfiles CD-Rom series, publishing Cabinet papers released under the 30-year rule, is to be revamped following disappointing first-year sales.

Following a meeting earlier this month between the partners in the project, Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO), the Institute for Contemporary British History (ICBH) and the Public Record Office (PRO), it was decided that further market research would be needed before the long-term shape of the series was determined.

HMSO would not say how many copies of the 1964 papers - costing Pounds 900 for a set of four discs - had been sold, on the grounds that this is confidential commercial information. But they confirmed that it was not as many as had been hoped.

Marion Maxwell, electronic publishing manager at HMSO, said: "We have sent out a lot of review copies, but very few reviews have yet appeared, and this has not helped.

"We hope that historians will now contact us and let us know what they would like to see included in the series and how it should be presented."

Possible factors in slow sales may include cuts in academic library funding and the fears expressed by some institutions that HMSO, which is due to be privatised, may have problems with a long-term commitment to the series.

Ms Maxwell said: "We are committed to this series. We, the PRO and the ICBH have already put a great deal into it and want to make sure that it is successful."

The first set of documents, covering 1964, was issued last year. Work is proceeding on the 1965 documents, scheduled for publication this autumn.

Researchers using the CDs may need fewer journeys to the PRO at Kew, West London and can browse at leisure rather than being limited to the PRO's opening hours and three-documents-at-a-time rule.

The series is also being promoted as an aid to teachers, who will be able to avail themselves of facsimiles of original documents.

Peter Hennessy, professor of contemporary history at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London says the project is "ground breaking . . . [opening] to a huge audience the private thoughts of the most powerful servants of the state."