Advice to corporate and institutional owners

National Advisory Services are currently focussing on two main areas within this sector, business archives and religious archives.

Business archives

Business archives can support the current work of businesses in many ways - providing a corporate memory of past products, policies and personalities; supporting good corporate governance and social responsibility and adding colour and interest to a company's past. Good examples of how companies use their archives are available on the website of the Business Archives Council. But business archives are often neglected and overlooked, even though they provide invaluable evidence of our industrial and commercial heritage. A consultant, Katey Logan, has now been commissioned by The National Archives and other partners to formulate a national strategy covering England and Wales for the historical records produced by British business.

Company archives are often best looked after by the businesses which created them. However, there are occasions when a business can no longer keep its historical records, and needs advice on finding a new home for them. The National Advisory Services of The National Archives can help with this process and is a point of contact for any matters relating to business archive collections which have become vulnerable to loss, dispersal and neglect.

The business archives strategy consultant will be working with the archive community to support work to increase access to business collections. The work will include developing toolkits for archivists to aid in the identification, appraisal and cataloguing of such archives. She will also work with user communities to meet their needs.

A national strategy for business records will be researched and developed through consultations with key stakeholders and with organisations which represent the creators, custodians and users of business archives. The first draft of the strategy will be circulated in late 2008 with further time available for feedback and consultation before the final document is launched in 2009.

The consultancy is funded through a partnership between The National Archives, the Business Archives Council, the Society of Archivists, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Museums Archives and Libraries Wales (CyMal), the Economic History Society and the Association of Business Historians.

For further information contact Katey Logan: mailto:katey@loganmccabe.com

Religious archives

The National Archives recently joined forces with the Religious Archives Group (RAG) of the Society of Archivists to consider 'The State of Religious Archives in the UK today'. A report on the proceedings is now available.

'The State of Religious Archives in the UK today' report (PDF, 38.00kb)

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