Ownership and rights

A regularly seen problem in new archive services is lack of information about the collections. This might be as a result of acquired collections that have been brought in by someone else or of not gathering information when items were acquired.

For all items that come in to the care of the archive service you should record basic information including:

  • The date
  • Source of items (organisation and person)
  • Basis on which material is held/ ownership i.e. donation, temporary deposit, loan
  • Information on who will hold rights, such as copyright to the collection
  • Background information on the history of the material
  • A brief description of the archives
  • Number of items/boxes

Much of this information should be gathered for archives transferred from within your own organisation. Acquisition of archives from outside your organisation should always be subject to a signed agreement which outlines clearly the terms on which the archive comes into your custody.

Without these steps you are restricting your ability to use the archives and creating problems for the future.

Legislation, guidance and ethics

There are several key pieces of legislation that affect how you manage your archives in England and Wales and whether you are the right place to care for an archive. Not all legislation affects all organisations or all archive services and collections. A brief overview of each piece of legislation or guidance is below – more information on each piece is available on our Legislation page.

Public Records Act

Places records of existing and ancient courts of law and their offices in the care and supervision of the National Archives. Includes Public Records created by:

  • Central government
  • Magistrates and coroners courts
  • Hospitals/NHS
  • Prisons
  • Other bodies, such as the Environment Agency

Creates Places of Deposit – archive services appointed by The National Archives to hold Public Records.

Freedom of Information Act

Provides public access to information held by public authorities, including government departments, local authorities, the NHS, Universities, state schools and police forces.

Data protection legislation

Guides how you fairly and properly manage information about people and applies to any information about living people for any business or non-household purpose.

Environmental information legislation

Covers a right to access environmental information.

Local Government Acts

Confers limited discretionary powers for local authorities to provide certain archive services.

Parochial Registers and Records Measure

Governing the Church of England it designates diocesan record offices (usually local archive services) as the home of parish records and requires that those over 100 years be transferred. Provides for access to registers of baptisms and burials.

Manorial documents

Places manorial records under the supervision of the Master of the Rolls and requires registration of manorial documents.

Tithe records

Places tithe records under the supervision of the Master of the Rolls.

Managing and caring for archives also requires ethical conduct. As well as being essential for historical research and understanding, archives enable people to hold organisations and individuals accountable, exercise their rights and evidence their eligibility, as well as allowing organisations to legally protect their property, demonstrate their actions and protect their assets.

Consequently, managing archives to the highest standards is vital. The Archives and Records Association (ARA) has a Code of Ethics which guides professional archivists, conservators and records managers, but which should also apply to anyone managing archives. The complete ARA Code of Ethics guide is available to view as a PDF (266 KB).

Special formats

Not all archives can be stored and managed in the same way as their format requires different considerations and actions. As well as digital archives, other, examples include: