Main section

Tabs Navigation

Tabs

Timescales

How will this work with my timescale?

Timescales for large cultural infrastructure projects, especially lead-in times, vary significantly. Early engagement with the archivist gives time for them to identify how they can support you and the project in two distinct ways:

  1. They will be able to provide information about collections already held by the archive service about the history of the locality that might support the creative programme. Archival material is quite often dispersed, for example due to boundary changes or some other factor, and the archivist will be familiar with this and be able to facilitate connections with other archive services as needed.
  2. The archivist will want to know the systems you are using. This might include SharePoint (for files), AssetBank (for images and video) and WeTrack (event planning). The archivist will not want to create a software museum; rather, knowing the systems being used will allow them to investigate how to export the content. As well as the data there may be documentation and reports that you and your team(s) use which will be important to include in the project archive.

Throughout the large cultural infrastructure project planning and delivery, the archivist will be carrying out their regular duties including managing and providing access to the collections. Engaging with the archivist early in the process will strengthen the mutual understanding of availability, capacity and lead-in times.

As part of planning and delivery of the project, it will be important to consider how to support the archive service to ensure they have appropriate capacity and resources to archive the large cultural infrastructure project in addition to their business-as-usual role. This might be achieved through utilising part of the large cultural infrastructure project’s funding and/or securing additional funding from internal sources or an external funder.

Capturing the records

How can we expect to capture everything?

It is not about capturing everything; no archivist will want this. There will be draft versions of press releases and posters or travel expenses that have no long-term value. What the archivist will want to do is to get a sense of the whole process to allow them to identify which pieces of information should be kept.

For this reason, capturing the records held by the you and your team(s) (the ‘business archive’ and the ‘creative archive’ components) provides a better chance of the archive being representative of the programming than would be possible by attempting to approach each programming partner individually – a task that, at scale, would likely take up the majority of the archive service’s capacity. Instead, the archivist will want to take in key pieces of evidence for the archive to tell the story of the programming, and to complement the ‘participatory archive’ component. This might include:

  1. The idea (for example, a specific project or event’s initial proposal form)
  2. The activity (for example, the project/event as approved, with notes capturing the changes from the initial idea)
  3. The creative process (not necessarily a specific document, but there may be notes/drafts)
  4. Post-project/event reflections (for example a specific project/event’s close-down form).

The archivist may also wish to take in additional material from projects/events in the programming, and they may seek your help in facilitating conversations with key creative partners. Your ability to connect the archivist with partners and participants will also be helpful in relation to the ‘participatory archive’ component.

Archivists are keen to work more closely with communities so that the archive service’s collections reflect the diversity of the local area. Large cultural infrastructure projects serve as a huge opportunity to build relationships with communities, especially those that are currently under-represented in archival collections. By working with the archive service from early on in your project, you will be helping to ensure communities’ stories and experiences are preserved for decades to come.

Archives and legacy

Isn’t this part of the legacy stage?

Creating an archive of the project will be a key visible legacy. But in a similar vein to the monitoring and evaluation work this needs to be planned from the outset. If the archive is only considered at the end of the project delivery, there is a significant risk that key content will be lost or overlooked.

Previous City and Borough of Culture project teams reflected on the impact and loss of knowledge as members leave the team as the project winds down. Access to systems and documentation may also be impaired, for example logins/passwords may no longer work. Another impact of only thinking about the archive at the end of the project is that the archive service will not have relationships with communities in place, making any collection of other material from those who partnered or participated in the project much more challenging.