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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 records provide invaluable evidence of our industrial and commercial heritage but are often neglected and overlooked. The new post of Business Records Development Officer supports the preservation and use of business archives, and will result in the first national strategy for business records.

The Business Records Development Officer (BRDO) is based within the National Advisory Services, of The National Archives and can give expert advice to businesses on the care and use of their historic records. 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.

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 BRDO can help with this process and is the first point of contact for any matters relating to business archive collections which have become vulnerable to loss, dispersal and neglect.

The BRDO 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 business archives. The BRDO will also work with user communities to promote wider access to business archives. 

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 by autumn 2007 with further time available for feedback and consultation before the final document is produced in 2008.

The Business Records Development Officer post is funded through a partnership between The National Archives, the Business Archives Council, the Society of Archivists, MLA and CyMal, the Economic History Society and the Association of Business Historians.

For further information contact Robert Brown.

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.