BRA Archives at Risk Project

 

The BRA is conducting an investigation into archives at risk in two English regions, London and the East of England. The project aims to:

+ Identify the risks to historical records both within established repositories and those not (yet) in archival custody
+ Make practical recommendations to reduce those risks
+ Investigate the capacity of repositories, and the archives network, to respond to threats to archives
+ Consider general themes and issues, not to make comparisons or judgements

For more information about the project, please click here

Research is being conducted based on recent reports and surveys as well as through this questionnaire with selected follow-up interviews. The immediate benefit to the archival community will be:
+ a greater understanding of existing and potential threats and risks to archives
+ strategies for maximising capacity to deal with them within existing – and possibly shrinking – resources.
A longer term benefit, arising from the project’s identification of existing successful strategies and methods, will be to provide the basis of a best practice framework for managing archives at risk and reducing levels of threat.

We really need to know your views, so please do take the time to respond (it should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete). No repository will be identified in the final report but all questionnaire respondents will be entered into a prize draw. The prizes on offer are FOUR packages each containing free admission to the BRA’s annual conference in 2010 plus two free books from the prestigious series Archives and the User.

+ The conference will take place at Freemasons Hall in central London on 7 December 2010 and is titled The Philanthropy Files focussing on the theme of the records of charitable and philanthropic activity.
+ The two books on offer are Nat Alcock’s Documenting the History of Houses (2003) and, hot off the presses, Elizabeth New’s Seals and Sealing Practices (2010), both normally available at £9.50 each.

If you have any questions about the questionnaire, please contact Margaret Crockett