The British Museum Archives

Class met with Stephanie Clarke, archivist of the British Museum. The archives at the British Museum are compact, but they are full of interesting papers and records. Included in the archives are

• trustees' minutes and papers
• staff applications, referree letters, and career history at the museum
• financial and legal documents
• exhibition records
  
• building blueprints, and
• applications for the reading room (from authors such as Marx, Doyle, Kipling, Wilde, Stoker, Potter, and T.S. Eliot).

The collection includes papers, but it also includes other materials such as photographs, display labels, fabric and tile swatches, and index cards. These items are either custom bound or moved into acid-free folders and boxes for preservation. The Archives receives approximately 20-30 inquiries and 5-6 people a week who are looking for records, either for writing a book or paper or researching family histories. Patrons are permitted to handle the archival documents, except in cases where the project would be too difficult. On the shelf, the items are organized by date, so in some cases, the patron needs to know the exact date in order to find the material. The materials have indexes, but there is no comprehensive catalogue (only an Excel document).

The Archives is slowly moving into an electronic future. At this time, it uses no electronic records. Soon, the Museum will be adding Microsoft Sharepoint. While this is not a long-term preservation strategy, it may help with the day to day functions of the Archives. Digitization is not very likely, as the enormous number of documents and their organization is a huge challenge still. While the Archives is still a work in progress, the historical treasures found therein prove that an Archival career is interesting and worthwhile.