2008 Conference

Beyond The Ordinary: Strategies for Sustainable Business Archives

The 2008 BAC Conference was held at the Wellcome Library in London on Wednesday 12 November 2008. It focused on the various options for owners of collections to consider when looking at the sustainability of their archives in the long term.

Traditionally companies have maintained and run archives within the structure of the company, but now some are looking at alternatives to this by considering a move to create trusts, work in partnership, or donate their collections to other bodies such as Universities or public sector record offices. Fundraising has also become more of an issue with HLF and other funding bodies being prepared to consider projects which include business archive collections. The BAC Conference presented options which have already been adopted by some archives, with expert information and a series of case studies highlighting these strategies. The Conference was of relevance to all business archivists and also those with an interest in the sustainability and access to our heritage collections.

The speakers included Joan Heggie of the British Steel Collection, Teresa Wilmshurst of the Waterways Trust and Richard Taylor of the National Railways Museum. Katey Logan and John Quail hosted the afternoon’s Question Time panel which focused on the new national business archive strategy.

The BAC Conference was followed by the presentation of the Wadsworth Prize for Business History was this year is kindly being hosted by Unilever.

Read more about the 2008 conference in the Spring 2009 newsletter.