Supporting community archives in Surrey

Are you involved with a community archive in Surrey? Community archives are collections of locally relevant material, such as photographs and oral history recordings, which help to tell the story of a place or a group. They may have been collected through a funded community history project or brought together by a local history society or similar group.

Surrey History Centre has specialist staff, facilities and knowledge to help your community archive.

Here are some of the ways we can help.

Storage and conservation

  • Our Conservator can advise.
  • Find information online about how to look after your collection and suppliers of packaging materials.

Funding opportunities

  • Our Projects Officer can advise on funding opportunities and provide guidance on funding applications.

Copyright

  • Our Local Studies Librarian can advise.

Oral History

  • We have equipment you can borrow, and can advise on the documentation you should use and depositing copies of your recordings.
  • Join our mailing list to be sure you hear about courses.

Cataloguing and Indexing

  • Download the cataloguing guidelines produced by the Community Archives and Heritage Group.
  • Would you like to put your catalogue on the Exploring Surrey's Past website, where it can be searched worldwide alongside those of other community archives and museums? The advanced search already includes the collections of a number of organisations.
  • Get in touch early to ensure your data is organised in a way that is compatible.

Digitisation

  • Our digitisation team can advise.
  • Would you like to use our equipment to digitise some items from your collection?

Depositing original material

  • It's a good idea to deposit unique original archives at Surrey History Centre as a gift or on long loan to ensure they are stored in our environmentally controlled strongrooms.
  • Our Senior Archivist can advise.
  • Find information for depositors online.

Displays

  • Why not promote your displays in the Surrey History Centre foyer? It's free.
  • Our Events and Promotions Officer, can advise and book space.
  • We have travelling displays which you can borrow. These are also free. There is a list at the bottom of this page.

Training

Resources

Websites


Files available to download

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