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
- See Surrey Heritage Talks, Workshops and Tours for illustrated talks, guided visits and activities offered by Surrey History Centre.
- Find courses and book places on Heritage events.
- Join our mailing list to be sure you hear about new learning opportunities.
- Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch and hear even more news.
Resources
- Find maps to buy in our online shop. For example Seamless tithe and first edition 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps of Surrey, Historical Ordnance Survey Maps and Surrey tithe records cds and dvds.
- Explore our extensive collection of Archives and history research guides.
- Try the Community Archives and Heritage Group resources.
Websites
- We can help give your community archive a wider audience.
- We can add a link to your website from our Local history societies and sources web page.
- We can put a web page about your group on the Exploring Surrey's Past website.
- You can add your group to the Community Archives and Heritage Group website.
- Take a look at our Archive resources for learning webpage
- Explore Surrey's Museums and Galleries
Files available to download
-
Travelling displays from Surrey Heritage (PDF)
A list of all the displays which can be borrowed free of charge from Surrey History Centre and details of how you can borrow them.
