Welsh Business Archives

Another Welsh initiative is the Wales Powering the World blog which is a project looking at Welsh Industry through Archives.

This Archives and Record Council Wales collobarative project was funded by the Pilgrim Trust under the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme. Ten of the most valuable un-catalogued business collections from north and south Wales were catalogued and are now available through their holding repositories. The collections were:

• Cardiff Incorporated Chamber of Commerce, Glamorgan Archives
• Coppack Bros. & Co., Connah’s Quay, Flintshire Record Office
• Davies Bros., Slate Merchants, Porthmadog, Gwynedd Archives
• Emlyn Colliery and Brickworks, Carmarthenshire Archive Service
• Inigo Jones Ltd., Slate Merchants of Nantlle, Gwynedd Archives
• Powell Duffryn Limited, Glamorgan Archives
• South Wales Transport Collection, Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University
• Vivian and Sons Limited, West Glamorgan Archive Service
• Waddle Engineering and Fan Company, Carmarthenshire Archive Service
• Wrexham Lager Company Papers, Wrexham Archives and Local Studies

They are holding a workshop on Friday 27th January in Swansea at the University Archives on the subject of business archives and their use for researchers.

 

 

Read more...

British Steel Archive Project

On Friday the British Steel Archive Project celebrated its successful launch in Middlesbrough. The project was an ambitious scheme to catalogue and celebrate the heritage of the steel industry on Teeside, which is still very visible today. The project involved the development of close working partnerships between a variety of different stakeholders to create an ongoing and sustainable improvement to a collection that was sitting in uncatalogued boxes. Although this wasn't a Scottish project (though some of the companies involved did have long-standing roots in Scottish industry) the planning and execution of it were very impressive, and it should stand as a model of what can be achieved in the business archives sector.

Through basing the work at Teeside Archives, the project has improved and enhanced existing facilities (including a new website and CALM catalogue) and set in place a structure, including a volunteer and friends scheme, that will ensure the initial work on the collection can be carried through to completion. I was also impressed with the outreach work performed in schools across the area. Attendance and participation levels were also much greater than anticipated (almost double the initial estimates)

All of which would not have been possible without an initial assessment of the value of the collection by David Powell, the then BACS Surveying Officer, that allowed Dr Joan Heggie (the project leader) to successfully apply for Heritage Lottery Fund money. Congratulations to Dr Heggie and her team on the completion of an impressive and valuable business archives project.

Read more...

Scotland's Hundred Oldest Companies Project

Over the next three months the I'll be working on a project to identify the record holdings of the 100 oldest Scottish companies still registered with Company House in Edinburgh.

The central outcome will be the development of a guide to the records of all the companies, including notes on the history and terms of use and access (this guide will be made available on the BACS website when complete). The companies on the list represent a cross section of Scottish business life, ranging from the companies managing community halls to large multinational firms, and this project will celebrate the richness of this diversity and heritage.

The purpose of the project is to create a valuable resource for future users and researchers of business archives; establish a project that can be used to increase the awareness of business archive use; and to reach out to businesses that may have valuable records and have not previously been approached by the BACS. The project will also be used to tie in with the launch of the Strategy for Business Archives in Scotland in January, raising the profile of business archives amongst record holders and record users alike.

I'll also be regularly posting my progress on here as the project launches early next year. I hope that I'll be able demonstrate some solutions and actions that can make use of the trapped value in business records, and perhaps put the spotlight on some previously under-appreciated collections.

I welcome any comments and suggestions...

Read more...