1.8 Archaeological Archives and Collections

Latest Data: 2020

This section reviews the answers to questions about archiving policies.

Highlights

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Only the 38 organisations that specified that some of their work covered museum or heritage/cultural attraction were presented with these questions. These questions were designed to align with surveys conducted by the Society of Museum Archaeologists – the HE/SMA Annual Survey of Museums Collecting Archaeology Reports, which ran from 2016-18 in England. These data cover all of the UK and finds similar results.

Of the 35 respondents to this question, a slight majority actively collect archaeological archives, and of that group, there is close to an even split between those that charge for this service and those that do not.

Table 1.8.1: Current collection undertakings

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The majority of respondents think that their store will be full in zero years – meaning they are already at capacity. Of the other respondents, the median length of time before their archive will be full is eight years, and the mean is eleven and a half years.

Table 1.8.2: Answers to “How long do you think it will be before your stores are at capacity?”

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While 65% of respondents have collections care staff with specialist museum archaeological expertise or training, it is significant that 35% do not.

Table 1.8.3: Responses to “do any of the members of your museum staff with collections care responsibilities (Curators, Collections Managers etc.) have specialist museum archaeological expertise or training?”

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Comments

The following relevant comments were left by respondents on this section of the questionnaire:

• XXXXXXX does not employ museum staff. We contract specialists to provide collection care and advice.
• We put 0 years for the museum storage as we’re in desperate need for a new store.
• CEO is also a trained Curator and has 30 years experience handling and caring for objects
• Our bulk finds archaeological archive store is currently almost full but we are in the process of buying a new store (by end dec 2020) which will then allow us to collect archaeological archives from the county for up to a further 20 years. The Senior Archaeological Officer who manages the archives has an MA in Museum Studies. We charge for commercially generated archive desposition but do not to take archives from amateur and research work they deposit for free, all researcher enquiries are also free.
• Our archives officer is an experienced contractor PX and Archives Officer
• The XXXXXX would refer to the XXXXX historic environment team or XXXXX for professional archaeological collections advice.
• a member of staff does, but not a collections staff not have care responsibilities other than for a digital archive
• Some of our curators do have knowledge of archaeological material
• The Council’s archaeology service provides expert assistance to the museum service. In Scotland archaeological archives are lodged with the NRHE rather than local museums, though the finds themselves go to the museum.
• XXXXX have a nationally recognised archaeological collection.
• The 2.6FTE are all trained archaeologists In process of commissioning a new store that will have c.25 years of capacity for archaeological archives. We will be charging.
• I’m not entirely sure what this would mean – but our curator has 7 years experience in the role and an academic background in classical archaeology
• Both staff members have archaeology degrees and experience. This is however by luck rather than an essential job position criteria
• Over how long until stores full XXXXXXXX has many properties and is acquiring archives at a slow rate so in reality unlikely ever to be at capacity.
• We are a small volunteer run museum with no staff professional or otherwise.

Image Credit

A corridor of files at The National Archives by the National Archives. From WikiCommons. CC BY 3.0

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