Help sheet

Below is the introduction to the helpsheet. You can also download the complete helpsheet. This is part of a detailed report on the impact of community archives.

Community Archives and other bodies involved in creating heritage resources for communities are now recognised as having an important and developing role in the creation, preservation and accessibility of all sorts of records of their geographic, ethnic, cultural or thematic communities.

This help sheet provides you with guidance to make connections between your core activities and wider agendas for improving life in local areas, or for specific communities. These may be set out by central government and central government agencies, local government or other regional bodies. Making those connections will make your work more relevant to the community or communities you hope to serve, or are serving. It will help you with funding applications, and it will help bodies like the Community Archives Development Group (CADG) make the case nationally for the value of community archives. Evidence of the importance of the work of community archives is vital if additional resources are to be made available to support existing organisations, and help create new ones.

This help sheet sets out:

• The case for getting involved
• The benefits to your organisation
• Ways of planning, setting priorities and defining current activities
• Means of collecting evidence
• Guidance on evaluation and monitoring
• Ways of planning for evaluation
• Ways of fitting your activities into wider objectives
• Next steps
• Sources of advice
• Glossary of terms