Summary

Background: our research

The Community Archives Development Group (CADG) commissioned independent research into the impact of community archives activity

The survey was conducted by Stuart Davies Associates during 2006.

46 questionnaires were completed from an initial e-mail and postal approach to 299 community archive organisations. Ten groups were chosen from these and detailed case studies were undertaken.

Our research shows that the UK’s estimated 3,000 community archives already feature in the lives of up to a million people.

Those who build community archives create and engage with collections of photographs, documents, material objects, oral testimonies and other audio-visual material.  These resources contain otherwise hidden narratives that trace and celebrate the worth of communities and individuals, past and present.  From them spring educational and social initiatives that may engage the wider community.

Some of the stories contained in community archives describe the distant past; others are from more recent times.  They may be about a place, or about a shared experience or way of looking at the world.

Compiling a community archive brings together people of varying ages, experience and ability.   Some participants in community archives have limited formal educational qualifications, but this is no obstacle to working together to understand, value and celebrate the communities to which they belong.

By contributing to their community archive, users learn new skills and use them to the benefit of the community at large.  And the records they create provide a legacy for present and future generations.

Community archives offer a unique form of participation.  Very few parts of modern cultural life provide the opportunity for people of all backgrounds and ages to meet, talk about what they have in common and collectively build the material that links them together.  But this is what community archives can do.

Many people just aren’t aware of the nature and extent of community archives in the 21st century.   And that is one of the reasons why the Community Archive Development Group (CADG) is publishing this guide for policy-makers, users and potential sponsors.

One key message is that acknowledgement and enthusiastic advocacy of the role they can play in communities is as vital to the health of community archives as financial support.   But experience shows that even modest financial support can maintain the viability of many c ommunity archives, enabling them to carrying on enriching the social and cultural lives of communities and wider society.

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