A collaborative approach to training from the Business Archive Council and BAC Scotland
2023 began with a bang for the business archive sector with the Business Archive Council (BAC) and the Business Archive Council Scotland (BACS) collaborating on a range of learning events, some of which will be of benefit to members of each organisation, and some to the record keeping sector as a whole.
Entitled ‘Business Bites’, the project is an initiative by BAC and BACS to encourage conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives across the UK. Many of those work alone and so they are invited to share their experiences.
Regular social meet ups
With a rotating theme to kick start conversations, the regular meet ups allow people to meet their peers. Anything and everything business archives openly discussed and amongst friends.
- Business Bites takes place bi-monthly on the last Wednesday of the given month.
- Each event last an hour and focuses on a topic related to Business Archive Learning.
- Events are held virtually via Zoom.
Open to anyone
The programme began in January 2023 with an ‘open to anyone’ webinar on digital preservation in the business archive sector.
Jenny Mitcham from the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and Gemma Evans from the National Library of Wales gave attendees an introduction to the newly produced resource ‘Digital Preservation for Small Businesses – an Introductory Guide’.
Conversations focused on how the guidance could be scaled up or down to suit any business archive, and Jenny provided more information on the additional support the DPC could provide.
Image Courtesy of abrdn archive
The Boots archive unique approach to fundraising for business archives
Sophie Clapp from the Boots archive argued that the main stakeholders with an interest in the archives of a business is not the business themselves, but academics, who will be using the collections for research.
Changing the stakeholder view in this way has allowed the Boots archive to apply for various funding projects to have the archive conserved, preserved and used in a range of research projects with a wide range of academics. Many delegates had not viewed their collections in this way before and left inspired to investigate new ways of achieving their funding goals.
Research using Business Archives
Dr Alix Green and Dr David Churchill talked at the May webinar about the academic work they have carried out using and informed by business archives. They gave hints and tips on how archives can get involved with universities and students to get the most out of their collections as well as promote research using business archives.
Capturing diverse voices
This July event focussed on how business archives across the UK are using their collections to showcase the diverse voices held within them.
Coming up:
The Digital Everyday
8th Nov
9:15-4:45pm
£5
HSBC Canada Square
Modern Collections Development
29th Nov
12:30-1:30pm
Free
Online
We are working on our 2024 event programme
If you would like to share ideas for a webinar
Get in touch at Business Bites
Further information
Events write ups are available in both BAC and BACS newsletters.
Sign up to our events by searching Business Bites on Eventbrite or google.
| Date | Topic | Speaker | Open to |
| 26th July | Capturing Diverse Voices | The Macallan Nationwide | Members only |
| 27th September | Sustainability in Archives | ARA Environmental Sustainability Group, London Metropolitan Archive | Everyone |
| 29th November | Modern Collections Development | abrdn | Members only |
