Renewal of the 14-year journey of the Endangered Archives Programme

Abstract

Historical archives around the world are subject to general neglect, ravages of time, poor storage, damaging environmental conditions or the destructive forces of war. The Endangered Archives Programme, first established in 2004, addresses these issues through its unyielding efforts to preserve endangered material, digitise it, safely deposit surrogate copies in more than one location and, most importantly, making it freely available online through the British Library’s website. The Programme ensures that histories of human activities from around the globe remain available for contemporary users and for future generations. This article focuses on the journey that started 14 years ago and is still ongoing due to the valuable contribution by Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, to preserve documentary heritage. This article discusses the growth, development and achievements of the Programme. In 2018, Arcadia generously renewed its support of the Endangered Archives Programme, hopefully enabling it to reach further archives that are yet to be preserved.

Keywords

archives digitisation endangered grants heritage

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