Visiting the archive
It is important to plan ahead before visiting an archive or you may find that you arrive when there are no staff available to help you or that the material you want to consult is unavailable. Some archives hold items in offsite storage and will need notice in order to have them delivered to the reading room and some archives operate timed slots for the retrieval of items. In some cases, access to certain items or even to the archive itself may be restricted.
Visit the archive's webpages to find out
- Opening hours
- Is access to the archive controlled?
- What ID might you need to show?
- Is access to any of the material (e.g. material containing personal data) restricted?
- What are the Search Room rules, including rules on photography and photocopying, and advice on how to handle documents?
Contact the archive well in advance to arrange your visit as an appointment may be necessary.
It is a good idea to decide what your questions are in advance, but to be prepared to revise your line of questioning in relation to what is held by the archives.
Make sure you take with you a charged laptop and battery or a notebook, a pencil and a form of identification acceptable to the archive.
Consulting archive material
You should consider how you will read the materials you find in the archive. If you are consulting older items they may be difficult to decipher or written in Latin, and they may use unfamiliar conventions or vocabulary. You may need some knowledge of
- Paleography (the study of old handwriting and the practice of reading it)
- Diplomatic (the study of the format and conventions used for different types of documents in order to analyse and interpret them)
- Latin
- Old systems of currency, weights and measures
- Conventions of dating documents and the Julian and Gregorian calendars
The National Archives provide helpful guidance on reading old documents.
Digitising archival materials
Digitising archival materials
Training on digitisation of archival material is available from the Library Research Support team.
Guides to using primary sources
Going to the Sources
Shows how to identify, find, and evaluate both primary and secondary sources for your own writing assignments.
The Information-Literate Historian
Guidance on how to successfully select and use sources - primary, secondary, and electronic - to carry out and present your research.
Historical Research
Practical guide covering the various stages of a history research project, from the selection of the topic and the organization and interpretation of source material, through to the completion of the written-up record.