Dear all,

You may be interested in an article on business archives in the latest
edition of Museums Journal. For those of you who aren't members of the
Museums Association and can't access the article online; here it is below.


In business
Deborah Mulhearn

Issue 109/7, p20-25, July 2009

Company archives can provide a wealth of historical information, but many
are under threat because of the recession. Deborah Mulhearn reports.


Last winter, while shoppers were snapping up the last bargains from
Woolworths before the store disappeared after 100 years on the British high
street, business historian Peter Scott was searching for more valuable items
at the company's headquarters in London's Marylebone Street.

Scott, the director of the Centre for International Business History at the
University of Reading's Henley Business School, was trying to locate and
secure the archives of Woolworths, which had more than 800 UK stores at one
time. He was initially hopeful, but ultimately unsuccessful, and
disappointed that no one seems able or willing to say exactly what has
happened to the archive.

"The Woolworths archive has in effect disappeared," says Scott, "in as much
as no information is available regarding the location or ownership of the
archive, or even whether the archive has been preserved as a single collection."

Woolworths, then known as FW Woolworth, opened its first British store in
Liverpool in 1909. Its business records would be valuable, says Scott, for
their insights into retail history. The mainly paper-based archive had
material relating to its unique pricing policy of "nothing over 6d", its
high turnover strategy and relationships with buyers.

Woolworths' virtual museum has disappeared from the internet, with just a
few photographs reappearing on the website created by Liverpool-based online
retailer Shop Direct, which bought the Woolworths name.

Scott believes that the current recession has revealed a wider problem of
important archives being threatened when businesses fail.

"Traditionally, we have relied on the goodwill of liquidators to cooperate
with efforts to protect archives in the event of a company going bankrupt.
But, given changes in corporate culture since the 1980s, not all firms can
be counted on to take actions for which there is no clear monetary return,"
he warns.

He says that companies don't always understand the value of their archives
even though they might keep them. "The machinery is not in place to ensure
their survival. There is no national strategy to safeguard them as collections."

While a museum may be interested in specific items from a local company,
they are not always in a position to take complete archives. Where company
archives include business records, photographic material and objects,
keeping them together can pose problems.

Moving material into a trust affords some protection, says Stephen Laing,
curator of the Heritage Motor Centre (HMC) at Gaydon in Warwickshire, a
trust that rescued material from the former MG Rover car factory at
Longbridge when it went into administration in 2005.

"But in the final push there is no legal requirement to keep an archive
intact," says Laing.


"People on the periphery"

The Heritage Motor Centre has older material from the original Austin Motor
Company in its collection and worked with administrators to get access to
the plant when MG Rover collapsed.

"We were at a different starting point because of our existing relationship
with the site," says Laing. "But it wasn't easy by any means. It's the
biggest challenge for archivists because administrators and new owners don't
necessarily want business history in the public domain. They are not usually
keen on people on the periphery having access."

Laing says if a local company is under threat of closure and a museum feels
it might have relevant archives, it is a good idea for a museum to make
connections before the gates close, even if it's just to compile a
photographic record in the first instance.

"Make personal contact before a company goes bust. The PR or marketing
department is usually the best starting point, where you can demonstrate the
benefits of material being in the public domain."


Never knowingly under-archived

A company's heritage, however, can also form part of its assets. "It's
important to recognise that while we see the benefits of having company
collections or archives in the public domain, companies themselves may want
to keep it within the framework of the business," adds Laing. "It all
depends on the politics of the particular company."

Judy Faraday, archivist at John Lewis Partnership, says that many companies
do look after their archives, but admits there are concerns that archives
will be dispersed or lost if companies fail in the current economic downturn.

"Some contain attractive and collectable items, which makes them more
vulnerable because they are seen as assets by administrators to sell off to
pay creditors," she says. "Other collections are reports and accounts and,
while these are interesting for economic history, they have little
commercial value."

But this sort of material can provide context for museum artefacts,
particularly where a company has been in an area for a long time.

"There needs to be stronger links between businesses and museums and local
records offices," says Faraday.

To address this issue, the Business Archives Council (BAC), of which Faraday
is a member, launches a national strategy this month to raise awareness and
give advice on how business archives can be safeguarded and what both
companies and museums can do with them.

"Heritage has very strong appeal," says Faraday. "The credit crunch has made
it even more important because businesses need to retain customers and
longevity and tradition are powerful marketing tools. I hope they will start
to realise that their archive is an asset and use it in positive and
creative ways."

She says that the BAC is trying to get liquidators and insolvency
practitioners to recognise that archives are valuable. The council is also
setting up a disaster plan advising archivists on how to cope in the event
of a collapse, and building partnerships with universities and museums.

Heritage fits well into the corporate social responsibility agenda, says
Faraday, and there is much that businesses can do to capitalise on their
archives and help secure their future.

"Businesses and museums can and should take their relationship further for
mutual benefits. Businesses could help museums, for example with marketing,
and museums could help businesses with skills such as sending out a
conservator, providing advice on using historic designs for products, and
for community outreach."


Sparks from Marks

Marks & Spencer (M&S) put its archive on public display for the first time
last month at the University of Leeds' Centenary Gallery. Michael Marks
opened his stall at the city's Kirkgate market 125 years ago, and the
archive includes more than 60,000 items, from products and photographs
through to company literature and advertising.

M&S and Leeds University are also in advanced discussions about relocating
the entire company archive to Leeds and housing it in a purpose-built
location on campus. The full archive would be open to the public and
academics for the first time, though it would stay under M&S ownership.

Many companies take their heritage seriously and appreciate its importance
to community and social history. John Lewis has retired staff and volunteers
looking after community archives, building websites and collecting oral
histories.

John Lewis is among the many examples of well-preserved and valued archives.
Others include Unilever and HSBC, while some are protected in trust status
such as Royal Mail, Wedgwood and Rothschild.

Plenty of companies use heritage as a marketing tool, both through websites
and by turning archives to commercial gain. John Lewis licenses its historic
designs to fabric designers, and used an 1803 pattern found in the textile
archives to create a fabric effect on the facade of the company's new store
in Leicester.

The architects cleverly made reference to the city's 200-year history of
textiles and weaving, the translucency of saris worn by the Indian
population living in Leicester, and John Lewis' own tradition of producing
quality fabrics.

Other companies have raided their own archives to reintroduce historic
brands, designs and packaging. For its 160th anniversary this year, Boots
created a nostalgic product range, taking both skincare recipes and
packaging ideas from its archive.

Woolworths was not the only company to open its first UK outlet in 1909:
Selfridges unveiled its flagship store on London's Oxford Street in March of
the same year. But while Woolworths has disappeared, 2009 is a year of
celebration for Selfridges, which is running a range of events during its
centenary.

These include a 325-sq-metre exhibition at the Oxford Street store that has
been curated by social historian Lindy Woodhead. It runs until 30 August and
uses archive images and artefacts to chart the history of the business that
American retailer Gordon Selfridge started in the UK 100 years ago.

With current business practices under the microscope following the banking
crisis and the recession that followed, companies are doing all they can to
reassure customers about their stability. Using their archives to look back
at more buoyant times is one way of doing this.

Deborah Mulhearn is a freelance journalist


Mutual benefits

The archive of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (ELAS) was purchased by
the UK actuarial profession in November 2006. Equitable Life has, by its own
account, "undergone an exceptionally difficult period" since the 1990s.

The society had kept its archive well, but it was at risk and buyers were
sought. As the archive of the world's oldest mutual society, it charts not
only its own beginnings in 1762, but also the origins and development of the
modern insurance industry.

"We have developed our special historical library collection, but have no
cultural mission to buy archives as such," says librarian David Raymont.
"The ELAS archive was exceptional for its unique historical interest to the
profession and to researchers."

It contains the first evidence of actuarial science in practice, where life
expectancy was mathematically calculated from mortality data to set
life-assurance premiums. Its records of policyholders, some well-known
including English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and slave trade abolitionist
William Wilberforce, can be a source for family researchers.

"There was no legal protection to safeguard the archive and given its
historic importance, individual items would have sold very well," says Raymont.

"We were given the opportunity to buy the archive and luckily were able to
raise funds through actuary members, firms and associations worldwide
donating generously to prevent it being broken up and sold off. It meant we
could keep the archive intact, with enough left over to pay for digitising
key manuscripts and for storage, cataloguing and promotion."


Links

www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk




Regards,

Gary Collins
Project Archivist
British Cartoon Archive
Templeman Library
University of Kent
Canterbury
CT2 7NU

01227 823109 (w)
07932 747649 (m)

[log in to unmask]
www.cartoons.ac.uk
http://bcad.wordpress.com