EXPLORE YOUR ARCHIVE 

Many thanks to those of you who participated in the first year of Explore Your Archive,  the  campaign developed by the Archives and Records Association UK & Ireland and The National Archives to raise public awareness of archives. 

Many of you took the opportunity to respond to the evaluation survey or to talk to Marc Pallascio a student from the University of York who ran the evaluation as part of a Master's course in Public History. You can see Marc's report at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/926.htm  

The report also contains some of the 2013 activities and a media roundup, which may also be useful to help you plan for the coming year. 

We are enormously grateful to Marc for his excellent work. 


Explore Your Archive 2014

Following the evaluation and everything you told us about the campaign, we are delighted to announce the shape of Explore Your Archive for 2014 and beyond

•	You said you liked the brand and wanted freedom to use it to promote your activities at any time of the year. We produced the branding for everyone and it is yours to use, within the spirit of the campaign, whenever you wish. All the guidelines for using the brand are in the toolkit.  But, please, if you possibly can, schedule activity for the Explore Your Archive week (see below).  All the guidelines for using the brand are in the toolkit.

Please send a brief email [log in to unmask]  when you use the brand and let us know what you’ve done. We can then share good ideas and best practice as widely as possible. 

•	You said you liked the timing…so, Explore Your Archive 2014 will take place from 10 November 2014. 
Building on the success and enthusiasm of the first year, we are asking archives throughout the UK and Ireland to plan as many events and activities as possible from  10 to 16 November. The campaign branding is there for us to use throughout the year, but we need to make the maximum impact for the sector during this week. Please put the week 10 to 16 November in your diaries now and start planning what you will do.  

•	You said you liked the flexibility…so, Explore Your Archive 2014 will not have a prescribed theme. 
The toolkit and branding is designed to help you publicise the theme, story, event or activity that works best for your collections and your audiences.  

Because so many archives will be organising activity around First World War collections this year, there will be advice, guidance and artwork to help archives wishing to concentrate on the First World War.  

•	You said you wanted more in the toolkit…so the Explore Your Archive toolkit will be added to for 2014. Additions will include: 

o	Additional ready-to-use artwork , and a new set of artwork to support First World War participation.
o	Case studies  and ‘hints and tips’ of events and activities that worked well in the 2013 Explore Your Archive campaign 
o	New advice on best use of social media
o	New Explore Your Archive marketing material (we still have badges left too) 
o	Further development of the public website, exploreyourarchive.org 

We shall be adding material to the toolkit from now on and will publicise widely when we add new things. 

Emma will be on maternity leave from mid May and taking a break from managing Explore Your Archives in 2014. We look forward to sharing who will be TNA’s lead on the campaign this year. 

Thank you for everything you did to make Explore  Your Archive such a success. Please start your planning for 2014 and keep in touch! 




Emma Markiewicz, The National Archives 
Marie Owens, Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland) 

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