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British Museum Archives

Inside the large, curved centre of the British Museum is their archive, a room not too many people visit anymore but where we were lucky enough to stop in for a tour.


 Led by their straight-shooting archivist of 12 years, Francesca, we were shown systematically around the large room as she shared the collection, their history, and the institution's archival problems with us.


The Museum was built in 1855 with this space a reading room for the British Library, which was merged with the Museum at the time. In 1973 the Library moved out to find space on their own and this room shifted to Museum priorities. The only issue with the gorgeous space is that because of its historic significance they are not allowed to make major modifications, essentially freezing it in time and preventing the Museum from removing any of the reading room benches or carrels. As such it is largely unusable space. Ergo, the archive moved in. 




Their collection is a vast array of materials, largely bound uncatalogued without a table of contents, making retrieval very difficult. Collections departments in the past have not followed a cohesive categorization system or naming convention, each labeling documents according to their own discretion which is further complicated by department shifts throughout the Museum's history. Items in the archive laid unceremoniously stacked on tables and placed sometimes at random on the shelves. 


Needless to say a lot of love and attention is required for this archive that seems to have been largely neglected by the Museum. This may change in the future as they have been tasked by the National Archive to properly preserve and catalogue their material or risk losing it. A big job for Francesca - the one archivist - and her five volunteers. 

This is a necessary step, as they have many treasures and historical documents of importance that could be damaged without proper care. Valuable correspondence between Lords, letters from Darwin, details about Laurence of Arabia's excavations, and deeds and plans for all of the property owned by the museum are included among their records, and countless other items that have not seen light for some time due to poor record keeping. 

Organizing the chaos at the British Museum's archive is a big job, but hopefully with enough time and staff the Museum's great history will be documented and digitized so everyone can know and access the countless treasures they possess. Until that time it has at least been a valuable lesson for a group of LIS students on the importance of proper archiving and record keeping. 


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