This dissertation intends to enable community and charitable bodies with archives to access Archive Service Accreditation in a way which is easy to use for non-archivists in a beginners guide format. The aims will be achieved by providing context for the achievement of Archive Service Accreditation through a literature review to demonstrate the current situation surrounding Archive Service Accreditation and current archival practice. Case studies which demonstrate the way community and charity archives work and how they can achieve Archive Service Accreditation will also be used. It will also identify the extent to which the case studies meet the requirements laid out by Accredited Archive Service and to establish
budgets and the size of the workforce of the case studies which will offer the archives solutions for purchasing suitable equipment and accessing archival professionals. The research for this dissertation consists of a survey sent out to community and charity archives in the South East of England and four case studies which demonstrate the experience of community and charity archives. As a result qualitative and quantitative data has been compiled and used to highlight the ability of community and charity archives to achieve Archive Service Accreditation. This dissertation found that community and charity archives often do not meet the requirements for Archive Service Accreditation, although this is partially due to the fact that digital archives are not eligible for accreditation. This means some community and charity archives may meet the requirements,
but are not able to apply due to the nature of their archive. Therefore this paper recommends that Accredited Archive Service expand the range of archives which are eligible to apply for accreditation. Furthermore this dissertation recommends that community and charity archives should use the requirements laid out by Accredited Archive Service to create a fully developed service.
The full paper is available for download – https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1anJyDVpGdfgQe78-mHjJJ2lJbH7vrSNp
This paper is available for use for free for any archive provided appropriate credit is given.
The Colourful Historian 