Bursaries are now available for the Archives and Records Association UK & Ireland Annual Conference:  28-30 August 2024, Birmingham, UK ‘Climate and Crisis: Tackling it Together’ Making Your Case to Attend the Conference Make your case for attending and show how you’ll be more valuable to your institution afterwards. We hope you can make the case for you to come to at least a day of the ARA Conference. You can also choose to join us for our Wednesday evening reception, or Thursday evening Gala Dinner. If you need help in persuading your employers, we have a model business case letter ..read more

The 2023 ARA Conference, held in Belfast, took the theme ‘communities’ and to build on this we now want to address the major crises and challenges facing our communities and our profession, learning from our community and building stronger responses, together. The Climate Crisis is the challenge of an era with the responsibility to take action falling upon us all. Our profession must respond, learn from best practice and find new ways to contribute to the global effort. Our work faces other crises not least funding and resourcing challenges. We are better tackling this together too, and we wan ..read more

47 archive service took part in the Distance Enquiries Service Survey between October and December 2023.    Taking part is an excellent way to obtain feedback from those accessing services remotely and this survey did not disappoint. Over 1,650 users of archive services responded to tell us the reasons for their visit, their views on the services given and information about themselves. The result is a valuable tool for participating services, to aid future planning, as well as for the sector to generate a national profile of archive users, to help determine future planning and p ..read more

Booking now open for our Annual Conference:  28-30 August 2024, Birmingham, UK ‘Climate and Crisis: Tackling it Together’   Book here - early bird rate closes 31st May ARA’s 2024 conference will take place in the new BCEC, a purpose built conference venue in the centre of Birmingham. The 2024 theme is ‘Climate and Crisis: Tackling It Together’ and over three days we address the major crises and challenges facing our communities and our profession, learning from our community and building stronger responses, together. The Climate Crisis is the challenge of an era with the responsibi ..read more

New guidance on the records of Adopted and Care-experienced people has been published   The guidance is available to download here. The guidance, created by the Chief Archivists in Local Government Group (CALGG) of the Archives and Records Association (ARA), calls for greater access to these vital records for care experienced and adopted people. The guidance also recommends that records be preserved for at least 125 years and ideally permanently. A recommendation which would require a change in current legislation. A project to examine the status and distribution of records relating to ad ..read more

The UK National Archives and the Archives and Records Association have begun a procurement process to select a supplier to undertake research to identify barriers, opportunities and solutions to address issues related to career mobility and gaps in leadership skills within the record keeping sector. The research will help both The National Archives and the Archives and Records Association to develop future training opportunities for the sector. You can find details of the tender information here ..read more

Would you like to help shape the strategic vision for the record keeping sector in the UK and Ireland? Would you like to help develop the ARA’s role and policy direction? Are you an ARA member looking use your skills and experience in a wider context and gain wider knowledge of our sector at strategic level? Keen to develop your general and budget management skills? How about influencing the management and direction of your professional body? Or, frankly speaking, do you think the ARA can and should be doing things better? If your answer to the above is yes, then why not stand for election t ..read more

Consultancy brief The impact of spontaneous collecting on the mental wellbeing of the record keeping workforce Information is provided below or can be downloaded as a pdf here. Introduction – Archives and Records Association (ARA) ARA is the lead professional body for archivists, archive conservators and records managers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The ARA aims to support its membership through training, continuous professional development, identification of employment opportunities, professional help and advice, and by providing a community to which the membership can belong and from w ..read more

FOUR NEW COURSES FROM ARA CENTRAL TRAINING Introduction to Project Management The training will be delivered over two half days from 9.30am to 12.30pm on the 26th and 27th March. Please purchase one ticket only. Project management is about getting things done within a specific timeframe through the use of tools, knowledge, processes, and competencies.   This course is for anyone who is new to project management and would like to learn techniques to manage a project. It is suitable for any one working the archives sector or the wider cultural and heritage sectors, from senior managers to f ..read more

ARA publishes its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Direction report As part of ARA’s ongoing commitment to embedding equity, diversity and inclusion in all that it does, we have published a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Direction report. This builds on the work we are doing in this area, which in 2023 included: A seven part free training series: “Embedding Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Practice in the UK Archive Sector” this webinar series is designed to allow members (and others) to move through the training at their own pace. Part 1 introduces key issues ..read more