Archives Hub

The Archives Hub is a gateway to descriptions of archives held across the UK, in universities, colleges, specialist repositories, charities, businesses and other institutions. It has over 27,000 descriptions of archive collections on all manner of subjects, and also has over 450,000 descriptions of units (series, items, etc). The Archives Hub began in 1999 and has since continued to expand and develop.[1] It has over 250 contributors across the UK.

The Hub does not itself hold archives. Rather, it is a finding aid, helping researchers to locate archives, by enabling them to search across descriptions. It enables researchers to search by person, organisation, subject, place, date and keyword, and to bring together archives held all over the country that relate to that topic. It includes many images and also links to digital content, but it represents both digital and analogue archives, as most archives in the UK are not digitised.

Descriptions on the Hub are compiled to EAD (Encoded Archival Description) standards, and each description provides a link to the contact details for the repository that holds the archive. The site provides information on the use of EAD, data creation guidelines, information on metadata and protocols for interoperability and to facilitate cross-searching.

The Hub is funded by Jisc, and is freely available to all. It is a Mimas service based at the University of Manchester.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Hill, A. 'Bringing Archives Online with the Archives Hub', Journal of the Society of Archivists, 2002