Records at Risk: Centre for Contemporary Arts and Third Eye Centre Archive

Along with many others in the archives sector, the executive committee of the Business Archives Council of Scotland is concerned at the proposed sale of the Centre for Contemporary Arts and Third Eye Centre archive collections. We have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic Màiri McAllan MSP to outline these concerns.

Established in 1960 to actively preserve the records of Scottish business and industry, BACS continues to advocate today for the management and preservation of Scotland’s historically significant business records. Liquidations and business failures have long been part of the landscape of business archives and cases are routinely monitored and responded to by the Business Archives Surveying Officer for Scotland. As such we recognise that Insolvency Practitioners have a duty to realise company assets during the liquidation process and that archive collections can be considered under these terms.

However, ethical consideration of the disposal of assets such as archives, whose significance may extend far beyond their monetary value must be prioritised. The sale or dispersal of the CCA and Third Eye Centre archive could set a damaging precedent, treating culturally significant archival collections primarily as financial assets and risking the irreversible loss of their historical context, research value, and wider public benefit.

Read the full letter.