The Business Archives Council of Scotland organises an annual conference in the Autumn, a Summer event and regular Business Bites sessions online to support networking for business archivists and custodians of business archives in Scotland. Details of past events can be found here.
Events
Conference, AGM & Events
2025 Conference
The Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council with support from our sponsors, TownsWeb Archiving, Preservica and Naomi Korn Associates, will hold their joint annual conference at the National Railway Museum in York (and online) on the 13th November.
Our theme is Just the Ticket! Changing tracks and bridging the gaps in core archival practices. This conference theme will explore the idea of going back to basics in our modern world and provide an opportunity to share new approaches to core archival activities such as appraisal and cataloguing, collections care and access to archives. As well as innovative ways in which archivists have advocated for their service, positioned themselves in their organisation or delivered outreach activities.
We’re pleased to share the programme and bookings are now live via whitefuse. If you need to book via invoice, please email Business.Bites.Contact@gmail.
Deadlines for bookings: In-person attendance by 31st October and virtual attendance by 11th November.
Details about visiting and getting to the National Railway Museum are available here. We are pleased to share that there will be tours of
Workshop – The Business of Archives: Refreshing the Conversation between Academics and Archivists
Academics and business archivists have many common interests: they want historical collections preserved, made available, used and cared for by expert staff. Working together, there is much they can do to advocate for collections, make them more visible to and valued by parent organisations and in wider research communities, and promote their use internally and externally. In 2019, BAC published a short, accessible guide to facilitating academic-archivist collaboration, co-produced by a small group of business archivists and Dr Alix Green, a historian who’s now a BAC Trustee, tailored to specific concerns and constraints of business archives.
The authors expressed the hope ‘that a network of business archivists and collaboratively-minded academics will grow and be able to share experience and expertise.’ Now seems a good time to take some practical steps to make that happen. Much has changed in the last 6 years, in both universities and business archives; the pressures have increased, making it all the more important to work in partnership.
This FREE breakfast networking event takes place from 9am to 10am before the main Business Archives conference ‘Just the Ticket’. Our aim is to bring together academics and archivists over a cuppa and pastry to identify the priorities for collaboration and some practical steps that can be taken to make it easier for both parties.
If you’re interested in attending, please register your interest by emailing Business.Bites.Contact@gmail.com so we can confirm numbers. If you’re able, please do read through the short guidance document (9pp) ahead of time.
Pdf version for circulating here.
2025 AGM
The 2025 AGM for the Business Archives Council of Scotland took place on Thursday 12th June at the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh.
The papers discussed are below:
Business Bites
Business Bites
Since 2023, the Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council have presented a joint programme of regular online webinars on subjects related to Business Archives.
Business Bites is the name of this initiative to encourage conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives across the UK, many of whom work alone, to share our experiences.
Business Bites: Advocacy and Celebration
Our next Business Bites session of 2025 will be held on Wednesday, 24th September on the theme of Advocacy and Celebration. Bookings are now open.
- Where: Online – via Zoom
- When: Wednesday, 24th September 2025, 12.30pm
- Book: OPEN TO ALL book your ticket via Whitefuse
Advocacy is one of the most important tools in the toolbox of business archivists. Being able to express the importance of what we do to the organisations we work with is a key part of securing funding, support and resource. Hayley Whiting and Elaine Edwards will join us to talk about their advocacy and celebration projects within their organisations and the impact this has had on the archive.
- RNLI 200: How the archive supported and inspired the charity’s bicentenary.
2024 was a milestone year for the RNLI, the charity that saves lives at sea. Hayley Whiting will share just some of the ways the RNLI’s archive was used to support and inspire the 200th anniversary, from the expected to the unexpected.
With over 25 years in the archive sectors, Hayley Whiting has been the Heritage Archive and Research Manager at the RNLI since 2013. The records in the RNLI archive, largely based in Poole, Dorset, date from the foundation of the charity in 1824 right through to the present day. The RNLI’s heritage team ensure the charity’s story can be told for years to come, inspiring future generations of supporters and lifesavers.
- Commemoration & Continuity: Keeping the War Dead relevant to today’s audiences.
Elaine’s talk will cover a brief history of the work of Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) who cares for 1.7 million men and women worldwide. Followed by examples of the outreach & engagement strategies used by the Commission.
Elaine Edwards has worked for the CWGC just under 2 years. The previous 25 years being spent working in museums (20 of which were at the National Museum of Scotland). As Public Engagement Co-ordinator she cover the E & N of Scotland. She manages a team of volunteer speakers & tour guides. The commission do talks to groups from primary age to U3As & give tours of cemeteries containing CWGC graves. There are over 21,000 in Scotland alone. The role also includes laying wreaths, doing media, meeting with MPs/ MSPS, arranging events e.g. to mark major events such as VE and VJ Day 80 etc.
Please direct any questions or comments to Business.Bites.Contact@gmail.com
Business Bites
In 2023, the Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council joined forces to present a joint programme of regular online webinars on subjects related to Business Archives. Business Bites is the name of this initiative to encourage conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives across the UK, many of whom work alone, to share our experiences.
These will continue throughout 2025 and we will hold a Business Bites event every two months with the first event in February on Cataloguing Business Archives. The full programme will be shared below once confirmed. All Business Bites sessions are held on the last Wednesday of every second month.
This new partnership means that our online events will be a mixture of member only events with 50% of events still open to all. Normally our regular in-person events are for BACS members who are business archivists or custodians of business archive collections. Not a BACS member already? Come along to see what BACS has to offer and become a member! (Annual membership starts from £10 for an Individual Member, £20 for Organisational Membership, £50 for Corporate Membership).
Corporate Connections
Corporate Connections was an initiative launched by BACS in 2017 (and which ran to 2023) to encourage face to face conversations, bringing together the small community of business archivists and custodians of business archives in Scotland, many of whom work alone to share our experiences. Regular social meet ups were held twice a year, with a rotating theme to kick start conversations and let you meet your peers. Anything and everything business archives was openly discussed among friends. From 2020, due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, our Corporate Connections events moved online. The BACS team invited those with an interest in business archives to these informal online talks where current challenges, successes and ideas were shared over virtual tea and biscuits (to be provided by the attendees!)