Events

Conference & AGM

2024 Conference – Bookings open

In 2024 the Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council will hold their joint annual conference in Glasgow.

The conference is being hosted by The Macallan and sponsored by TownsWebArchiving, Preservica and Naomi Korn Associates. It will take place on Thursday 7th November 2024 at the head offices of the Edrington Group at 100 Queen Street, Glasgow and online attendance will also be available.

Members were sent details of how to book their places at the start of August and the conference is now open for general registration by clicking here.

Details about the venue, travel to Glasgow and accommodation are available on this page.

Our theme is ‘Liquid Gold: realising the potential of your business archive collections’. Scotland’s most famous spirit and one of the nation’s greatest exports is affectionately known as liquid gold, and our conference seeks to explore the richness of business archive collections. This will include business archives as assets for their own corporate businesses but will also consider their wider value to society and potential for academic research and public engagement.

We had a great response to our Call for Papers and the programme is now drafted and available below.

Information about our conference sponsors can be found by clicking on their logos.

PROGRAMME

Liquid Gold: realising the potential of your business archive collections

BACS and BAC Conference 2024, Thursday 7th November

09:30       Networking breakfast session with registration

Session A ‘anniversaries’ (10:30 – 11:50)
This session will feature the following talks:

• Welcome. Cheryl Traversa, Global Archive Manager, The Macallan
• The Macallan. Felipe Ferrari, Senior Marketing Manager, The Macallan
• Unfinished business: The archive’s role in celebrating 200 years of The Guardian. Philippa Mole, Head of the Guardian News & Media Archive
• More than half a ‘Sun-tury’ – how The Times flies when working on anniversaries. Anne Jensen and Michael-John Jennings, News UK

BREAK      

SESSION B ‘outreach, collaboration & partnerships’ (12:05-13:15)
This session will feature the following talks:

• Gold Stories From the Levi’s Archives: Lessons on Using Business Archives. Tracey Panek, Historian & Director, Levi Strauss & Co. Archives
• Creating a social memory through the business archival collection. Kitty But, Head of Archives, Hongkong Land Corporate Archives
• AI at the service of history: The Hennessy example. Christopher Kermovant, Teklia and Fabienne Moreau, Head of Heritage, Hennessy

LUNCH

Session C ‘different routes’ (14:15-15:45)
This session will feature the following talks:

• “They’re gold”: the value of local newspaper archives to communities. Dr Rachael Matthews, Associate Director for Research & Engagement at Coventry University
• From Surviving to Thriving: How Reckitt Heritage Built a Business Case. Dr Grace Chapman, Heritage Advisor, Reckitt
• Realising the Commercial Potential of a Business Collection: A Case Study of Clarks Shoes. Tim Crumplin, Business Archivist, Alfred Gillett Trust/Shoemakers Museum
• Design in Colour: The Bernat Klein Collection & Archive at National Museums Scotland. Lisa Mason, Assistant Curator of Modern & Contemporary Design at NMS

BREAK 

Session D ‘assets and value of business archives’ (16:05-17:40)
This session will feature the following talks:

• Preserving business history as a business itself – in the public interest. Anders Sjöman, Head of Client Projects and Communication at the Centre for Business History in Stockholm
• ‘Great and Ancient,’ Creating Value Through Custodianship of the Swire Archives. Matthew Edmondson, Senior Archivist, Swire Archives
• Goldmine: The RSHP Archive as Design Refinery Aymée Thorne Clarke, Archivist, RSHP / Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
• Adventure in collaboration: unlocking potential of early TV advertising films for public and commercial good. David Powell, DC Thomson & Co Ltd and Kay Foubister, NLS Moving Image Archive

Evening drinks reception (from 17:45 includes whisky nosing and tasting with canapes)

Bookings are open for BACS and BAC members now and will open to the wider sector from the 9th August.

Any questions should be directed to Business.Bites.Contact@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Conference Bursaries

The Business Archives Council of Scotland and the Business Archives Council are each funding two bursaries to attend their joint conference ‘Liquid Gold: realising the potential of your business archive collection’ on 7th November 2024.

These bursaries are open to members and non-members of the BAC and BACS. Applicants for the bursaries need to meet one of the following criteria:

• Be a student or
• Be a recent graduate (in the last 3 years ie graduated by July 2021) or
• Be a qualified archivist, currently out-of-employment (this excludes consultants and freelancers) or
• Be retired from the archives profession or retired with an interest in business history

The bursary covers full conference attendance, including up to £150 for travel & accommodation expenses (receipts will be required ahead of reimbursement.) The following should also be noted:

• Applicants must confirm that any costs they claim will not be paid by their employer, and that their employer has not already registered them as a delegate at the Conferences.
• Successful applicants will be asked to provide a short report on their experience at the conference to be used in various BAC & BACS communications and encouraged to contribute to the reporting of the conference through social media while the conference is taking place.

How to Apply
Applications must be made by completing the Conference Bursary application form and e-mail the form to Business.Bites.Contact@gmail.com by 15th September 2024.

We will contact successful applicants with instructions on how to book their place.

2024 AGM

The 2024 AGM for the Business Archives Council of Scotland took place on Thursday 20th June at the AK Bell Library in Perth.

The papers discussed are below:

• 2024 AGM Agenda
• 2023 AGM Minutes
• 2024 Annual Report & Accounts

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: Commercial Opportunities for Cultural Heritage Organisations

Our September Business Bites session is now open for bookings. This event is for BAC and BACS members only. For more information on joining BACS please see here.

Theme: Commercial Opportunities for Cultural Heritage Organisations
Where: Online – via Zoom
When: 25th September 2024, 12.30 – 13.30
Speaker: Naomi Korn
What: The creative industries generate approximately £24 billion pounds worth of value to the UK economy. A substantial component of this will be the identification, management and optimisation of associated Intellectual Property (IP), such as copyright and trade marks.

As a major player in the UK’s creative industries, there are important commercial opportunities for cultural heritage organisations to explore in terms of how they might leverage their IP particularly through commercial licensing. However, the development and implementation of a commercial licensing strategy is not a magic bullet and will involve careful planning and investment.

This webinar will introduce the concept of the building blocks required for developing a successful commercial licensing strategy. Focussing on examples, it will examine the dimensions that need to be explored as part of the planning process to ensure the greatest likely return on investment.

Speaker: Naomi Korn (Founder and CEO of Naomi Korn Associates)
Naomi Korn is one of the UK’s leading experts in copyright, data protection and licensing. She has supported the cultural, heritage, charity, education and private sectors since 1999. Naomi is the CEO and strategic lead for Naomi Korn Associates, one of the UK’s leading management consultancies providing copyright and data protection support, and co-author of “Information Law: Compliance for librarians, information professionals and knowledge managers” together with Charles Oppenheim and Adrienne Muir. In 2020, Naomi was awarded the Walford Award for her outstanding contribution to knowledge and information management.

Book your free place to attend here.

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 2024 and we will hold a Business Bites event every two months with the first event in February on Research Using 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. Events for 2024 are planned for February, May, June, September, December.

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!)