The Journal of the Business Archives Council of Scotland (BACS)
In 2024 the BACS relaunched it’s journal under a new title Business and Industrial History: A Journal of Archival Research in partnership with the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Business History. Our journal is for archivists and historians to share and develop knowledge and awareness of
2026 Issue and Submissions
Our 2026 issue will be published in March 2026 and we are now seeking submissions through our Call for Papers. We welcome a range of papers in different formats and word lengths from articles, reviews, case studies, collections in focus pieces and reflections. These will broadly all into two forms: ‘notes or perspectives’, short pieces which may summarise a recent development or discuss an archival collection, and traditional academic research-based articles. Notes and perspective pieces should be a maximum of 3,000 words including references, while articles will be in the range of 6,000-8,000 words including references. The aims, scope and submission requirements are here with a full, detailed style guide available here.
If you would like to discuss a potential submission, please email us with the word ‘journal’ in the subject.
- Paper submission deadline: 30 September 2025
- Publication date: March 2026
All articles are peer reviewed in an open, transparent and supportive manner. Submissions are particularly encouraged from PhD students and early career researchers and archivists. Full contributions should be submitted to the Editorial Committee by 30 September 2025 via an open access platform provided by the University of Glasgow.
2025 Issue
Our first issue published in May 2025 was a special issue on the whisky industry entitled Whisky Business: regulating and recording the whisky industry. 2023 marked the 200th anniversary of the 1823 Excise Act which had a profound impact on the development of the whisky industry in Scotland. History and heritage are crucial to the industry which has a growing number of corporate archivists.
The papers included in this special issue add to that growing wealth of understanding of the development of the Scotch whisky industry through its collections. We have contributions which explore the early history of scotch whisky advertising (McCormack); the debate on the ‘oldest’ distillery (Russell), and the impact of the Excise Act on distilling in Ireland (Connolly). These sit alongside contributions from archivists sharing their perspectives of the vital work of creating, curating and cataloguing collections in different contexts, from the Glen Mhor (Julier) to Macallan (Chorley) and Whyte & Mackay (Roper-Caldbeck & McDonald). Together they show the symbiosis of researching and writing the histories of businesses and industries on the one hand, with the practice of business archival curation on the other. In short, and beyond their individual contributions, they reflect this journal’s aims perfectly, and offer a solid foundation for the next phase of Business and Industrial History.
Prizes
Two £300 prizes will be available for each issue of the journal from 2025 onwards in memory of Michael Moss and Lesley Richmond. Both of whom were former BACS Convenors and great supporters of business archives in Scotland who sadly passed away in 2020 and 2022 respectively.
The Moss and Richmond essay prizes are aimed at archivists, postgraduate students and early career researchers. Entries may explore any aspect of business and industrial history that uses archival resources or reflects archival practice within the context of corporate archives and those collecting repositories with business collections. We welcome essays developed from postgraduate work (e.g. master’s dissertation or chapter of PhD), professional practice or a piece of original research. Submissions should consist of between 3,500 and 7,000 words. Entries should follow the format specified in our detailed style guide.
Full details are available here.
Editorial Board
The editorial board consists of a mix of academics and archivists:
- Alison Turton, Archive Consultant
- Andrew Perchard, University of Otago
- Chris Cassells, National Library of Scotland
- Chris Miller, University of Glasgow
- Kiara King, The Ballast Trust
- Niall MacKenzie, University of Glasgow
- Zoi Pittaki, University of Dundee
History of the journal
The BIH journal has been published by BACS since 1977 and was previously known as Scottish Business and Industrial History (2011-2023) and Scottish Industrial History (1977-2010). During this time it published historical research by professional historians, archivists and independent scholars, covering a wide range of topics, periods and facets of Scotland’s business and industrial past.
Back copies of the journal have been digitised and are available on our past-view website thanks to the support of Townsweb Archiving.