Collection Policy

 

The Archives Hub is a JISC-funded service, based at Mimas (a national data centre), providing online access to descriptions of archive collections held across the UK. The service aims to build and enhance content in order to represent archives of value to UK researchers and seeks to align content development to identifiable user demand.

Scope

• In order to be included on the Archives Hub the collection should be deemed to be of value to the UK education and research communities.
• Collections may range from individual items, such as diaries and account books, to large company archives and extensive research collections. They may include descriptions of audio and visual materials and digital collections as well as more traditional paper-based archives.
• The Archives Hub welcomes the submission of collection-level descriptions or multi-level descriptions.
• Descriptions can include an embedded thumbnail image and links to further digital surrogates, either images or other digital objects.
• Descriptions should not exceed 5Mb in size. The Hub provides for breaking down large descriptions into intellectually related files by the use of an appropriate Encoded Archival Description (EAD) tag.

Format of Descriptions

• Records must be in EAD, an XML markup language for archive descriptions. They may be convertedto this from other formats (e.g. from collections management systems).
• Records should meet the ISAD(G) standard and the Archives Hub guidelines, including the mandatory fields specified by the Archives Hub.
• The Archives Hub team provide a validation service for all contributors' to check that they conform to Hub requirements.
• An EAD Editor is available on the Archives Hub website for the creation of EAD records (use of this is optional).
• Training in the creation of descriptions can be provided by the Archives Hub service team.

Ownership and Control

• By submitting descriptions to the Hub, institutions agree to make them freely available for the purposes of research through the Archives Hub.
• Institutions should be aware that the Archives Hub has API's to enable the data to be provided in a machine-to-machine way as well as a Linked Data store that encourages open use of the data.
• The Archives Hub makes data available under a Creative Commons Open Licence. Contributors need to opt out of this if they do not want their descriptions to be fully open in this way.
• Institutions are responsible for ensuring that their descriptions are accurate and are kept up-to-date.

Contact

If you would like to contribute or would like more information, please contact the Archives Hub Service Manager: jane.stevenson@manchester.ac.uk

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