To find out about how RAG works or become a member, visit the About RAG section
If you’re looking for information about religious archives in the UK or how to look after your own archives, visit the Advice and Guidance pages
For information about the yearly RAG conference and other events, visit the Conferences and Events pages
To find out about our projects, visit the Current Projects section
‘First steps in archives’, Pusey House, St Giles, Oxford, Tuesday 12 July 2016
This is an elementary archives training workshop for those with responsibility for records and archives within a religious context but who are without archives or records management training or background.
The workshop, provided by the Religious Archives Group in association with The National Archives, will offer basic guidance on collecting policies, retention, arranging and cataloguing, and storage and packaging.
It will be held on Tuesday 12 July 2016 at Pusey House in Oxford, from 10.30am to 4.15pm. Tea and coffee will be available (at a small charge) but lunch is not provided.
There is a charge of £5 for the day. Payment should be made to the ‘Religious Archives Group’ electronically by BACS (bank name: Santander; account: 98499814 ; sort code: 09 01 27).
Payment may also be made by cheque, please ask for details.
Places are limited and preference will be given to those whose working alone.
For further information and to book a place please contact Dr Tim Powell (tim.powell@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk)
We are delighted to announce that this year’s Religious Archives Group Conference will be held at Canterbury Cathedral on Monday 9 May 2016. The theme will be Digitisation and Religious Archives. Sign in will be from 10am and the conference will conclude with a tour of the Cathedral, or alternatively of the Cathedral Archives and Library, from 3.30pm. Further details and the booking form are here
We recognise that Canterbury may be a lengthy journey for some members. However, there is a fast train from St Pancras to Canterbury West which takes less than an hour. There are also alternative services from London Victoria and Charing Cross.
For those who may wish to book accommodation, Canterbury Cathedral Lodge is offering a special rate for the Sunday night for those attending the conference. Please see https://www.canterburycathedrallodge.org/ There are a range of other accommodation options in the city.
The Catholic Archives Society has just released its latest advice leaflet on Basic Disaster Planning. This excellent document can be downloaded as a pdf.
This and the pdfs of the Society’s other leaflets can be viewed through the CAS website here
This Manual is from the Baptist World Alliance Heritage and Identity Commission site, at http://www.bwa-baptist-heritage.org/index.htm. I would hesitate at some of the advice given but it’s written in an accessible way, and the Commission has given serious thought to the digital challenge,
“[The Manual] is based on professional principles and uses traditional paper documents and processes which were the standard when it was first written in the 1990s.
Since then, of course, the digital world has appeared, and this means that archiving procedures and policies have to make the transition. As far as archives are concerned, the new digital world is the same only different – the same because the end process is still to preserve records for as long as they are needed in such a way that they are well kept and accessible to those who will use them. However the records themselves are different, the processes used to create, manage and retrieve them are different, and the media on which they reside and means of managing them are different. There are other differences too, but that gives a simple outline of the situation.
There are at least two aspects to going digital – one is to manage the documents now being created digitally (they are “born digital”), while the other is turn existing paper records into a digital form (so they become “re-born digital” documents), and then of course, to manage them in the same way as those born digital.”
Since the start of the year Quaker Strongrooms, the archives blog of the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, has been featuring the rich World War One resources held by the archives.
It is well worth visiting, here.
