The Archives and Local Studies Service is constantly adding to its collections and will gratefully receive documents and related material from the public. A copy of the Service's collection policy can be downloaded from the link below.
We collect records for any locality in the East Riding of Yorkshire and for organisations, families or individuals that have an association with the East Riding.
We are not just interested in the records of official bodies or large landed estates. Sources from the general public that reflect the everyday life of East Riding people are also very welcome.
Family letters, diaries and photographs or the records of groups, societies and businesses that local people have been involved with can be placed with us. The Archives and Local Studies Service retains documents and related material permanently for their evidential or historical value for future generations. Consequently, items do not have to be obviously 'old' to be suitable for deposit.
The Archives and Local Studies Service is also selective in what it preserves and we retain the right to decline items that do not comply with our collection policy and weed out records of limited informational value.
Deposit and Gift Agreements
Records can be presented to the Archives and Local Studies Service either as a gift or a deposit. Copies of our gift and deposit agreements can be downloaded from the links below.
A gift is an outright donation to the Archives and Local Studies Service in which title to the records is transferred to East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
A deposit takes the form of a loan in which ownership of the records is still vested in the depositor on the understanding that their custody is transferred to the Archives and Local Studies Service. A depositor will retain a right to temporarily withdraw individual items for legal purposes, reference or an exhibition for example.
The deposit and gift agreements are formal legally binding documents signed by the donor or depositor and the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Manager. We want to encourage the public to deposit or donate items to us. Please contact a member of staff if you need any clauses in the agreements explaining or if you wish to discuss any aspect of the process of donation or deposit.
Click here to obtain contact details or fill in this on-line service request form.
Restricted Access
The presumption will be that private records donated or deposited with the Archives and Local Studies Service can be made available for public consultation in the research room unless the donor or depositor specifies otherwise.
There are circumstances where it is inappropriate for records to be publicly available. This might be because they contain personal details, are records of current decision-making or contain commercially sensitive information. In these circumstances the Archives and Local Studies Service can agree to records being held on restricted access, typically a period of closure for a fixed period of time.
Access to records of public authorities must comply with the Freedom of Information Act. The presumption will be that records of public authorities will be open to the public unless a specific exemption under the Act can be claimed.
Services provided to Donors and Depositors
The Archives and Local Studies Service will:
- Provide the donor or depositor with a receipt/agreement as appropriate.
- Allocate a unique accession number to archive collections and record information about them in an accession register and database.
- Store the sources in a secure and environmentally monitored strong room as appropriate.
- Where resources permit, provide a catalogue of the records donated or deposited.
- Make information from the catalogue available over the internet on our web pages and provide a hard copy of the catalogue in our research room.
- Make the sources available for public consultation in the research room, subject to any agreed restrictions.
