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By donating or lending your records to Dorset History Centre you can be sure they will be carefully looked after by skilled professionals.
You can pass your archives to us in one of two ways:
- gift your collection as a donation to Dorset History Centre, making it accessible to the public for all time
- deposit your archives, enabling us to make them accessible to the public while you retain legal ownership. See our standard terms of deposit for more details.
All records in the custody of Dorset History Centre are:
- carefully stored in appropriate conditions: temperature and humidity controlled strong rooms for physical items, and a managed digital repository for digital items
- protected from fire and intruders
- made available to the public as appropriate (normally all records would be made available to the public unless specifically exempted under the terms of the Data Protection Act)
- conserved as appropriate within the overall conservation programme
Please carefully read our acquisition policy if you are considering transferring your documents to Dorset History Centre.
Collection policy
It is our policy to collect both published and unpublished material that relates principally to the history of Dorset, is unique and of long term historical value. We are interested in records regardless of their format, including digital records.
For guidance on the type of documents suitable for preservation please see our retention schedules:
- Retention Schedule for personal papers
- Retention Schedule for non-profit organisations
- Retention Schedule for Parish Councils
- Retention Schedule for Schools
- Retention Schedule for Business Collections
How to deposit your records
If you have records that you think may be suitable for deposit at Dorset History Centre, please contact us to discuss the records and any necessary arrangements. We can then arrange an appointment for you to bring the records to the History Centre and go through them with an archivist. Please do not bring records to the History Centre without arranging an appointment first.
If you think that you have, or you know of, any records that would be of interest to us, please contact us: