2016 Conference

Branching out: the rewards and realities of diversifying your service was held on Monday 21 November 2016 at HSBC's head office in Canary Wharf.

This year's conference aimed to share, discuss and debate the variety of ways business archives can branch out and become more diverse, from moving beyond the traditional archive functions to making collections more relevant for the 21st century audience.

A range of case studies considered what practical steps can be taken to make your collection more diverse, with a focus on using volunteers and members of the community to collect, interpret and catalogue.

Speakers on the day were:

Jeff James, The National Archives

Helen Swinnerton, HSBC Archives - A Different Reality: Seeing the archives through a new lens for HSBC150

Sophie Clapp, Boots Archive - Exploiting the benefits of a good education

Dr Andrew Flinn, University College London - Opening up the archive: community and participatory approaches to archival functions

Kate Maisey, Gloucestershire Archives - ‘There’s nothing like a Lister’- volunteer involvement with the archive of R A Lister & Co Ltd of Dursley, engineers

Laura Yeoman, Explore York Libraries and Archives -Out of the strongroom and into the street: Exploring new directions in community engagement

Sam Roberts, Director of Ghostsigns and Better Letters and Associate Researcher at the Typographic Hub, within the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design- Ghost signs, Traces of an urban past – co-production and community archives

Jake Berger, BBC Archive Development - ‘BBC Reminiscence Archive - Using archive material to help people with dementia‘

Arike Oke, Rambert Archive - ‘Unboxing: Performing the archive on tour’

There was also a number of panel and discussion sessions where attendees explored the themes discussed during the presentations. Take a look at the full programme.

Read the speakers' abstracts.

The conference was followed by a reception for the presentation of the BAC Wadsworth Prize for Business History, nearby at Barclays, Canary Wharf.

Please send any questions to conference organisers Jemma Lee and Hannah Jenkinson at: bacconference@gmail.com