York becomes the first UK council to adopt pioneering new archive cataloguing technique

York has become the first City in the UK to adopt a pioneering technique that will create the first digital catalogue of a unique 800 year old civic archives in record time.

The project archivist is taking on the ambitious task of cataloguing the archives using a method never used before in the UK on city records – to carry out the project in just 15 months, whereas traditionally it could take up to 10 years.

The behind-the-scenes project blog is at http://citymakinghistory.wordpress.com

The project focuses on an American method: ‘More Product Less Process’ and will create a general catalogue which provides access to groups of records, to which more detail can then be added to over time. This method means the public will have access to a wide range of records quickly, rather than having to wait years for individual items to be sorted, detailed and catalogued.

The project will create the first online database of York’s civic archives and the only new large-scale catalogue since William Giles, the deputy Town Clerk, produced the first in 1909.

Project Archivist, Justine Winstanley-Brown, said: “Civic records uniquely record decisions and actions that affect everyone who visits, lives or works in the City of York. If you want to explore the history of your street or ancestors, your school or pub, bar walls or swimming pools, urban history or local democracy, there is something for everyone waiting to be discovered in the archive. It preserves the stories of thousands of citizens and the new catalogue will make them easier to find than ever before.”

The council’s Libraries and Archives team successfully bid for and received £38,400 from the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme last year to kick-start ‘A City Making History’. York’s project was one of only 12 successful bids from a field of 67 from across the UK to win funding from the scheme, which is administered by The National Archives.