York’s nationally important city archives, curated by City of York Council, will be moving to York Explore Library Learning Centre in 2013.

Ahead of that, the archives must relocate from their current stores in the City Art Gallery to allow for the Gallery’s major redevelopment by York Museums Trust. The archives will be temporarily relocated to secure off-site storage to protect them from the damage which would occur if they remained in the Art Gallery during its refurbishment. This will unfortunately require a temporary suspension of public access to the original archives from 1 February 2013. However, whilst the archives are in storage, the existing local history library service at York Explore will still be available, including copies of some of the archives on microfilm and in published form.

Meanwhile, City of York Council’s Round 2 funding application for the ‘York: Gateway to History’ project was submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) on 1 September. A final decision from the HLF is expected around Christmas. Works at York Explore will take place throughout 2013 to accommodate the archives. Depending on the outcome of the HLF application these could include the refurbishment of the first floor to create a suite of easily-accessible public spaces for archive users, and a new conservation store built to the latest British Standard to house the archives themselves.

Residents are invited to join the 444 people who have already contributed ideas on how to develop the project via www.york.gov.uk/archives – click on the “York: Gateway to History project” link.

If you have a comment or suggestion about the future plans for the archives please email gatewaytohistory@york.gov.uk or write to: Richard Taylor, Gateway to History project, City of York Council, 2nd floor, 18 Back Swinegate, York YO1 8ZD. You can also request to receive email updates on the project by email by using the contact details above.