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The British Archives: A Guide to Archive Resources in the United Kingdom (review)

This is the fourth edition of a reference work that has proven its worth to historians of British institutions as well as archival and library historians for the past twenty years. Those scholars not acquainted with the three earlier editions of this work—1982, 1989, and 1995—have a treat in store for them. The editors, archivists at the Wellcome Library in London, have prepared each of these directories and deserve the gratitude of all scholars of British history and culture. They state in the foreword that there are 1,231 entries and that 478 new institutions were considered for inclusion, many of them business institutions. They further admit in the foreword that this revision has taken longer to release than expected, largely because “[t]he archive scene in the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, has been transformed by the explosion in electronic access to information. A huge number of projects have made possible access to catalogues, lists and guides on the Internet” (vii). The introduction contains a brief essay entitled “Archives: What They Are and How to Use Them,” statements on methodology, sources, additions, and exclusions, and the method of information collection as well as a categorization of local authority record offices and local study libraries. The composition of entries, insofar as data were received, includes the following headings: name of repository, parent organization, address, telephone, fax, e-mail, Website, enquiries, open access, historical background, acquisitions policy, archives of organization, major collections, nonmanuscript material, finding aids, facilities conservation, and publications. The chronologically numbered entries for institutions appear alphabetically by town and city and then by proper name. Several other features render this volume extraordinarily useful. “Useful Organizations and Websites” contains nearly sixty entries with substantial descriptive annotations. “Useful Publications” includes several pages of reference works classified by broad subject. Three appendixes treat institutions that have transferred their archives; institutions that reported having no archives; and institutions that did not respond, requested not to be included, or supplied insufficient information. The first and third appendixes are consolidated from all four editions. Two indexes conclude the volume with references to entry numbers: a main alphabetical index to proper names and an index to key subjects by broad category. An example explains the use of the indexes. One is informed, by looking in the main index under the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), that entry 165A provides information. This entry, Cambridge University Library, includes a statement that the Manuscripts Department contains the SPCK archives (1699–1970). Other major units of the library are described as well, each with a historical context: University Archives, Royal Commonwealth Society Collections, and Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives. Although there is a wealth of information in this volume as a reference work for general historical information, the general library and archival historian will be most attracted to the substantial paragraphs of historical background that accompany most entries. These descriptions of the origin and development of institutions, difficult to find in one place, make every entry a jewel and well worth finding, turning the book into a kind of vade mecum—a virtual guidebook to archival repositories in Britain. This work, through its four editions, bears remarkable comparison with A Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the