Coventry University Archives: Get Involved / Donations

Volunteering

There is always something to be done in the archive, so if you are interested in volunteering with us get in touch for an initial chat.

You might be a former or current member of staff who has knowledge to pass on, people who want to get some experience of working with archives, students, or members of the general public who are interested in or have knowledge of a particular subject.

Examples of archival tasks include:

• helping to sort and provide draft lists for uncatalogued material
• indexing – such as adding subject ‘tags’ to the archives catalogue, indexing secondary material such as specialist magazines to highlight relevant sources of information
• sorting secondary material such as press cuttings, printed and published items, copies of material held elsewhere, research files on particular subjects
• carrying out online research to help in the cataloguing process
• proof-reading text
• re-packaging material.

Volunteer Agreement  

Donating Items to the Archives

Details of what archive material we already have is available on our online catalogue and the types of items we would like are shown in our collecting policy. 

If you have or know of material that you think would fit with our collecting policy we would be glad to hear from you. For example items for the history of Coventry University might include:

• publications (e.g. annual reports, prospectuses, staff and student magazines and newsletters);
• promotional and marketing material such as posters and leaflets, or objects;
• photographs (of buildings, staff, students, work and life at the university);
• administrative items such as files, reports, and correspondence.

It does not matter if material you have is not that old because items produced today are the archives of tomorrow.

To make an initial enquiry please contact archives.lib@coventry.ac.uk.