Article: David Styles | Image: Leena Lindell, associate archivist at the National Railway Museum, delves into the museum's archives © National Railway Museum
The National Railway Museum’s research and archive centre has received Archive Service Accreditation by The National Archives for the very first time.
The National Railway Museum’s archive is home to over 1,000 paintings, 2,350 prints and drawings, 1.75m photographs, and 11,000 original railway travel posters. This vast collection has been visited and studied by more than 400,000 people since 2008.
The centre’s newly awarded recognition, which is viewed as the national benchmark for excellence in archiving, follows assessment which took place over four months and involved a site visit, interviews and the submission of written evidence.
“Achieving Archive Service Accreditation is a huge achievement for the museum and represents many hours of work from everyone in the archive team and from our many volunteers,” noted Jane Hubbard, archives manager at the National Railway Museum.
“Search Engine users will have confidence and reassurance that the facility is cared for and managed in a sustainable way, as they delve into the history of the railways, its people and their stories. This will also help safeguard and maintain the collection, ensuring that the UK continues to have one of the richest railway archives in the world.”
The joyously named Search Engine research and archive centre now joins the likes of the Science Museum Group and more recently the Wellcome Collection in receiving recognition from the National Archives.