ArchiveSearch

ArchiveSearch

A new Archive Management System for the University of Cambridge  

Image shows a variety of wooden storage boxes on a shelf.

Credit: Alice the Camera

Credit: Alice the Camera

Cambridge University Library has launched ArchiveSearch, a new discovery platform for archives held at Cambridge University Library and across the city. This allows a global audience of thousands of students, local historians, and academic researchers to explore the wealth of archives held in the city.

Behind ArchiveSearch is a new archive management system called ArchivesSpace which has been implemented to provide online access to archives, manuscripts, and digital objects and to provide archivists with robust tools to steward these unique and irreplaceable materials.  

Image shows a parchment document with the crest of the University of Cambridge.

ArchiveSearch contains an impressive amount of data. There are 788,539 published records available to users.

In total, 876,759 records were successfully migrated from 26 legacy systems to the new system which is run by Cambridge University Library and supports 30 different partners from university departments, faculties, museums, and colleges who opted to join during the project.

There is enormous value for users in connecting the collections that are held by different repositories to reduce the time and energy needed for searching and enabling serendipitous discovery of resources that have not yet been cited in publications and may otherwise remain overlooked.

The archival collections held in Cambridge represent many of the city's richest cultural treasures. ArchiveSearch provides access to archives: the history of the city, University and colleges can now be explored alongside collections created by an enormous range of influential people from Charles Darwin to John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Thatcher to PD James.

Image shows a handwritten document with pawprint marks.

Credit: Sian Collins. Kitten pawprints on a document from the Ely Diocesan records.

Credit: Sian Collins. Kitten pawprints on a document from the Ely Diocesan records.

With an increasing focus on digital research, which has accelerated in the pandemic, it was important to be able to find and link to complementary digital collections - for example Darwin letters available in Cambridge Digital Library and transcriptions on the Darwin Correspondence Project website. 

Most archives are not yet available digitally, and researchers can easily find information about access conditions and opening hours and contact repositories to book appointments. Easy cross-searching of Cambridge archives supports collaboration and new research discoveries and connections. 

Mark Purcell, Deputy Director, Research Collections, at Cambridge University Library, said: “This infrastructure will help identify archival collections to support collaborative, collections-based research and engagement across the University.” 

Examples include research on the legacies of enslavement, cross-collection digitisation projects like the papers of biochemist and historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham and exhibitions like The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge exhibition held at Cambridge University Library in 2019. 

Image shows a steam train on a track in a rocky and wooded area.

The Canadian Pacific Railway Pacific Express in Kicking Horse Canyon, Canada, c 1910-1930. From the archives of the Colonial and Commonwealth Church Society.

The Canadian Pacific Railway Pacific Express in Kicking Horse Canyon, Canada, c 1910-1930. From the archives of the Colonial and Commonwealth Church Society.

Image is a historic photograph of a plane on the ground with a person standing next to it.

A Vickers Vimy heavy bomber

A Vickers Vimy heavy bomber

Image shows a colourful historic map of Cambridge in an open folder.

Image credit: Alice the Camera

Image shows a large building surrounded by large numbers of people.

The Senate House in Cambridge surrounded by crowds of people gathered to witness the vote on awarding degrees to women, 1897.

Image shows a colourful historic map of Cambridge in an open folder.

Image credit: Alice the Camera

Image shows a large building surrounded by large numbers of people.

The Senate House in Cambridge surrounded by crowds of people gathered to witness the vote on awarding degrees to women, 1897.

One of the strongest themes across the university’s archives are the city and University of Cambridge. With the archives of the University, Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment, as well as those of the colleges, the university is well-served for its history and examining its interactions with the wider world, from the Ely Assizes records documenting misdemeanours in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, to the Covid-19 collection chronicling the highs and lows of the present day. 

The archive management system enabled many library and archive staff to work from home in ways they would not have anticipated before the pandemic. Librarians and archivists including Claire Welford-Elkin, Michelle Barnes, and Elizabeth Savage, normally busy providing essential services to Library users in our reading rooms, have thrown themselves into the task of creating an impressive 11,098 new records on the system. 

ArchiveSearch replaces Janus, a grassroots initiative by Cambridge archivists over 20 years ago to create an online union catalogue of Cambridge archives.  

For further information, please contact: archivesearch@lib.cam.ac.uk