Institute for Anglican Religious Life: Archive Resources
The starting point for the work of the Institute is the need to ensure the preservation of the legacy of Anglican religious communities, at this critical juncture in the life of the Church. During the course of 2022-23 we carried out an extensive scoping exercise to confirm the need for such an initiative. This included engagement with a number of Anglican religious communities, and other potential partners.
One of our primary objectives is to map the whereabouts and contents of Anglican religious archives, and to support communities in either managing their collections themselves, or in finding a suitable deposit for their archives. Ultimately, we hope to develop a research hub for the archives of as many Anglican religious orders as possible, not least by supporting the creation of detailed catalogues and databases. We hope that this exercise will culminate in a searchable online database of religious archives, a catalogue of catalogues!
We also have some capacity to store archive materials on site at the Institute, where we are keen to promote research into and engagement with a wide range of interests relating to Anglican religious life, past present and future.
Securing the Legacy of Anglican Religious Life
One of the purposes of the Institute is to support religious communities in the management and maintenance of their archive collections. To that end we are developing a series of Advice Sheets, the first three of which are now available and can be freely downloaded from this page.
These sheets aim to provide a guide to the purpose and contents of archives. They will take the community through identification, creation and ongoing maintenance of its collection. The process of building an archive can be summarised as follows:
- to search for and gather all potential archive material and historical objects
- to note their containers and where they were found
- to number and describe roughly their contents; and
- to transfer them into more suitable and accessible boxes, noting their original containers
- to develop an ongoing policy of collecting records