Information for Archivists
The Ballast Trust can help archives with collections of technical records where staff lack the knowledge to understand and process them.
We offer advice on managing and understanding technical plans, drawings, photographs and maps. We are also working on a guide to understanding shipbuilding records that will be available on our website when published and we have plans for other guidance documents for railway and engineering records.
In certain circumstances we can also list, sort and catalogue collections on behalf of archives. This will depend on our own cataloguing backlog, the skills of our volunteers and the suitability of the collection.
Please contact us if you would like further information.
In 2012, our Archivist gave this presentation on processing technical records as part of a BACS training day on understanding technical records. Some of the other resources from that day can be found here.