Friends’ membership subscriptions provide a valuable regular income which contributes towards collections care and improvements to Argyll Estates Archives research facilities. The Friends also support targeted fundraising initiatives for the archive to help with conservation, cataloguing and engagement.
Many of our records bear witness to their age and the varied conditions in which they have been kept over the years. His Grace the Duke of Argyll provides storage, research space and a professional archive team to manage the collection, but additional financial investment is needed to conserve items most at risk.
Help us fund a new Plan Chest
Following the success of our ‘Adopt a Glass Plate Negative’ campaign, we urgently require an additional plan chest to hold newly catalogued maps, plans and architectural drawings.
The archive holds hundreds of fascinating maps, plans and drawings relating to the Argyll estate. These are some of the most important and visually appealing records in the collection, and a recent plan cleaning and cataloguing drive has created the need for a new chest.
Plan chests store flattened, oversize documents in long shallow drawers for ease of access. The archive currently has three such chests: an older wooden one and two modern precision-engineered steel chests. These are at full capacity and a fourth chest is now an essential requirement. However, the price of these specialist pieces of equipment has more than doubled over the last 10 years. A new chest from a trusted supplier costs in excess of £4,000 today.
Would YOU like to help us fund the purchase of a new maps and plans chest? The archivists would be delighted to hear from you.
Why Your Support Matters
Conservation is the process by which archives are stabilised and repaired so that they can be preserved for the future and made available to researchers, in person or digitally. Many items need minimal intervention, others need substantial care and attention. We ensure all work is done by skilled conservators, trained in the most up-to-date techniques and using the most appropriate technologies and materials available.
Preservation and conservation are expensive to implement: from the purchase of acid free boxes, folders and seal bags to employing the services of a skilled conservator. The results of this investment, however, will be an archive that can be accessed for another 800 years. We think this is an investment worth making and we invite you to support us in this work.