Get involved

Volunteers
The University is always looking for people who are willing to help with various archival tasks.

This can be former or current members of staff who have knowledge to pass on; people who want to get some experience of working with archives; students; or members of the general public who are interested in or have knowledge of a particular subject.

The work can involve:

  • helping to sort and provide draft lists for uncatalogued material
  • indexing – such as adding subject ‘tags’ to the archives catalogue, indexing secondary material such as specialist magazines to highlight relevant sources of information
  • sorting secondary material such as press cuttings, printed and published items, copies of material held elsewhere, research files on particular subjects
  • carrying out online research to help in the cataloguing process, or proof-reading text
  • re-packaging material.

If you are interested in volunteering please contact the University Archivist Gary Collins (archives.lib@coventry.ac.uk; 024 7765 7882).

if you are interested in volunteering just for the Lanchester Interactive Archive project e-mail info@lanchesterinteractive.org.

Donating archives
If you have or know of material that you think the university would be interested in, we would be glad to hear from you. The university usually only accepts donations and anything offered has to fit in with the university’s collections policy.

If the university feels that it is not the right place to accept archive material, it will suggest an alternative organisation.

Archives news
You can keep up to date with news and blogs about the archives on our news page, or via twitter (@CovUniLibrary).

You can also check the News & Events section of the Lanchester Interactive Archives project website for news on the Frederick Lanchester collection (or via twitter @lanchester_ia).