About the Access Agreement

Please read the following paragraphs carefully. When you sign the Access Agreement, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this section. If you have any questions please ask one of the archivists for help or clarification.

Definitions:

In the Access Agreement and in these notes:

‘Records’ means archival material held by the Noel Butlin Archives Centre.

‘Manuscript’ means any compilation of words or figures in any medium, which is intended to be published.

‘Depositor’ means the owner of the records, whether an individual or a corporate body. The term includes any person designated by the depositor to exercise the rights of ownership, and any person holding an office of authority within a corporate depositor.

‘Publish’ includes depositing a copy or copies of the manuscript in a library or other institution where it may be available for consultation by members of the public.

‘Restricted Access’ means the arrangement whereby records are made available for research only after the permission of the depositor has been obtained by the Centre's staff.

Notes:

Agreement Clause 3: "…. a copy of any manuscript...". You are not required to submit the whole manuscript, provided that all sections citing or quoting the records are submitted, together with the actual footnotes or endnotes and sufficient context to make the relevant sections understandable. Thus, what is required may be a few pages, a chapter, or the whole document, depending on the circumstances.

Agreement Clause 4: Depositors are asked to be specific in raising objections. The Centre seeks to negotiate a form of words that will satisfy the sensitivities of the depositor and the legitimate intentions of the writer.

Agreement Clause 7: Every reader is given access on the same terms, that is, those of the Access Agreement. Interested friends or colleagues should be directed to the Centre, where they will be given the same level of assistance as all our readers and will be thus much better off than if simply given partial evidence. You are, of course, free to give them other help, such as lists of citations, which will certainly assist them if they visit the Centre to use the records.

Rules of the Centre:

The principal rules of the Centre are:

• All prudent care should be taken to ensure that records are not marked, disordered or subjected to rough handling causing creasing or other physical damage.
• Only one box of records should be open at a time.
• Citations should follow the format set out in the Citation of Archives Fact Sheet.

Readers are asked to read the notice board in the search rooms and on the desks and tables to ensure that they are familiar with any new or altered rules.

Photocopying is a major undertaking and the amount that can be done is partly dependent on the complexity of the task. In general, a maximum of 200 copies per month will be done for any reader. If other work is up to date and there is spare capacity, this rule may be relaxed. Readers can increase their chances of getting their photocopying done promptly by ensuring that it is clearly and unambiguously marked up.

The Centre reserves the right not to copy any records that may be damaged by so doing or where copying may be contrary to the wishes of the owner of the records. For further details see the Photographic Services and Photocopying Services fact sheets.

Finally, please help us to help you. If you have suggestions as to how we can improve reader services, please let us know.

The Access Agreement [19kb]