Information for owners and depositors

Deposit or donation?

You can pass your archives to us in one of two ways:

• You can gift collection as a donation to the Dorset History Centre, making them accessible to the public for all time

• You can deposit your archives, enabling us to make them accessible to the public while you retain legal ownership. See our standard terms of deposit (pdf, 201kb) (opens in a new window)  for more details.

 All records in the custody of the Dorset History Centre are:

• Carefully stored in temperature and humidity controlled strong rooms

• Protected from fire and intruders

• Made available to the public as appropriate (normally all records would be made available to the public unless specifically exempted under the terms of the Data Protection Act)

• Conserved as appropriate within the overall conservation programme (pdf, 91kb) (opens in a new window)

Please carefully read our  acquisition policy (pdf, 48kb) (opens in a new window) if you are considering transferring your documents to the Dorset History Centre

Collection policy

It is our policy to collect both published and unpublished material that relates principally to the history of Dorset, is unique and of long term historical value.

If you think that you have, or you know of, any records that would be of interest to us, please contact the Collections Officer.