Access to Uncatalogued Collections

As part of our commitment to reducing barriers to access, we now facilitate managed access to uncatalogued collections, subject to our duty of care to individuals and organisations represented in the material, and where permitted under the terms of deposit.

See the public access procedures for the terms under which uncatalogued archival material can be made available.

See the Enquiries guidelines for details on how to process uncatalogued material requests.

Sensitivity reviewing uncatalogued material

All material must be sensitivity reviewed before access is provided to the public

How to sensitivity review

• The level of sensitivity review required will depend on the nature of the material: a box of publications will need nothing more than a quick check to establish that is all that is in the box; a box of unpublished papers will need a more detailed check

• Sensitivity review should follow the standard process explained elsewhere in this guidance. Both personal data and business sensitive information should be looked for.

• The person doing the review is unlikely to have the contextual knowledge required to understand all the possible sensitivities and thus be able to undertake a thorough review. Staff should err on the side of caution and close or restrict material if there is any uncertainty.

• If the quantity of sensitive material is small, remove it and leave a bookmark in situ. Make a note of the box number/file from which it has been taken out so that you can put it back in the same place/order once the box is finished with. Place any extracted material in the labelled box in the 371 workroom.

• If a high proportion of a box is sensitive, it may be appropriate to refuse to allow access to the box.

• Record details of any sensitive information found in the box list, especially closed material that should not be made available.

What to sensitivity review

• If the requestor has been specific and the material required is easily identifiable, you can extract the material from its box and review just that.

• If the request is general or the material is not easily identifiable, or it cannot be easily extracted from the rest of the contents of a box, then the entire box should be reviewed.

Purchased published material and individually donated items are given a temporary catalogue record at the point of acquisition, which is made visible online to the public.

If a library user requests one of these uncatalogued items, it will be catalogued on demand, provided the request and timescale is reasonable and sufficient staff resources are available.