Help to Save the Broadlands Archives
The Broadlands Archives have been on loan to the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton Highfield campus since 1989 and are one of the most important manuscript collections in their care. Stored in purpose-built facilities in the Hartley Library’s Special Collections Division, the documents are publicly available and have been used by researchers from around the world. The Trustees of the Broadlands Archives have determined to sell the collection and have offered it to the University. The expectation is that if negotiations fail, the collection will be sold at auction, and may well be broken up and dispersed, with many parts not finding places in public repositories.
The net price is a substantial one, £2.85 million, and the University of Southampton have until April to complete the transaction. The University is undertaking a major fund-raising campaign to assure the future of the collection. It is working with funding bodies including the National Heritage Memorial Fund, but will need to raise considerable sums from other sources.
For more information please follow this link. Please direct any contributions or suggested sponsorship directly to Professor Chris Woolgar (C.M.Woolgar@soton.ac.uk)
A donation form is available by following this link. This is an international campaign for one of the most important collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century archives.
<< Back to News
