Buckinghamshire Archives worked with the National Paralympic Heritage Trust (NPHT) to make their internationally important archival collections relating to disability sports more accessible. Following a Wellcome Trust funded project called Spinal2Sport, which aimed to widen access to these collections, 463 boxes of unlisted archive records remained. To make these accessible, the Archives Service recruited 41 volunteers, who gave 5,000 hours of their time, to catalogue 35,000 records. These records can now be searched online for the first time.
The challenge
When the Spinal2Sport project ended, 463 boxes of archival material remained uncatalogued so the Buckinghamshire Archive Team needed to find creative solutions to make these archives available using their existing resources.
The solution
Buckinghamshire Archives used ‘New Burdens’ money to pay for a project archivist for twelve months. 'New Burdens' money is funding from central government that The UK National Archives distributes to cover the extra work for local authority places of deposit during the transition to the new 20-year rule for transferring records. Please note, New Burdens funding can no longer be claimed as of 1 January 2025 as the transition period has now ended.
In addition, working with National Paralympic Heritage Trust (NPHT), Buckinghamshire Archives recruited 41 volunteers via social media, who were trained in how to list and handle the documents. New procedures were created by archive staff to ensure the boxes were processed in a well-managed way, and Excel spreadsheets created for the volunteers to use. Volunteers listed the documents of each box at item level. A standardised approach to this was essential and staff carried out ongoing quality checks of the work, and addressed issues as needed. After the Project Archivist’s contract ended, Buckinghamshire Archive staff took on the management of the project for the remaining twelve months. The next stage was to upload the data to the Service’s online catalogue, a significant task in itself.
The impact
Thanks to the work of the volunteers, who gave 5000 hours of their time, and staff from Buckinghamshire Archives and NPHT, around 35,000 items are now searchable online for the first time. The new disability sports catalogue was launched on 14 August 2025 and was described as, ‘A huge milestone for Paralympic heritage’ by Natalia Dannenberg-Spreier (Head of Paralympic Heritage at the International Paralympic Committee).
How is the new approach being sustained?
Buckinghamshire Archives is committed to developing its collaborative work with NPHT. The disability sports online catalogue will continue to grow, as both organizations add more records for researchers around the world to access.
Lessons learned
The main lessons learned were around supporting and managing long-term, high volume, volunteer projects. Key to this success was having a comprehensive volunteer agreement that had a clearer description of the responsibilities of each party alongside appropriate training, quality checks and regular feedback.