Donating or Depositing - What's the difference?

Bedfordshire Archives Service relies on donors and depositors to help extend its collections and make more of Bedfordshire's written heritage available for study for everyone.  The service accepts material from individuals or bodies in one of two ways, either as a donation (gift) or a deposit (long-term loan).

Donation

You donate the material to the office and ownership of that material transfers to the council.  Any material we do not want we will return to you, destroy or where applicable transfer to another repository or sell as agreed with you at the time of the donation.  Material that we regard as worthy of permanent preservation within the archive collections is stored securely in suitable environmental conditions, catalogued and made available for use by the general public.

Deposit

You may deposit material with us as a long-term loan, which means that you continue to own it whilst we store it on your behalf and make it available to people to study. There is no charge for storing the material; however long-term loan is defined as for at least 20 years from date of deposit. Any material we do not want we will either return to you, transfer to another repository or dispose of as agreed with us at the time of deposit.

Full terms and conditions for donations and deposits can be downloaded here: Terms of Donation (Gift)  and Terms of Deposit (Loan)