Although the History Centre provides a single point of access, behind the scenes we remain three services. Each developed its own collecting or acquisition policies, and these have now been brought together in the History Centre's Acquisition Policy.
How to donate material
If you have items that you think should be preserved, and would benefit users of the Hull History Centre, please contact us. An archivist or local studies librarian will then get in touch to find out more about your material.
If we agree that your items are suitable for adding to our collections, we will ask you to sign a deposit or donation agreement and arrange to transfer the item(s) to the History Centre.
We may recommend that you approach a different repository, such as East Riding Archives, if we think it would be a more suitable home for your item.
The History Centre will collect records such as manuscripts (handwritten documents), printed works, typescripts (typed or printed documents), maps, plans, drawings, photographs, digital media, and sound/video archives.
In general we cannot accept works of art, 3D objects or artefacts. We will usually suggest offering these to Hull Museums service.
Unsolicited donations
Please do not send donations to us in the post without first agreeing your donation with a History Centre archivist or librarian.
If you do send us a donation without agreement and we decide not to accept it, we will contact you to ask you to collect the item(s) or arrange their collection from us within one month. We cannot pay return postage. If the item(s) are not collected within one month they will be disposed of.
If you send us a donation without including your contact details and we decide not to accept it, we will dispose of it after one month.