Volunteering

Volunteering is an important part of the archives and records management sectors. There are lots of opportunities with archives around the world to get involved with and volunteer a small amount of your time to help archives with particular projects that they may be undertaking.

Opportunities

Where to find volunteering opportunities

Your local archives: Get in touch with nearby organisations directly to find out if they are looking for volunteers. View our Archives Map to find contact details for your local archive (remember not all Scottish archives are listed yet, so do search wider if you can’t find what you’re looking for).

Make Your Mark Volunteering Portal: all opportunities are screened for accessibility

Volunteer Scotland Portal: Opportunities from across Scotland

Regional volunteer portals will show you opportunities near you. These include ones such as Volunteer Glasgow, Volunteer Edinburgh , Highland Volunteering.

Online Volunteering Opportunities

Don’t worry if you cannot find opportunities near you, there are some great remote opportunities that you can do. Take a look at some of the sites below to see some to get involved with:

University of Stirling Collections: A range of in-person and online opportunities

Zooniverse: A range of projects to get involved in

American National Archives: Undertake set ‘transcription missions’ or create your own.

The Australian War Memorial: Transcribe documents in the Memorial’s collection.

Discovering Deeds: Latin readers can help Cheshire Archives to translate Medieval Deeds

Europeana Transcribathon: Volunteer to transcribe unique, unpublished, records from WWI.

FreeBMD: Transcribe the registration index of births, marriages and deaths.

The Smithsonian: Volunteer and transcribe historical documents and biodiversity data.

Volunteers’ Week

Every year in June, volunteers from every sector are celebrated by the organisations they are involved with.

Read more about Volunteers Week 2024 here: