The Heritage Lottery Fund is continuing to make a big difference by helping communities to protect and open up important records such as local history archives, photographic collections, spoken history records, rare books, manuscripts and archives of all kinds.
We are giving grants to make sure that these records are properly conserved and better housed and presented. We want to support projects that help people to get better access to the records and understand more about them. We can also help buy important items to add to existing collections, and can make grants for appropriate projects to convert information about the collections into electronic form.
By supporting the compilation of oral histories, we are helping to emphasise the link between personal experience and family history and the broader themes of both local and national heritage. Access to local historical records is also being extended through the use of new communications technology.
The good news is that we have already awarded over £155 million to more than 650 projects for records.