The corporate archive of one of the biggest names on the British high street consists of 70,000 pieces and tracks the company’s progress from a penny bazaar stall in Leeds Market to its current position – covering the 128 years of the company’s history. Included in the firm’s history are exhibits of clothing, toys, advertising materials and business documents.
The new home for the archive is the newly built Michael Marks building on the University of Leeds Western Campus. It will be available to students and staff working in subjects including business, economics, textiles, arts, fashion, communications, marketing, colour chemistry, food sciences, history and social sciences. Previously the archive was kept above a Marks and Spencer Store in North London on static racking. This was an archaic system with no flexibility for change and unsuitable for storing different sized materials and products.
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Qubiqa has supplied it’s ‘state of the art’ electronic shelving – the Qubiqa Shade E9000 Electronic System – which is becoming increasingly popular with archives nationwide. Marks & Spencer also took additional accessories, including picture racking, roller shutter doors, shelf dividers and a water sensor alarm system. There is also a closed access area for sensitive personnel history. The client appreciated the flexible approach Qubiqa took with this project, allowing M&S to achieve the ultimate system to allow configuration of the shelving to accommodate the unusually sized and shaped products. The aim was achieved to build a modern archive that will continue to give benefits not only now but in the future.
Qubiqa was chosen partly because of the design of the system, together with the important input on the part of Qubiqa’s sales staff to ensure that the system met all the requirements of the M&S Archive – from size to shape to security. Various modifications to the initial drawings and layouts ensured that Qubiqa supplied the ultimate solution for this very important archive, which would allow the current stock to be stored under the best possible conditions whilst also allowing for further expansion and capabilities for the future. The Qubiqa Shade E9000 Electronic system is so flexible it gives the scope to create endless opportunities in coming years.
Katharine Carter, Company Archivist at Marks & Spencer is extremely pleased, not only with the Qubiqa system but also with the excellent all round help she received from the Qubiqa installers and sales staff.
The new Marks & Spencer Archive has been praised by The National Archives, the Archives and Records Association, the Business Archives Council and the Scottish Council on Archives, as follows:
‘We write to congratulate you and your colleagues on the opening of the new Marks and Spencer Company Archive at the University of Leeds. We have no doubt that this will secure its place as one of the most important business archives in the UK.
As archivists and record-keepers, we applaud the investment you have made to protect your – and all of our – heritage. Equally, we welcome and commend to others your very strong message about the crucial role your archive plays in your business. We believe that UK businesses can learn a great deal from you on how to exploit the creativity of a business in the past to deliver new products that support current business performance.
This is a very proud day for the UK archives and record-keeping worlds and all who work to promote, collect, manage and give access to business archives’.
