Price list

Please note that negatives, digital images and electronic files will remain the copyright of London Metropolitan Archives and cannot be reproduced without the written permission of London Metropolitan Archives. Reproduction fees are normally payable. Please ask staff for further details.

Fees and Charges for LMA copying Services

Please note that all these prices apply to orders made in person in LMA’s Archive Study Area, once you have consulted original documents yourself. Distance orders incur an additional research fee of a minimum of £10.00 for assessing the cost of copies from one document; requests from multiple documents are charged at a minimum of £20.00 because of the work we need to do to satisfy the order. Typically we need to identify the original item(s) fully, have it produced from the strongrooms, assess what form of copying is most suitable and provide costings (often involving further discussion with the enquirer). The rates are set according to our hourly Family History Research Service which is £40.00 per hour (£10.00 allows up to 15 minutes staff time and £20.00 allows up to 30 minutes staff time). It reflects the fact that we have to undertake work on behalf of distance users which we do not have to undertake when the enquiry is in person, and that in our experience the fees represent a reasonable average time needed to deal with all the processes around such requests. Please contact our enquiry team for information.

All prices quoted include VAT at 17.5%

Copy services - black and white photocopying

Service	Charge
A4 photocopy (staff)	£0.35
A3 photocopy (staff)	£0.70
A4 photocopy (self Service)	£0.10
A3 photocopy (self Service)	£0.20
A4 photocopy (City of London election returns / expenses)	£0.20
Computer printout (per A4 sheet)	£0.10

Copy services - scanning

Service	Charge
Basic paper copy
A4/ A3 black and white	£3.25
A4/ A3 colour	£7.50

Photographic quality paper copy
A4 black and white	£7.50
A3 black and white	£14.50
A4 colour	£14.50
A3 colour	£21.50

Large print copy
A2 black and white	£14.50
A1 black and white	£29.00
AO black and white	£51.50
A2 colour	£21.50
A1 colour	£37.00
AO colour	£57.50
Scaling Charge (per plan)	£27.00

Digital copy
CD-ROM	£5.00
DVD	£10.00
plus per scan:
Low resolution scan	£5.00
Medium resolution scan	£8.00
High resolution scan including CD / DVD	£25.00
Image editing per 15 minutes	£20.00

Copy services - microfilming

Service	Charge
New filming
1-50 frames	£50.00
Additional frames (per 50)	£25.00

Copy
Silver positive film per reel	£68.00
Diazo (direct duplicate) film per reel	£27.00

Large or institutional orders, by negotiation

Copy services - photography

Service	Charge
New negative	£15.00

Print from negative (Colour and Black & White)
7 x 5 inch	£15.00
8 x 6 inch	£16.50
10 x 8 inch	£19.00
12 x 10 inch	£23.00
16 x 12 inch	£31.00
20 x 16 inch	£36.00

Transparency
35mm presentation quality slide	£15.00
5x4 transparency	£42.00

Copy services - other

Service	Charge
Print from microform
Self Service: per copy (card)	£0.30
Self Service: per copy (cash)	£0.35
Copy card	£1.00

Exhibition board printing
24 inch x 30 inch	£22.00
30 inch x 40 inch	£43.00
plus per scan	See costs detailed above

Church of England baptism, marriage and burial certificate (where all relevant details are supplied by customer)	£8.50
Downloading of images from data sets e.g. London Signatures (per image)	£4.00
Permit for use of own digital camera to make copies (daily rate, subject to camera check)	£2.50
Rush fee (all Services)	£24.00

Prints from Microfilm

This service can be used to apply for up to two copies of parish register events only when the exact details can be provided. This means that you need to provide the name of the church, the event, name(s) of the person(s) involved, the day, month and the year that the event happened. The fee is £8.75 and you can apply for copies by completing the Prints from Microfilm application form. If you do not have the exact details (for example, if you only know the name of the church and the year of an event) it is necessary to use the Family History Research Service. This is due to the considerable time it can take to search even just one years worth of entries in a majority of London churches.

Click here to download the Prints from Microfilm application form

LMA has self Service microfilm printers available in our Reference Room. These cost £0.35 per A4 copy, or £0.30 if you make an initial payment of £1.00 for a rechargeable copy card (thereby saving after 20 copies have been made).

Supplementary notes:

Digital image on CD / DVD Rom

Please note that scans are normally one page, one scan.

Three qualities of digital images can be supplied: low, medium and high resolution.

Low resolution - file size approximately 1.5MB
This is intended for web use and is a small file size condensed using JPEG compression. This makes it ideal for transmitting via the Internet and placing on web pages. Please note, however, that any fine detail is lost. Although useful for reference, it is unsuitable for print reproduction or research purposes.

Medium resolution - file size approximately 30MB
This is our standard resolution quality. This is useful for reproduction of smaller items such as engravings from books or details from manuscripts. It is not recommended for high quality or large reproductions, or indeed large items such as maps.

High resolution - file size approximately 80MB
This is our highest resolution quality. For large items in the collection, where scaled images are required or where investigation of fine detail is required, we would recommend that our highest quality be selected. This has a file size of around 80+MB although it may be much larger (260+MB) if the item being scanned is very large or unusually detailed. With files of this size, fine reproductions can be made, and the amount of detail captured makes it ideal for detailed study purposes.

Paper prints from Digital files

Prices for digital output (hard copy) vary because of paper size, paper type and ink coverage. The greater the area to be printed the higher the price.

PPI (Pixels per inch) and Resolution
We have standardised on 300ppi (pixels per inch) for our medium and high direct image capture, lower direct image capture scans will be scanned at 150ppi (pixels per inch). The colour depth used is 24 bits, and the colour space is RGB. By categorising the images using their file sizes, this gives an idea of how much information they contain. It is analogous to film sizes. The larger more expensive film sizes hold more information than the smaller formats and the same applies to larger or smaller file sizes.
NB: It is sometimes difficult to be precise about the file sizes because the books, maps, manuscripts etc. are different shapes, for example a square item photographed to the same standard as a rectangular one will give different file sizes.

Note

There may be occasions where we would recommend very large or finely detailed items to be supplied at greater file size.
Remember that a large file size can take a long time to load onto an older computer with limited memory.
The number of files that can be burnt on to a CD or DVD is dependant upon what quality of scan is required by the customer.
Any order that is over two weeks old from the date the order leaves the LMA will be deleted from our storage system. If there is a problem with the order there may be a further charge incurred.

Photocopies

These copies are good for general reference of text and simple illustrations. Paper copies give an average across a tonal range so they may lose fine detail. Copies are in colour or black and white printed on 80gsm paper. All copies are reproduced onto white photocopy paper (80gsm) and are produced by direct photocopying. Some facsimile maps may be photocopied but there is a risk of losing legibility. We cannot reproduce items larger than A3 on one sheet; multiple A3 sections will be required. We will not guarantee they can be reproduced at true scale. Paper copies can also be supplied from microfilm on to A4 size paper from the self service copiers in the public rooms.

Microfilms

New and duplicate filming
This format is good for material required for larger quantities of reference material for long term study (where a durable copy is required) or to supplement existing archive material. All microfilms are black and white and are supplied on archival quality 35 mm films. New filming is supplied in frames - a page of printed text in a standard sized book normally equates to one frame. If you request content where an archival copy already exists we may for preservation reasons provide you with a duplicate copy which will be supplied as positive film. Unfortunately in this instance we cannot supply less than the whole reel. In some cases there may be other items on this reel in addition to the item ordered.

Photographic services

Black and white prints are made from large format negatives and are a suitable quality to be used for study, reproduction or display.

Colour prints are reproduced from large format transparencies or negatives and are suitable for study or display.

Colour transparencies (35mm slides) can be used for general reference where colour of the original is required. Items are lit and exposed on the assumption that the slides are for general projection or lecture work (presentation quality). They are not intended for high quality reproduction or publication. There may be some loss of definition if very large items are copied as a full image and then projected. Original items that are monochrome will show the tones and markings of the original.
5"x4" negatives / transparencies are the format intended for reproduction and publication. The 5"x4" size is acceptable for most publication purposes. (Reproduction quality).

Please note that film negatives are not issued to customers.

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