Volunteering

Volunteering at this busy archive is an excellent way to learn more about London, its fascinating history and diverse communities.

You will be able to develop your own skills and help to provide an essential service for everyone interested in the history of London - see our volunteer policy for more detailed information.

We also provide internships for people who are studying to become archivists or who are interested in a career in archives - see our internship policy for further details.

Volunteering opportunities 

Helping people who visit us

We welcome over 30,000 visitors a year and receive over 18,000 distance enquiries a year from all round the world.

Our users have a wide range of research interests, including family, community and local history, and we also work with engineering and architectural consultants, lawyers, social workers and local government organisations.

Our Public Services Team volunteers are responsible for:

• Welcoming researchers to our Clerkenwell site
• Providing advice on and access to archives in our public research areas
• Answering enquiries that arrive by post, email, fax, telephone and online

We run an education and community service and through talks and visits to schools we aim to introduce new users to the wealth of information that can be found at LMA. 

Our family history volunteers support the work of the permanent staff on the Saturdays we open to the public. In particular, they assist first time visitors, showing them how to get started on their family history research.

We are always looking for people with similar experience to join the team.

Caring for the archives

The work of our Preservation Team is very varied. Projects include:

• Repairing damaged documents
• Taking action to prevent future damage
• Packaging archives correctly
• Training staff and users on the proper handling of documents

Volunteers work in a number of ways and projects have included:

• Cleaning and numbering wills and Freedom papers
• Packaging some of our most vulnerable photographic collections

Preservation volunteers are trained to carry out these tasks and we are interested in hearing from anyone who feels they may have the necessary level of skill and care to handle fragile items and to help us preserve them for generations to come.

Help to describe archives

LMA's Acquisition and Cataloguing Team liaises with the owners of archives to build an archival resource for London that reflects its history and development as a capital city and world metropolis.

It also catalogues the large collections of records that we take in as well as improving and automating existing lists for use by the public. Its work is a key part of making the information in our care accessible to all.