We are currently providing access to the British Pop Archive principally through a landmark exhibition at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library. Individual archives will be made accessible once they have been catalogued, and you will be able to access them by appointment in the reading room at the Rylands. We aim to have the first archives accessible in this way in 2023. In the meantime, please contact us via uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk if you wish to find out more about the BPA.

Enquiries about the launch event on 18 May 2022 should be sent to uml.director@manchester.ac.uk.

All aspects of popular culture, youth culture and counter-culture that can be used for research and display are in scope for collecting. Our initial focus has been popular music, but even within that we are touching on journalism, photography, fine art, design, management, poetry, writing, performance, theatre and fashion. Currently the collection includes posters, recorded music, interviews, artwork, promotional materials, ephemera, touring materials, merchandise, personal and business correspondence.

Currently we have 10 archives that are new to the Rylands and sit under the BPA umbrella. These are the Ian Curtis archive, Rob Gretton archive, Andy Spinoza archive, Kevin Cummins archive, Bob Dickinson archive, the paper archive of Granada Television, Jon Savage’s Situationist materials, Terence Pepper collection, CP Lee archive and the Granada materials of Stephen Kelly and Judith Jones. We are in discussions with various people about future archives that will sit under the BPA umbrella, so we expect this to continue to grow through 2022.

We are collecting archival materials in any format related to UK popular culture. We are especially interested in the archives of musicians, bands, clubs, managers, agents, journalists, photographers and designers. The important point to note is our focus is on people who have been involved in the various industries that intersect with pop culture; our plan currently is not to collect materials from ‘fans’ in general. There will be exceptions of course but for the initial building up of content we are focussing on industry figures.

Currently we hold only a few recordings of interviews with band members and others, but we hope to develop this aspect of the British Pop Archive in coming years. The British Library’s Sound Archive holds an extensive nationwide collection of oral history recordings. The Manchester Digital Music Archive records the memories of music fans, artists and industry figures in Greater Manchester.

The British Pop Archive comprises major archives of individuals and organisations involved in British popular music and popular culture. We look to acquire additional archives in line with our Collection Development Policy. In general, we don’t collect fan material, such as programmes, band merchandise, clothing, badges, individual issues or short runs of magazines, fanzines, etc.

You don’t need our permission to write about the British Pop Archive, but we’d be really interested to hear from you. We can advise you on how to cite (reference) specific items. Most of the items in the BPA remain in copyright. You must obtain permission from us and from copyright holders before quoting any material from the collection or publishing any images from the collection.

The current plan is for photography to be permitted in the exhibition. If there are any final requests from copyright holders to restrict photography we will take a decision on a (display) case by (display) case basis.

For data protection reasons, we are unable to give out contact details of donors and depositors of material in the exhibition, or of anyone mentioned in the exhibition.

Manchester’s thriving cultural scene has long contributed significantly to the development of a city that is a global symbol of innovation, creativity and social progress. This history, rooted particularly within the music scene and the arts, distinguishes Manchester as unique. It makes it the perfect setting to host the British Pop Archive – a collection that will preserve and tell the stories of post-war popular culture on a national scale. The city’s musical heritage, in particular, is something special and will provide the initial focus for the British Pop Archive project.

• The British Library holds one of the largest collections of popular music in the world. It contains commercial releases, documentaries, interviews and live performances from all eras and genres together with magazines, fanzines, books and other publications. 
• The Popular Music Archive at the University of Liverpool contains over 80,000 vinyl records, reel-to-reels, CDs and cassettes, a substantial collection of paper archives, and collections of popular music newspapers, magazines and fanzines. 
• Liverpool John Moores University Special Collections and Archives contains a number of outstanding popular music and counter-culture collections, including England’s Dreaming: The Jon Savage Archive, documenting the Sex Pistols and punk era. 
• Manchester Digital Music Archive is an online community archive established in 2003 to celebrate Greater Manchester music and its social history.

We encourage the use of material from the British Pop Archive in teaching and learning at The University of Manchester. Primary sources such as the BPA have the power to inspire students, whether they are seeing them first-hand or using digital copies. Please contact the curator, Mat Bancroft, to discuss how we can support your teaching.

Our current priorities are to develop and document the collections. In the future we hope to create learning resources for use in schools and colleges. For further information on our future plans, please contact us at jrl.education@manchester.ac.uk.

We hope to digitise selected items from the British Pop Archive in the future. Many of the items are covered by copyright, so can’t be digitised without the permission of copyright holders. Digitisation is time-consuming and expensive, so we are likely to digitise only key elements of the collections.

Until the archives are fully catalogued, researchers’ access to the British Pop Archive is limited; we are currently providing access principally through a landmark exhibition at the Rylands. Researchers wishing to know more about the content of the BPA or to access the archives directly are advised to contact uml.special-collections@manchester.ac.uk. Access is by appointment only, and it is essential to contact us well in advance. If you aren’t a member of staff or student at The University of Manchester you will be asked to provide proof of address and photo ID on your first visit.

We hope to establish a volunteering programme on the British Pop Archive in the future, with opportunities to support the documentation, conservation and promotion of the archive. Further information will be posted on our website when we are in a position to recruit volunteers. Other organisations, such as Manchester Digital Music Archive, already provide opportunities for volunteering.