** Please note that all volunteer activities and projects are currently suspended until further notice **
We rely on volunteers to help us complete projects to make records more accessible to the public.
A number of roles are available to volunteers, including:
Projects we have run in the past:
A large proportion of the records we hold have been deposited or donated to the Archives by other organisations or members of the public. We accept collections of documents that relate to Dundee places, businesses and people.
Read our Collecting Policy (PDF)
What we will accept
We collect documents. These are generally paper or digital items, and can include books, diaries, letters, accounts, minutes, maps, posters, leaflets, photographs.
This page contains information on how you can get copies of documents we hold. This can be either during your visit to the searchroom or by email or post.
Getting Copies During Your Visit
Dundee City Archives is open to the public, Monday to Thursday, 9.30-12.00pm and 2.00-4.30pm by appointment.
In order to help us prepare for your visit, we would ask all those who are planning to visit our Search room to read through the information below.
Under the terms of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) some records that contain personal data about living individuals are closed to the public. There are some circumstances in which we can release information from these records, find out more below.
Photographs are a great resource for researching local history. Some of our photographs have been digitised and are available to view online on our Flickr site. You may also wish to have a look at the Library’s Photopolis site.
We have many collections which contain photographs. Some have been listed, others are not indexed at all. Some collections cannot be digitised due to copyright restrictions.
Dundee City Council operates local authority schools across the city. Its predecessor, Dundee Corporation took over the running of schools in 1930 from the former Dundee Education Authority. This in turn was preceded by local School Boards, which were created in 1872 by the Education (Scotland) Act of that year. We hold records for schools that are or were run by the council or one of these bodies. We also hold records for independent schools such as Dundee High School.
Local Authority School Records
Dundee City Archives holds the records of the City Council. We also hold the records of its predecessors, including:
These include a wide variety of records covering the different functions of the councils, such as:
