New COVID-19 restrictions

Posted on 3 November 2020

Following the introduction of new national restrictions to control COVID-19, due to come into force on Thursday 5th November, we are making the following temporary changes to our services.

Access to consult original archives onsite: this will primarily be restricted to University of York staff and students for the purposes of essential teaching and research. Access will be via prior appointment and within our current opening times (Monday-Wednesday 10:00am-4:00pm). Where there is a legal or regulatory need for access to original archives, limited on-site access for members of our wider research community can be arranged on a case by case basis.

Probate copying service: to ensure we limit the number of staff on site at any one time, we will suspend original probate copying and only offer images from surrogate microfilmed resources (e.g. registered probate volumes). Our general reprographics service remains unaffected, though fulfillment times may be longer than usual.

New accessions: we will not be accepting new accessions at this time, except in urgent circumstances via prior appointment.

The above measures will only be in place for the duration of the increased national restrictions and will be in place from Monday 9th November. General access to archives on site will be reinstated as soon as we are able to do so. The restrictions will be kept under constant review and may be adjusted in line with national or University guidance.

Access to information in our archives will still be possible via our research, enquiry and copying services. Access to many of our archives can be found online, and our online catalogue is always available. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss your research question or needs - we are always happy to help you as much as we can, and we look forward to seeing everyone again in the near future.