Last month I heard back from the keeper of Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham, Mark Dorrington, who said that my collection may not be a good fit with their archives and that, in any case, they were not geared up to deal with such a large digital collection. However he did suggest trying the National Archive for the History of Computing at the University of Manchester and provided a link to its web page [NB. Link updated on 18Jan2023].

I have, in fact, already been round the houses with the University of Manchester Library; however, that was not specifically in relation to this particular archive, and it was before I had done any digital preservation work on the collection. So, today I tried making contact with someone specifically concerned with this particular archive and was told that the archivist for this and a number of other special collections is Dr. James Peters. I duly emailed him with the following opening para: ” Dr. Peters, I’m contacting you as the Archivist in charge of the National Archive for the History of Computing (NAHC). I have a collection of documents which reflect the development and application of computers over the last 40 years, and would be grateful for your advice as to whether the collection has any merit and where it could be placed.” I followed this with a description of the background to the collection and of its contents. I’m hoping that my rather indirect approach on this occasion might engender some discussion rather than the outright rejection which I’m becoming used to.