License Your Archives – Monetise & Protect Historical Content

Had you considered the potential of licensing your archive to third parties? The team at Historic Records has decades of experience of working with libraries, archives and individuals to help them make the most of their assets, and we also license millions of records to all of the major family history websites. We are therefore very well-placed to advise on the potential that licensing offers.

Why license?

Licensing your material could help to bring it to a wider audience and may also earn you revenue. How wide the audience and how much revenue you could expect to receive will of course depend on many things, not least the popularity or relevance of the archive, the number of records, and how effectively the collection is marketed.

For example, a national census return for a single year will – or should – cover entire populations and will run into the millions. Anybody with English ancestry, for instance, would almost certainly want to look at all available census returns for available and relevant years. At the other end of the scale, a collection of shopkeepers’ records for Chipping Norton in 1872 will only be a small collection and will only ever interest a tiny sample of the family history market.

Licensing options

There are a number of things to consider when contemplating going along a licensing route. For instance, are you going to be funding the digitisation and transcription yourself, or will you be hoping that a partner organisation can help you with that? The former option would give you more control and could enable you to license your archive to multiple parties, whereas the latter option, whilst potentially saving you money in the short term, could potentially lock you into a deal which does not allow you the flexibility to showcase your material to the largest possible audience.

If a partner organisation is going to digitise and transcribe your collection, who owns the Intellectual Property (IP) and what happens to the digital images that are created? Will you be given a copy of those digital images and, if you are, what will you be able to do with them? For that matter, are there any restrictions to having material digitised that you need to be aware of?

Striking a deal

Never forget that these are your records, and never lose control. The family history market is worth millions of pounds and interest in family heritage shows no sign of slowing down. These days there are arguably household name family history websites which, between them, have been successful in helping people re-connect with their ancestors. But which of those websites, if any, would be right for you? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each and, for that matter, how much could you expect to earn in revenue from those scrolls, books, ledgers and photos sitting in fastidiously catalogued archival boxes in your temperature-controlled storeroom?

For an informal licensing chat with the experts, get in touch today.

Had you considered the potential of licensing your archive to third parties? The team at Historic Records has decades of experience of working with libraries, archives and individuals to help them make the most of their assets, and we also license millions of records to all of the major family history websites. We are therefore very well-placed to advise on the potential that licensing offers.

Why license?

Licensing your material could help to bring it to a wider audience and may also earn you revenue. How wide the audience and how much revenue you could expect to receive will of course depend on many things, not least the popularity or relevance of the archive, the number of records, and how effectively the collection is marketed.

For example, a national census return for a single year will – or should – cover entire populations and will run into the millions. Anybody with English ancestry, for instance, would almost certainly want to look at all available census returns for available and relevant years. At the other end of the scale, a collection of shopkeepers’ records for Chipping Norton in 1872 will only be a small collection and will only ever interest a tiny sample of the family history market.

Licensing options

There are a number of things to consider when contemplating going along a licensing route. For instance, are you going to be funding the digitisation and transcription yourself, or will you be hoping that a partner organisation can help you with that? The former option would give you more control and could enable you to license your archive to multiple parties, whereas the latter option, whilst potentially saving you money in the short term, could potentially lock you into a deal which does not allow you the flexibility to showcase your material to the largest possible audience.

If a partner organisation is going to digitise and transcribe your collection, who owns the Intellectual Property (IP) and what happens to the digital images that are created? Will you be given a copy of those digital images and, if you are, what will you be able to do with them? For that matter, are there any restrictions to having material digitised that you need to be aware of?

Striking a deal

Never forget that these are your records, and never lose control. The family history market is worth millions of pounds and interest in family heritage shows no sign of slowing down. These days there are arguably household name family history websites which, between them, have been successful in helping people re-connect with their ancestors. But which of those websites, if any, would be right for you? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each and, for that matter, how much could you expect to earn in revenue from those scrolls, books, ledgers and photos sitting in fastidiously catalogued archival boxes in your temperature-controlled storeroom?

For an informal licensing chat with the experts, get in touch today.

Had you considered the potential of licensing your archive to third parties? The team at Historic Records has decades of experience of working with libraries, archives and individuals to help them make the most of their assets, and we also license millions of records to all of the major family history websites. We are therefore very well-placed to advise on the potential that licensing offers.

Why license?

Licensing your material could help to bring it to a wider audience and may also earn you revenue. How wide the audience and how much revenue you could expect to receive will of course depend on many things, not least the popularity or relevance of the archive, the number of records, and how effectively the collection is marketed.

For example, a national census return for a single year will – or should – cover entire populations and will run into the millions. Anybody with English ancestry, for instance, would almost certainly want to look at all available census returns for available and relevant years. At the other end of the scale, a collection of shopkeepers’ records for Chipping Norton in 1872 will only be a small collection and will only ever interest a tiny sample of the family history market.

Licensing options

There are a number of things to consider when contemplating going along a licensing route. For instance, are you going to be funding the digitisation and transcription yourself, or will you be hoping that a partner organisation can help you with that? The former option would give you more control and could enable you to license your archive to multiple parties, whereas the latter option, whilst potentially saving you money in the short term, could potentially lock you into a deal which does not allow you the flexibility to showcase your material to the largest possible audience.

If a partner organisation is going to digitise and transcribe your collection, who owns the Intellectual Property (IP) and what happens to the digital images that are created? Will you be given a copy of those digital images and, if you are, what will you be able to do with them? For that matter, are there any restrictions to having material digitised that you need to be aware of?

Striking a deal

Never forget that these are your records, and never lose control. The family history market is worth millions of pounds and interest in family heritage shows no sign of slowing down. These days there are arguably household name family history websites which, between them, have been successful in helping people re-connect with their ancestors. But which of those websites, if any, would be right for you? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each and, for that matter, how much could you expect to earn in revenue from those scrolls, books, ledgers and photos sitting in fastidiously catalogued archival boxes in your temperature-controlled storeroom?

For an informal licensing chat with the experts, get in touch today.