The Royal Logistic Corps Museum

Screenshot 2025-07-18 at 15.08.19

 

The Royal Logistic Corps Museum

Contact details

information@rlcmuseum.com 01962 887793

 

Summary

The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) Museum has existed since 1993 when it was created alongside the formation of the Royal Logistic Corps on the 5th April 1993. This was the result of the amalgamation of the RLC’s Forming Corps museums. The Royal Corps of Transport Museum, The Royal Army Ordnance Corps Museum, The Royal Pioneer Corps Museum and The Army Catering Corps Museum, bringing 4 museum collections together.  The Museum was originally based at Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut but moved to a new, purpose-built museum at Worthy Down in 2020, opening to the public in May 2021

The Museum’s archive collection covers the 250-year history of the RLC and its Forming Corps, containing a mixture of documents, photographs, books, video and audio. Following the move in 2021, the Museum’s volunteers have been undertaking a significant project to inventory and re-catalogue this collection, which is now at around 50% completion. A small percentage of the Museum’s archive has been digitised and can be found on www.rlc-museum-collection.co.uk. This online archive contains the complete collection of the RLC Forming Corps Journals as well as military vehicle history records and photographs with scope to add more of the collection once it has been digitised.

The RLC Museum has recently embarked on a project to digitise the video collection. This is not only to make this part of the archive more accessible, but also as a preservation priority due to the potential degradation of the video carrier and the required playback equipment becoming scarce or unreliable.

The Royal Logistic Corps Museum archives at a glance:

Royal Logistics Museum % catalogued % digitised % online
Item class No of items Prior project Post project Prior project Post project Prior project Post project
Photos 23,000 50 50 5 5 5 5
Documents 60,000 50 50 5 5 5 5
Audio 100 20 20 0 0 0 0
Video 1,000 75 75 0 75* 0 0
Archaeology
Datasets
Other
TOTALS/Averages 84,100 48.75 2.5 2.5

 

*Estimated

Note As virtually all archival projects are ongoing, for the purposes of this case study the cutoff is arbitrarily set at 12 months following the completion of the revised archive structure.

Status prior to project

Prior to the beginning of this project, the Museum’s VHS tape collection had recently been inventoried and given a basic catalogue record using information on the VHS carrier’s label. However, the Museum did not have the relevant playback equipment to view the content and provide detailed catalogue descriptions. The lack of playback equipment meant the collection was not accessible to researchers, and none had been digitised.

Project timescale and resources

The project timescale is flexible, but it is estimated to take between 18-24 months. At present only a small amount of staff time has been allocated and averages between 1-2 days per week. An analogue to digital converter has been purchased, and the Museum procured three VHS players from the local community. Whilst undergoing digitisation, the videos playback in real time and the convertor does not automatically cease recording when the video ends. This means staff must sit with the video whilst it plays, which could be anywhere between 10-120 minutes. Currently video digitisation is undertaken by the Collections Manager; however, it is intended to expand the video digitisation workflow by training archive volunteers.

The Museum’s existing server space did not have the capacity for the digital files. A 2TB external hard drive has been purchased to store the MP4 files.

Description of key challenges and solutions

Our two main challenges are storage, and data access. Currently we only have enough shelf space for our current archive collection and there is currently no scope for more storage or expansion to keep up with our growing archive collection. This means that within the next few years, we will have no ability to accept new donations without undertaking disposals to create space Another challenge is access to our archive catalogue.

Our current CMS is not set up to allow the public to search the archive catalogue remotely without being in the museum and access must be facilitated by a member of staff. Whilst this isn’t an issue now, in the future improving this access is something we would like to improve by adding to existing content on our online archive.

By undertaking this project, we hope to start to address some of these issues by creating more space for new additions to the collection but also improving access to the collection either online or in person.

Status at end of project

By the end of the VHS digitisation project, the Museum aims to have improved documentation, increased access, and taken steps towards preservation (however we are aware that MP4 files may not capture enough data to be a true preservation copy). Following an assessment of copyright, digitised content will be available on our online archive www.rlc-museum-collection.co.uk

A collection review of the VHS tapes will identify material that is outside our Collections Development Policy, no longer relevant to the collection or is no longer capable of playback, leading to potential disposals.

 

 

 

 

 

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