Showing Britain to Itself: Changes in Collecting Policy from the Festival of Britain to London 2012

This article uses a comparison of two national events, the 1951 Festival of Britain, andthe London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, to examine developments in archival collecting policy and practice. It examines the possible reasons for the relative scarcity of Festival records and argues that these gaps in the archival record demonstrate the need for a national collecting strategy for London 2012, the implementation of which is made possible through advances in technology, together with a changed understanding of the record-keeper's role.