The List and Index Society (L&IS) is a
learned society
A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership m ...
that publishes editions and
calendars
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a ph ...
of historical records and occasional monographs.
The society was founded in 1965 by Sir
Geoffrey Elton
Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 – 4 December 1994) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and w ...
and others, with the aim of publishing and distributing "photographic copies of unprinted lists and indexes kept in the
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was ...
, London, and of other unprinted guides and aids to the use of public archives in the British Isles", so that historians working at a distance from London could find out what was available in advance of their visits. More recently, photocopied lists and indexes have been replaced by the online catalogue but the society continues to provide a service to historians by publishing augmented lists, calendars and texts of historical manuscripts both in
The National Archives and in other repositories, supplementing the online catalogue.
References
External links
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Learned societies of the United Kingdom
Text publication societies
The National Archives (United Kingdom)
1965 establishments in the United Kingdom