Contact Us

Visit our volunteer pages to find out about our volunteer offer and to search and apply for opportunities that match your availability and interests.

Unfortunately we do not have the resources to give individual responses to requests for family history, however, our expert staff have put together these useful guides to help you start your research.

IWM's research facilities can help you carry out your own research on IWM’s collections. Whether it's documents, photographs or film you can book a place in our research facilities.

Please note any material you wish to consult needs to be ordered five days in advance.

When searching our collections the following may help:

• Make sure all search terms are spelt correctly.
• Use filters and quotation marks to narrow your search results.
• Remove filters and use less specific terms to broaden your search.

If you put in keywords that relate to the subject you are searching for, rather than whole sentences, you are likely to receive more results.

If you see ‘No media available online’ showing, this means that the item has not yet been digitised, or not available online for copyright reasons. Digitisation is available on request at an additional cost through the Media Sales and Licences page or you may be able to access the item via an appointment with our research facilities. Find out about our digitisation on-demand service.

The information about items in IWM’s collections is included on the Collection page for that item. In most cases this is the only information that we have and for certain smaller items such as photographs, documents and diaries the best way to learn more would be to make an appointment to see the item in person.

Many of the materials from the IWM’s image, sound and film collections are available to purchase and license for use in commercial projects and products. Digitisation is available on request.

We offer private tours at our branches. To help you plan your visit please look at Book a tour.

Objects donated to IWM's collection are recorded, preserved and cared for to the highest standards. However, this comes at a high cost, forcing us to be selective about what we can now accept into our keeping. Please read our policy and then fill in our form to offer something to our collection.

Host your event at an IWM museum or heritage site. From quirky to spectacular, Imperial War Museums has a unique range of event spaces to hire for a corporate event or private party.