Manchester City Council

Please note that the Archives Service is now closed as a result of Central Library's temporary closure for renovation and refurbishment in Spring 2010. However the Local Studies Library and Microfilm Unit is open until 1 April 2010.

Information about Archives and Local Studies services while Central Library is closed.

More information about Central Library's temporary closure.

M2002 Ltd, the company behind the Games, was responsible for the organisation of the Games from the early planning stages to the recruitment and training of over 10,000 volunteers.

The records of the company have been deposited at Manchester Archives so that you can discover how this magnificent event was put together.

The collection contains many important documents relating to the planning and delivery of the Games. There are also extensive image and newspaper collections.

Also in the collection are records relating to the Queen's Jubilee Baton relay event, and the Spirit of Friendship festival.

The collection is available for everyone to use, and provides a unique resource for many areas of study.

A large proportion of the collection is on open access and can be viewed in Manchester Archives, Central Library, during our normal opening hours. A copy of the catalogue is available on-line.

Some records are on restricted access. If you want to consult a record which is under this condition, you can submit a request to us. We will review the record at that point. If it is not subject to a Freedom of Information exemption, the information will be released.

More information and resources are available at the Games Legacy website. Here you will find links to useful documents on the Games and also an online version of the Games final report. Archived versions of this web site from 2004-2007 can be found on the Internet Archive.

The Local Studies Library also holds some printed material relating to the Commonwealth Games.

An archived version of the M2002 web site is also available on the Commonwealth Games Federation web site.