Catalogue description Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Library and Records Department and predecessors: Registered Files (CL, L and LR Series)

Arrangement is by former file reference within annual file cycles: the first cycle of Commonwealth Office and Foreign Office files covers January 1967 to October 1968, and the first cycle of Foreign and Commonwealth Office files covers October 1968 to December 1969. Thereafter the file cycles are annual.

These departments dealt with the provision of library services, the distribution of publications to overseas posts, and the preparation of the Commonwealth Office Year Book and Foreign Office List to October 1968, and the Diplomatic Service Year Book from October 1968. Records management services were taken over from the Diplomatic Service Administration Office in October 1968, and the Department was subsequently responsible for translation services.

The India Office Library and Records Section, inherited from the Commonwealth Office, was not absorbed into the FCO Library, and continued as a separate section of the FCO until it was transferred to the British Museum in 1982, at which time its records were deposited with the British Library Board.