It is based in the former headquarters of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, which it shares with Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne.

[1] In July 2013 it was announced that the Archives' Shipyards collections were included on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

UNESCO stated: 'The shipbuilding collections deposited at Tyne & Wear Archives are the major source of information on the many shipyards in the North-East of England that helped to shape the unique identity of the region and made shipbuilding one of the key economic activities on Tyneside and Wearside....

The records are strong in both breadth and depth, and no other archive in England and Wales appears to hold such a wide and comprehensive range of material.'

[3] Tyne and Wear Archives have a public searchroom with space for visitors to consult original documents along with a microfilm area and PC cluster.