Scarman Centre Resource Library

Title: Scarman Centre Resource Library

Description: The Scarman Centre was established at the University of Leicester in 1988. Its Resource Library has around 5,000 items covering the Centre’s areas of expertise – criminology, policing, community safety, security, racism and ethnicity, risk and public order. Most of these resources are books, but there are also a number of magazines and specialist journals covering issues pertinent to the Centre’s research interests.
In addition, the Library has two archives – The Marett Archive on Race Relations and the Bernard Adamczewski and Jillian Becker Archive on Terrorism. The former is a newspaper archive consisting of thousands of articles relating to issues of ‘race’, racism, ethnicity and identity in Britain, covering the period from around 1970 to 1999. The archive is only partially sorted by subject, but does contain a wealth of information relating to all the relevant topical news issues over this period.
The Terrorism Archive contains newspaper cuttings, pamphlets and magazines for most of the 1980s that relate to terrorism from around the world.

Several publications by researchers at the Scarman are particularly relevant to the history of Black and Asian people in Britain – most notably the research reports written in 1996 which provide a socio-economic profile and needs analysis of African Caribbean people in Leicestershire. These reports also document the African Caribbean communities' experiences of racism in the region, and identify strategies for alleviating discrimination and disadvantage through partnership initiatives between community groups and local authorities.

A list of Scarman Centre publications specifically covering information on the history and life experiences of Black and Asian people in Britain is given below:

• African Caribbean People in Leicestershire: Experiences & Opinions, by John Benyon, Bola Dauda, Jon Garland, Stephen Lyle & Michael Rowe (1996)
• African Caribbean People in Leicestershire: Education Matters, by Stephen Lyle, John Benyon, Jon Garland & Anna McClure (1996)
• African Caribbean People in Leicestershire: Final Report, by John Benyon, Stephen Lyle, Bola Dauda, John Garland & Anna McClure (1996)
• African Caribbean people in Leicester: Summary of the final report: including a synopsis of all key findings and recommendations, by John Benyon, Bola Dauda, Jon Garland & Stephen Lyle (1996)
• Race Riots in Twentieth Century Britain (Occasional Paper No.5), by Michael Rowe (1994)
• Racism, Xenophobia & Football (Research Paper No.3), by Mark Carver, Jon Garland & Michael Rowe (1995)
• The Roots of Urban Unrest, edited by John Benyon & John Solomos (1987)
  Scarman and After: essays reflecting on Lord Scarman's report, the riots and their aftermath, edited by John Benyon (1984)
• Tackling Racial Attacks, by Peter Francis & Roger Matthews (1993)

Further details about these and other publications are also available at http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/research/cppu.html. Information about current Scarman Centre research projects can be found at http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/research/cpre.html.

Strengths: The main strength of the Marett archive is that it is a unique record of ‘race’ issues over the last 30 years. It has especial focus on Asian immigration into the UK in the 1970s (including Ugandan Asians) and another focus on the riots of the early 1980s. There is also a lot of material relating to the city of Leicester.

Size: c.300 books, 10 periodicals, 25 videos and one newspaper archive (containing tens of thousands of cuttings).

Catalogue:

Catalogue URL:

Main URL: http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/

Access: Books can be borrowed only by Scarman Centre staff and students. Non-staff and students are welcome to use the Library for reference purposes only.

Acquisition dates: 1990 - present (with some older books)

Note:

Interest: Asian, Black

Complete: Complete

Subjects

Social history

Racial discrimination

Police

Law enforcement

Interethnic relations

Ethnic groups

Criminology

Communities

Personal/Corporate names

Places

Leicestershire, United Kingdom