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CASBAH Partners
We have actively sought collaboration with academic and other centres
that are known to hold collections in complementary areas and we have
created inter-sectoral partnerships with other institutions and individuals
with a specific professional interest and concern with these subject
areas and issues. These supporting institutions have contributed a range
of expertise and perspectives which has informed and directed the project.
The involvement of non-HE partners has been essential to the success
of the project's aims.
Steering Group
The CASBAH Steering
Group is made up of CASBAH staff, selected partner representatives,
and academic representatives of subject areas. The Steering Group has an
advisory function and monitors progress, approves project plans, evaluates
the criteria, technical standards, and dissemination strategy of the
Project.
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Consultation and
Collaboration
Other projects, institutions,
and individuals who have given advice include:
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Black and Asian Studies
Association
The Black and Asian Studies Association was established in 1991 to encourage
research in the history of Black and Asian peoples in Britain. BASA
campaigns for the inclusion of the history of Black peoples in the National
Curriculum and on other issues related to education. It has organised
workshops for teachers, participated in education conferences, and campaigned
and lobbied on educational and institutional racism issues. BASA has
also encouraged debate within the archive profession through conferences
and workshops highlighting the need for awareness and action on the
part of archivists working in the field of ethnic minority archives.
BASA members are currently working on the Black Peoples in Britain Database
Project which aims to make web-accessible datasets of archival records
relating to Black and Asian Peoples in Britain. The project is ongoing
and help has been given by individual genealogists as well as the Federation
of Family History Societies. In 1999, BASA held a conference on archival
issues and their key subject fields and, as a result, the Black and
Asian Archives Working Party (now the BASA Research Resources Working
Party) was launched.
The BAAWP has eight aims
which are:
1) To raise awareness of the records relating to the history of Black
and Asian peoples in Britain;
2) To encourage all custodians, archivists and users of archives to
record data on these histories;
3) To encourage archivists to issues guides on their relevant archival
holdings;
4) To encourage, in accordance with the Data Protection legislation,
that it will be possible to identify Black and Asian peoples on databases
being devised for archives;
5) To encourage Black and Asian peoples into the archives profession
and to ensure that archival training incorporates (1) above;
6) To familiarise Black and Asian peoples and their organisations with
the purpose, function and uses of archives;
7) To encourage Black and Asian peoples and their organisations to collect
materials and ensure their long term preservation;
8) To encourage archive repositories to contact
individuals and organisations regarding the preservation of Black and
Asian archive materials.
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British Library
The British
Library has substantial holdings of materials relating to the Caribbean
and the history of Black and Asian people in Britain. Material of
relevance can be found throughout the collections, whether in the form of
printed books, newspapers, manuscripts, music, or sound recordings.
Printed works published in the U.K are received via legal deposit
arrangements but the Library also acquires, where possible, relevant
material published elsewhere. Of particular note are the Early Printed
Collections, which offer a rich source for works pertaining to the history
of the Caribbean and for eighteenth century writings by Africans; the
Manuscripts Collections for papers relating to slavery and abolition, and
the Oriental and India Office collections which hold a large number of
books and manuscripts on the history, religions, philosophies, languages
and literatures of the whole of Asia, as well as visual material in the
form of photographs, paintings and drawings relating particularly to
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These collections also include much
material on the cultural background of Asians in Great Britain.
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Goldsmiths College, University of
London
The collections at Goldsmiths College relevant to
Caribbean Studies cover social sciences, arts and humanities and are
particularly strong in the social anthropology of the Caribbean region. In
fact we believe that we have one of the best social anthropology
collections in a UK university library. The collection focuses on
monographs, so consequently the periodicals collection is relatively
small. It is difficult to quantify the Caribbean Studies collection in
absolute terms, as material of relevance is distributed throughout the
library according to subject. The arrangement is not based on a
geographical approach. At the Dewey classmarks directly connected with
Caribbean anthropology, social sciences, language, literature, art,
geography and history, over 600 unique titles have been identified.
Goldsmiths College has research, teaching and local community interests in
Caribbean anthropology, social sciences, language, literature and history.
The Library is therefore actively collecting library stock in these areas.
Other subject areas containing printed sources of interest include:
Women's studies; mass media; race relations; migration/colonisation,
slavery, immigrant workers, welfare services to ethnic minorities;
multicultural education; Black British artists; Caribbean artists in
Britain. The School Practice section has a large collection of children's
and young adults' literature, including Caribbean literature.
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The Historical Manuscripts
Commission
The Royal Commission on
Historical Manuscripts, generally known as the Historical Manuscripts
Commission (HMC), was set up by Royal Warrant in 1869 to enquire and
report on collections of papers of value for the study of British history
in private and institutional hands. In 1959 a new warrant enlarged these
terms of reference to include all British historical records, wherever
situated, outside the Public Records and gave it added responsibilities as
a central co-ordinating body to promote, assist and advise on their proper
preservation and storage. The Commission has published 239 volumes of
reports. It holds a further 42,500 unpublished reports in the National
Register of Archives, which are available for consultation in the public
search room. It also maintains the Manorial Documents Register on behalf
of the Master of the Rolls, and ARCHON, the gateway for archivists in the
UK and repositories with manuscript material for British history. The
Historical Manuscripts Commission has provided valuable guidance to the
project and the National Register of Archives has produced a great number
of archival collections of interest.
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Institute of Commonwealth
Studies
The Institute of Commonwealth
Studies is the only postgraduate academic institution in the United
Kingdom devoted to the study of the Commonwealth. Its purpose is to
promote inter-disciplinary and inter-regional research on the Commonwealth
and its member nations in the fields of history, politics, economics
and other social sciences, including development, environment, health,
migration, class, race, and literary and cultural studies. The ICS also
offers a Masters degree in Human Rights. More than 150 seminars and
conferences take place at ICS each year - most are open to all. Regular
programmes include Caribbean Societies, Commonwealth History and Decolonisation,
Gender in Empire and Commonwealth, Multiculturalism and the State, and
Societies of Southern Africa.
ICS Library is a major international
research collection for those working on the Commonwealth or any of
its member states. It has a growing collection of some 180,000 volumes
and 9,000 periodical and annual publications, with particularly impressive
Caribbean, southern African, Canadian and Australian holdings. Emphasis
is given to the contemporary history, politics, political economy, economics,
international relations, human rights and related, social science, disciplines
covering all Commonwealth countries as well as former members. The library
specialises in providing research material which is unavailable elsewhere
in the UK: 70% of our material is published in non-UK countries of the
Commonwealth and 40% consists of official and government publications.
A recent audit of the Library's
printed collections measured the Caribbean holdings to be at least 17,500
items, thus amounting to 10% of the entire collection and making it
the largest Caribbean studies collection in the UK. This includes numerous
official and unofficial annual publications and approximately 89 journal
titles. The Library also contains important archive and special collections
relating to the Caribbean region - these have been described in the
archive and printed sources section of the database.
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The Institute of Latin
American Studies
The Institute of Latin American Studies
Library plays a leading role in the development of Latin American library
collections in the University of London, and in the European co-ordination
of documentation on Latin America. The Library contains a comprehensive
collection of secondary reference, periodicals and current news sources,
essential monographs, a collection of rare contemporary political
pamphlets, and research papers from important centres of research on Latin
America.
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The Institute of Race
Relations
The Institute of Race Relations Library collections
are unique. No other institution covers the field so extensively. The
collection contains in excess of an estimated 7,000 books, 5,000 pamphlets
(with much rare material and ephemera), approximately 100 current and 300
discontinued journals, including rare material relating to the black
presence in Britain, post-war.The library holdings of the Institute of
Race Relations are unique; material relevant from the perspective of the
cultural studies researcher, media student, social scientist, economist,
historian, anthropologist, political activist, anti-racist campaigner, is
assembled into one collection, encompassing as wide a range of opinion,
analysis and comment as possible. No other institution covers the field so
extensively.
The bulk of the library collection
was developed from the early sixties to the present, though some earlier
material is held. The collection has largely expanded under the aegis
of Dr. A. Sivanandan, Director, who first came to the Institute as its
librarian in 1964. Both he and Ms. Waters, currently librarian, are
fully qualified professionals. At present, the collection numbers an
estimated 7,000 books, 5,000 pamphlets (including much rare material
and ephemera), approximately 100 current and 300 discontinued journals,
including rare material relating to the black presence in Britain, post-war.
The library, which is fully catalogued, is arranged primarily by geographical
area or country, and then by subject, in an adaptation of Barbara Kyle's
scheme for the social sciences (and hence reflecting some of its biases
and prejudices). In broad terms, the regions covered are Latin America,
the Caribbean, the United States, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East,
South and South East Asia, Africa, with particularly substantial collections
on Britain, the United States, Western Europe and Southern Africa. There
is a section on women's issues and a large general section covering
issues such as imperialism, migration , Third World development, race
theories, and slavery.
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London
Metropolitan Archives
The LMA is the largest local authority
record office in the UK holding 32 miles of London-related material dating
from the twelfth century. References to Black and Asian Londoners and
London organisations are scattered throughout its holdings. The strength
of the collections held is based on a large variety of sources which show
the daily life of black peoples in London over a very long period. LMA
also holds a wealth of illustrative material including over 2 million
photographic images and 20,000 prints.
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Public Record Office
The Public Record Office is the repository of the national archives
for England, Wales and the United Kingdom. It was founded by Act of
Parliament in 1838 to bring together and preserve the records of central
government and the courts of law, and to make them available to all
who wish to consult them. The records, beginning with Domesday Book
(1086), span an unbroken period from the 11th century to the present.
Today the Public Record Office advises government departments on best
practice in records management as well as selecting those which will
be kept in perpetuity. All documents selected are opened for public
inspection at the PRO thirty years after the file was closed, except
in a few cases where the closure period is longer for reasons of national
security, commercial sensitivity or personal confidentiality. The PRO
is the treasure house of the nation's memory. Included on its 90 miles
of shelving are a hugely diverse range of historical documents including
returns for parliamentary elections in 1275, lists of Elizabeth I's
jewels, Shakespeare's will, Guy Fawkes' confession, and the first American
newspaper. There is Captain Bligh's account of the mutiny on The Bounty,
Napoleon's post mortem, decrypts of the British Ambassador's despatches
describing the start of the Russian Revolution, the abdication instrument
signed by Edward VIII, minutes of Churchill's War Cabinet and 617 Squadron's
account of the busting of the Mohne and Eder dams. The PRO holds personal
and semi-official papers of British ministers and officials relating
to the colonies, as well as the official records of the Colonial and
Dominions Offices. The PRO is an invaluable resource for academic researchers,
local historians, genealogists and many other groups of readers.
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Society
for Caribbean Studies
The aims of the Society are to encourage
education and research about the Caribbean and to provide some opportunity
for mutual contact among those concerned with the region and its
diasporas. Every year since 1977, the Society has held a Conference,
attracting participants from the Caribbean, Europe, Canada and the United
States. Each Annual Conference has sessions at which papers span a wide
range of academic disciplines, usually including anthropology, geography,
history, literature, culture, politics, religion and sociology. The
Conferences are focussed around regular themes such as literature, gender,
slavery and emancipation, but also include special sessions which
commemorate important anniversaries in Caribbean history or consider major
contemporary problems. The Society is a member of the United Kingdom
Coordinating Council for Area Studies Associations and collaborates with
all United Kingdom Centres of Caribbean Studies in encouraging interest in
the region. However, in order to solidify its base, in 1998 the Executive
Committee took the decision to locate the administrative office of the
Society at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick. The
Secretary of the Centre is also the Administrative and Membership
Secretary for the Society and the Society and the Centre collaborate with
regard to events and conferences.
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University of London Computing
Centre
Technical support is being provided by ULCC, home to the
UNESCO thesaurus and the UK National Digital Archive of Datasets.
ULCC
has been providing IT services for over 30 years. Originally it served the
University of London, then grew into a regional centre and later a
national high performance computing centre. Established in 1968, ULCC
initially provided large scale CDC-based facilities, then from 1982 to
1991 a national Cray vector supercomputing service. Up until July 1996 its
high performance computing facilities were centred on a Convex C3860. Over
the years it has diversified into a range of other services, including
microform, typesetting and training. With the growth of networking, ULCC
has remained at the forefront of network developments in the UK academic
community and is now active at all levels - local, London-wide, national
and international. Data storage and dissemination has always been an
important aspect of ULCC's services. Today, the National Data Repository
provides for the safe storage and network access to very high volumes of
digital data.
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University of North London
The
University offers a wide-ranging multidisciplinary undergraduate programme
in Caribbean Studies, with its strengths in historical and cultural
studies. It is also an important centre for research into the recent
history and contemporary literature and societies of the Caribbean in
French, English and Spanish speaking areas. The main stock of the library
contains approximately 2500 books/videos on a wide range of aspects of the
Caribbean, together with approximately 1000 items on Black and Asian
people in Britain. These are mainstream publications. There are also
approximately 25 current subscriptions with some backruns of relevant
periodical titles.
The Trade Union Congress
Library Collections, were established in 1922 and transferred to the
University of North London in September 1996. The core areas of the
collection are reference and historical works on the trade union movement,
union publications from the UK and overseas, documents relating to working
conditions and industrial relations in various industries and countries,
and material collected from the various campaigns and policy areas in
which the TUC has been involved since its foundation in 1868. A major
strength of the Library lies in its large holdings of pamphlets, periodicals
and other ephemera, particularly those collected in connection with
the work of the TUC International and Colonial Advisory Committees.
The majority of this material dates from the 1920s onwards, although
some earlier pamphlets date back to the 19th century. The Library itself
had its origins in the TUC International Bureau, whose function was
to collect, file and distribute information from international and overseas
political and labour movements. The Collections hold the printed publications
of the TUC, its affiliated unions, and overseas organisations with which
it has been in contact. (The TUC Archive, including committee minutes,
correspondence files, etc. have been deposited in the Modern Records
Centre). It also holds Labour Party publications (including the British
Commonwealth Labour Conferences from 1925), plus pamphlet collections
from the Communist Party and other relevant political groups and campaigns,
e.g. the Fabian Colonial Bureau, League against Imperialism. Also held
are the publications of various international organisations such as
the ILO and its regional organisations from 1918, the Commonwealth TUC,
material from and about trade union internationals from c.1913, plus
papers from the Red International and the National Minority Movement.
Handlists of some of this material may be found in 'African trade union
material in the Library of the TUC', African Research & Documentation,
SCOLMA 1977, and 'International trade unions: preliminary checklist
of publications', Institute of Development Studies Library, 1974.
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University of Warwick
Library
The University of Warwick Library's collection of books and periodicals
in Caribbean Studies is tailored directly to the teaching needs of the
Centre for Caribbean Studies and some staff and students of British
& Comparative Cultural Studies, History (and comparative American
Studies), French and English. The main threads are colonial and postcolonial
history and literature in the English-, Spanish- and French-speaking
Caribbean, with most emphasis on Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana,
Cuba, Haiti and the French Antilles. The various colonial regimes and
their plantation societies are covered, as well as the post-emancipation
and post-independence experiences of these territories. A major strength
lies in literary writers (in all three languages) such as E.K. Brathwaite,
Andrew Salkey, Olive Senior, David Dabydeen, Fred D'Aguiar, Beryl Gilroy
and Wilson Harris (in English), and G Cabrera Infante, Alejo Carpentier
and Nicolas Guillen (in Spanish). The Centre for Caribbean Studies at
Warwick is also strongly represented among our partners. Additional
strong collections worth noting are those on immigration and race relations
in the Library's Social Studies division (sociology, politics, law).
The Centre for Research in
Ethnic Relations (in the Faculty of Social Studies) is a major
academic body in the UK for the research and teaching of matters
concerning racism, migration and ethnic relations. The Centre aims to
increase knowledge, promote better understanding, and influence the work
of other agencies and bodies with an interest in racism, migration and
ethnic relations, through programmes of research, teaching, training,
conferences, seminars, publications and a range of other dissemination
activities. The CRER Resources Centre houses unique collections of
primarily British non-book materials covering a wide range of issues in
ethnic relations. It also has an extensive collection of grey (mainly
non-published) literature on the same subject. It is the home of the
National Minority Data Archive which is is a specialist source of
quantitative information and data analyses relating to the changing
situation of minority ethnic groups living in the United Kingdom (and,
where information is available, the countries of continental Europe).
Research conducted by NEMDA draws upon numerous data sets, ranging from
the decennial Census of Population and large-scale national social surveys
(such as the Labour Force Survey) to the results of local surveys of
particular ethnic groups.
Records concerned with racism
and discrimination are also to be found in some of the trade union and
similar records in the Modern
Records Centre. The Centre aims to collect and make available
for research original sources for British political, social and economic
history, with particular reference to labour history, industrial relations
and industrial politics. The type of material held by the Centre includes
signed minutes, correspondence files, runs of printed journals and ephemera
of trade unions, the TUC registry files, 1920-87, and records of employers'
and trade associations, including the CBI and its predecessors. It also
holds the records of some interest groups and political organisations
(including West Midlands), of individuals and business (particularly
the motor industry). The Centre provides accommodation for consultation
of the Library's 41 T&U series, including the Board of Trade Library
collection. It also holds for the University's Centre for Research in
Ethnic Relations (CRER) the 'Gurharpal Singh Archive - Communism in
the Punjab,' which covers the 1920s to the 1970s. All the material is
kept in closed accommodation and may be worked on only in the Centre,
under the supervision of its staff. The Centre is open to all serious
researchers. Advance notice of a visit can prove mutually helpful. Some
deposits are subject to restrictions on their use for research. Some
may only be read after permission has been obtained from the depositor
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