Progress Report 11

February 2001- March 2001

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

• Archives
• Printed and Audio-Visual Resources
• Collaborative Collection Management
• Awareness
• IT: Project Web Site, Database and Subject Gateway

Action Points

Appendix 1: Project Researcher's February Report

Project Personnel: DW (David Ward - Project Director); JE (Julie Evans - Project Manager); RSB (Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood - Project Researcher); CD (Carol Dixon - Project Officer)

General Summary of Activity

Throughout February time has been spent redesigning the layout and editing the content of the CASBAH web site, with a view to uploading the new web pages to http://www.casbah.ac.uk by the end of April 2001. Initial ideas for revising the pages on the current site were discussed during planning meetings of all four members of the CASBAH team, drawing on examples of good practice observed on the web sites of other RSLP projects. Full details of the decisions made and work completed on the new web site are listed in the IT section of this report.

Preparatory research for the five regional archive surveys has also progressed. Manchester was selected as the first regional survey back in January and the date for the visit was finalised for the week commencing Monday 26th March. Collections highlighted by the archivists working at the National Museum of Labour History (NMLH) and the Greater Manchester County Record Office (GMCRO) have been targetted for inclusion in the survey and it is hoped that the sampling of other records will uncover hitherto unknown relevant collections during the survey process. Provisional dates for conducting the remaining four regional surveys have been agreed and are shown in the Archives section of the report.

Planning meetings were held on 8th and 22nd February to prioritise workloads and set dates for future meetings with partners, Steering Group members and module sub-groups. The team agreed to activate fewer module group meetings than originally proposed in the project plan and it was decided to only arrange meetings for the Archives Module Group and the Collaborative Collection Management Module Group over the next 12 months. DW also proposed that the structure within which outstanding tasks and activities for the project's 5 modules should be rationalised and tasks related to database and web site development, methodology for archive research and collaborative collection management initiatives were proposed as the central (or "core") priorities for this phase of the project. A consensus on this proposed change has yet to be reached and the team would welcome advice from representatives of CASBAH's partner institutions and the Steering Group on this proposal.

Promotion and summation of the project's work and current progress has been continuing via postings on listserves and the submission of a report to the Society for Caribbean Studies newsletter. Members of the team have also been involved in disseminating information about the project's current progress to representatives from the following organisations: George Padmore Institute; West Midlands Regional Museums Council, Regional Archive Council and Library Partnership; Archives and Museum of Black Heritage (formerly NMBHAC).

Priorities for completing the remaining tasks within each module over the next few months continue to be planned.

Modules

Archives Prior to finalising the repositories that were chosen for the first regional survey, on-line research into the collections housed within a number of Manchester-based archives was conducted. Information was then sent to the archivists within each repository to ascertain the relevance of the collections to the CASBAH project's survey remit. Detailed requests for information were sent to repositories such as the National Museum of Labour History (NMLH), Greater Manchester County Records Office (GMCRO), Methodist Archives and Research Centre (MARC) and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive (University of Manchester). One of the most interesting responses was received from the archivist at the NMLH, who highlighted the following potentially relevant archive collections:

THE LABOUR PARTY ARCHIVES · National Agent's Dept · Labour & the Black Electorate 1980s · Research Dept · Race Relations & Immigration 1929-68 · International Dept · Correspondence re West Indian Islands and India 1929-64 · Papers of British Asian and Overseas Fellowship 1953-72

COMMUNIST PARTY ARCHIVES · Papers of Kay Beauchamp 1961-79 relating to Movement for Colonial Freedom/Liberation · National Race Relations Committee 1968-82 · CPGB Black members' Caucus 1991

OTHER COLLECTIONS · File on Manchester Negro Association

It is hoped that the Manchester survey will help to provide further insights into archive research that can be added to the documentation about survey methodologies outlined in RSB's Wolverhampton survey report (and summarised in the last progress report to partners (January 2001).

Attention will also be given to building up a picture of material for Caribbean studies held in archives and repositories that has been collected since the publication of the first edition of Manuscript sources for the history of the West Indies by K. E. Ingram in 1983.

As a prelude to supporting RSB during the Manchester survey CD attended a Basic Archives Skills Training Day on 21st February run by Margaret Crockett and Janet Foster, Directors of the BASTD archive skills consultancy. Sessions included: Introduction to Archives, by Janet Foster; Preservation Issues, by Jonathan Rhys Lewis; Archival Description, by Caroline Shenton (Parliamentary Archives); Reference Services by Janet Foster; Records Management Overview, by Margaret Crockett; Automation for Records Operations & Archival Data Pooling Initiatives, by Christopher Hilton (Wellcome Institute).

The remaining regional surveys have been provisionally scheduled for the following months: · Glasgow = June 2001 · Glamorgan = June/July 2001 · Leicestershire = September 2001 · Belfast = September 2001

RSB has completed the analysis of survey data collated during visits to the Institute of Race Relations archive and Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies. Please refer to the Project Researcher's February report, appended below, for further details

Printed and Audio-Visual Resources On Tuesday 20th February CD and JE spent the morning at the University of North London meeting Chris Coates (Archivist at the TUC Library + Archive) and Denise Amalemba (UNL's subject librarian responsible for Caribbean Studies and Education courses). The purpose of this visit was to give CD sight of the types of materials surveyed for the archives module and re-establish contact with both Chris and Denise to offer support on the completion of printed sources collection descriptions for both the TUC library's printed sources and the UNL library's collections relevant to Caribbean studies and the history of Black and Asian people in Britain.

RSB, CD and JE are continuing to develop a rationale for conducting a survey of libraries within UK HEIs, and also (to a lesser extent) a rationale for mapping printed sources and a-v collections in public libraries, with a view to circulating the first survey questionnaires in June 2001.

Planning is underway for conducting a pilot test of LCSH and UNESCO Thesaurus subject terms on the collection descriptions used in the CASBAH database, in preparation for the development of a keywords list of subject terms related to Caribbean studies and Black and Asian history in the UK.

Collaborative Collection Management The purpose of this module is to investigate ways in which the various archive and repositories surveyed during the life of the Project can liase with one another so as to co-ordinate collection development of materials which are relevant to the study of Black and Asian history in the UK and also Caribbean Studies. It is hoped that the surveying of archives and libraries throughout the UK will identify national collection strengths and significant gaps, which can then be addressed by institutions in a co-ordinated way to ensure that future funding for these research areas is wisely spent and there is no overlap in what resources are acquired. The module outcomes centre on developing policies that could be put forward as a model for national collaborative collection development in this field and put in place the mechanisms for creating a consortium of key resource providers for Caribbean studies and Black and Asian history in Britain.

The following texts are being reviewed and summarised by CD to obtain background information about the types of bi-lateral and multilateral collaborative collection management strategies which could be applied to, and further developed by, the CASBAH Project:

1. Branin, J et al (2000) The changing nature of collection management in research libraries, Library Resources and Technical Services, 44,1: 23-32. 2. Jenkins, C and Morley, M (eds) (1999) Collection management in academic libraries, Aldershot: Gower. 3. Osborn, C. (ed) (1991) Collection management: a new treatise, Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. 4. Shaughnessy, T. (1999) Trends and expectations for collection development: challenges for libraries in coming years, Library Collections Acquisitions and Technical Services, 23, 4: 469-471. 5. Thornton, G (2000) Impact of electronic resources on collection development: the roles of libraries and library consortia, Library Trends, 48, 4: 7842-856.

CD will also attend the ASVIN Project's seminar, entitled 'Library Co-operation and Collaboration' at the British Library on 25th April to hear presentations about consortial collaborative activities and library co-operation initiatives in order to feedback information about the good practice established by other organisations involved in this aspect of information work. Speakers will include Dr Cuna Ekmekcioglu (Co-ordinator of the SCONE Projects Group, University of Strathclyde) and Carl Clayton (Director of SINTO: The Sheffield Information Organisation who is also involved in the National Forum for Information Planning).

Awareness On Tuesday 20th February CD and JE had a meeting with Jerry Weber (Regional Development Officer, West Midlands: Regional Museums Council, Regional Archive Council and The Library Partnership) and offered support and advice on submitting a bid to Re:source to fund a project initiative to map resources about the history and cultural heritage of Black and Asian communities in the West Midlands region.

RSB has written a report about the work of the Project for the Society of Caribbean Studies, due to appear in SCS Newsletter No. 47 next month.

Background information about the CASBAH Project and its work over the past year was posted on the LIS-LINK listserve for library and information science professionals (hosted by Jiscmail). This will be followed up by a series of specific requests for information about both public and academic libraries with relevant printed sources and audio-visual collections relevant to the CASBAH subject areas.

CD has begun circulating emails to course tutors running library, archive and information management courses in the UK, offering to give presentations about the work of the project. The first of these presentations is scheduled to take place at Thames Valley University on Thursday 31 May at 3pm.

There are now 87 members of the CASBAH-RSLP listserve. 22 messages were posted to the list during February.

Usage statistics on the number of visitors to the CASBAH web site (November 2000 - February 2001) are shown below:

IT Work is underway on revising the structure and content of the CASBAH web site. A web page designer has been commissioned to create a new introductory page to the site in Flash which will incorporate a selection of some of the photographs uncovered during archive surveys at the following repositories: Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies, the London Metropolitan Archive and the Modern Records Centre (University of Warwick). CD has also sought permission to use other photographs held in collections housed at the Imperial War Museum and the Documentary Photographic Archive at the GMCRO which might also help to convey pictorial information about the history and cultural heritage of Black and Asian people in Britain.

CD and RSB have continued to work on the content of the web site with the aim of having the new site ready by the end of April 2001. In the meantime, the following pages on the existing CASBAH web site have been updated so that information remains current up to the time when all the newly designed pages are uploaded: · Project Personnel = http://www.casbah.ac.uk/Project_Personnel.htm · Progress Report 5 (May - June 2000) = http://www.casbah.ac.uk/Progress_Report_5.htm · Progress Report 6 (November 2000 - January 2001) = http://www.casbah.ac.uk/Progress_Report_6.htm · Project Updates = http://www.casbah.ac.uk/Project_Update.htm

The new site will have sections on the following aspects of the project's work to-date: · About the Project (including sub-pages about the project's inception and original plan, funding and key deliverables) · Modules · Reports · News and Events · Search the CASBAH database (including sub-pages detailing the technical specifications of the Project's database) - this page will only be fully available towards the end of the life of the project. In the interim, there will be supporting pages explaining what the database will eventually contain and some examples of how the survey information will eventually be displayed. · Search help (with guidance on effective search strategies for users of the database) · Contacts (incorporating the info in the existing Personnel section with contact details for partner institutions, etc.) · Links (to associated web sites) · Acknowledgements · Feedback · Site Index

In addition to the above there will be a direct link to the RSLP web site from the CASBAH home/index page (and a prominent RSLP logo).

A link to the archive of the CASBAH-RSLP listserve from http://www.casbah.ac.uk is being investigated.

Action Points/Priorities for March-April 2001

General: · There will be a joint meeting for CASBAH project partners and members of the Steering Group on Tuesday 24th April.

Archives: · CD will send an email to the distribution list of the BAAWP asking for the names of any key researchers based in (or with extensive knowledge of) the regional survey areas who might be able to give experiential insights into the archival collections housed there.

· CD and RSB will conduct site surveys of collections housed within the NMLH Labour History Archive and the GMCRO during a 1-week visit to Manchester w/c Monday 26th March. Time permitting, a brief visit to the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive (University of Manchester) is also planned for the afternoon of Thursday 28th March.

· Please refer to RSB's report for details about the progress of the survey tool document and feedback on the IRR and Wolverhampton Archive and Local Studies surveys.

Awareness: · CD will write and circulate promotional information about the work of the project for the newsletters/bulletins of UK universities (e.g. UNL Focus Magazine, Institute of Education 'This Wee' Newsletter, etc.). This will be distributed from mid-March onwards.

· CD will continue to work on the text of the CASBAH promotional leaflet and will circulate a draft to project partners with the May 2001 progress report.

Printed and AV Sources: · CD will write a summary of the survey methodology for conducting surveys of libraries beyond the partner institutions. This will commence with the compilation of a list of all the HEIs in the UK, arranged by region (using the following SoA regional divisions: Eastern Region; East Midlands; London; Northern Region; North West; Scotland; Southern Region; South West; Wales; West Midlands Region).

· CD will also contact Peter Clinch (FLAG) and Susan Jephcott (Mapping Asia at SOAS) to get advice on survey methodology and questionnaire design for the CASBAH printed sources survey.

Collaborative Collection Management: · CD will continue to summarise articles on national and international CCM initiatives in order to circulate information to partners by the end of March.

IT · The CASBAH team will agree the field lists for the archival collection descriptions at the next team meeting on Thursday 8th March so that preparatory work can begin on exporting completed batches of survey records to the MySQL database.

· RSB and CD will continue to work on the revised CASBAH web site, scheduled to go live at the end of April 2001.

· Copyright cleared JPG images of photographs to be used in the web site's introduction will be sent to the web designer by the end of March 2001.

Carol Dixon - Tuesday 6th March

Appendix 1 Project Researcher's February Report

General Summary of Activity During the last month my focus has been on completing the survey reports for the Institute of Race Relations and the Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies. Full details of these activities can be found in the Archives section. The mapping of printed sources in Caribbean Studies and the study of Black and Asian peoples continues, and the latest developments are given in the Printed Section. We continue to receive national and international enquires regarding the aims of the project and details of the latest contacts, as well as the latest outreach work, are given in the Publicity and Awareness Section. I have continued the process of preparing the survey data to be uploaded to MyQSL while the field lists are being verified. Further details are found in the IT section. A chunk of my time this month has been spent working with CD on revamping the website. A short summary of my contribution to the website can also be found in the IT section, but please refer to CD's report for full details.

Modules

Archives

INSTITUTE OF RACE RELATIONS The aim of the survey was to provide a case study of how Printed (sub) Collection descriptions can be created and more importantly, to draw out some key aspects of the collections that would possibly help in the creation of the descriptions. Although the Printed Collection Descriptions have already been submitted, it is my hope that survey findings will help to plump them up. The survey report can be found in CASBAH/IRR/survey and survey reports/.

The report of the IRR survey will be sent to Hazel Waters no later than 9 March 2001.

WOLVERHAMPTON ARCHIVES AND LOCAL STUDIES The record series surveyed were selected as a way in which to (1) develop our thematic spread of record series; and (2) to examine record series not covered in Emily Davis' survey in 1999. Aware of ongoing projects aiming to identify and record the lives of Black and Asian people in Wolverhampton (i.e., BE - ME), it is hoped that the findings of this pilot survey will have local as well as national relevance. The survey report can be found in CASBAH/WALS/survey and survey reports/.

The report of the WALS survey will be sent to Peter Evans and Mary Mills no later than 9 March 2001.

MODERN RECORDS CENTRE I have tidied up the MRC data, but no further input work has been done. The decision whether to return to complete the survey has not been made.

THE MULTIPLE ARCHIVE DESCRIPTIONS DATABASE I have not yet started to input the material gathered from Marika Sherwood's collection, and from the references passed on to us by Andrew Lewis. This is an important aspect of the project's work and a decision needs to be made as to whether, (and if so, how and when) the data is to be inputted. The majority of the records are file-level and lower, but these records can be anchored in higher-level collection descriptions (for instance, many of the references passed on by AL are part of the archive collections indexed by the NRA and so can be traced back to their 'parent' collection. It might also be possible to make this part of the Collaboration Collection Management module, with the production of a NRA-based database containing lower-level records and their 'parent' collection, alongside documentation mapping our the processes involved in maintaining a balance between (a) mapping and identifying relevant record series, and (b) ensuring the integrity of the archival collections as bodies of records, as well as (c) documentation highlighting the ways in which such a database could possibly be in beginning the long process of collating, at a national level, lower-level research sources in our subject areas).

SURVEY TOOL DW suggested that a survey tool, based on the experiences and insights gleaned from the archive surveys, be drafted. I began work on this document in December 2000 and hope to finish it by April (the deadline has been extended due to other priorities)

REGIONAL SURVEYS I have continued to assist CD in researching the possible sites for the regional archive surveys. The archives have been selected based on (a) location, (b) level of established contact (c) possible relevant record groups (or records within our thematic spread) and (d) whether preliminary research on the record series can be conducted at the HMC.

My role is to help narrow the search down to a few possible repositories, the gathering of background information and the selecting of collections to survey based on past experience and familiarity with this particular aspect of the project. Full details of the progress being made can be found in CDs report.

Printed Sources and Audio-Visual I have continued to work on the database of the centres and departments - as well as academics - involved in teaching and conducting research in our subject fields. This is an ongoing project and much more work needs to be done.

PSCD template: The fields list need to verified and set.

PSCD survey: The rationale for the dissemination of PSCD questionnaires has yet to be verified.

Awareness Listserv We have 87 members on our casbah-rslp listserv. Team and listserv members have posted events, articles and suggestions. It is clear that that I need to ensure that more events, articles and issues related to the Asian and African communities in the UK are posted.

Publicity Forthcoming publicity includes an article in the Society for Caribbean Studies Newsletter (to be followed up by a lunchtime presentation by CD at the SCS conference in July 2001).

IT: Project web site and database

Website CD and I have been revamping the website. I have been working on the 'about the project', 'scope of the project', 'partners and steering group' sections, and with CD, the modules section. In revamping the website, sections have been condensed and attempts have been made to make the site attractive and easy to access and negotiate. An important guide has been the project proposal written by DW and JE and this document is being used extensively in the revisions.

Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood - 23rd February 2001