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Progress Report 15July 2001 - August 2001Contents:
Action Points for September 2001 Project Researcher's July Report Project Personnel: Julie Evans (Project Manager); RSB (Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood - Project Researcher); CD (Carol Dixon - Project Officer) 1. General Summary of ActivityThroughout July the main priorities for the CASBAH team have been:
RSB and CD spent the week of the 23rd-27th July visiting the Glamorgan Record Office and the Butetown History and Arts Centre and summarised information from a range of archive resources documenting the history of Black and Asian peoples in Cardiff and the South Glamorgan region. Full details about the collection descriptions that were collated for both repositories are detailed in the Archives section of this report. The Project Researcher's report on the Glamorgan survey will be distributed in September. The CASBAH printed sources questionnaire and its associated guidance document was distributed to over 180 libraries, resource centres and archives and, to-date, responses have been received from over 20 repositories. Correspondence with participating libraries is ongoing and the project appears to be on target for a least a 40% return. Please see the Printed and A-V Resources section of the report for further details. In terms of outreach activities preparations for CASBAH's Black History Month Dissemination Event (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 15th October 2001) are underway and the team have also been liasing with a range of other projects and societies to support other Black History month initiatives being planned throughout the London region. Work on the CASBAH database is progressing at a rapid pace. In total RSB has uploaded 10 batches of data from partners and regional archive surveys to Frances Blomeley at ULCC for inclusion on the test server. JE has also initiated work on the methodology for incorporating subject index terms from the UNESCO thesaurus to collection descriptions within the database. A framework for linking thesaurus terms to the search terms from the existing dataset of CASBAH keywords has also been devised. Since the last report team meetings were held on 29th June and 13th July at which project staffing issues, database developments and future publications arising from CASBAH's work were discussed. Owing to the departure of the Project Director, it was proposed that some of the remaining tasks within the archives module be scaled down and additional funding sought to appoint a replacement archivist from September 2001-May 2002. JE will report back on these issues after discussions with RSLP. On Thursday 19th July a Steering Group meeting was held to discuss the project's priorities throughout the next academic term, staffing issues, work schedules for the Archives and Collaborative Collection Management module groups and future funding applications to continue the work of the project beyond May 2002. 2. ModulesArchivesThe Glamorgan Record Office CD and RSB spent the 23rd-27th July at the Glamorgan Record Office in Cardiff. A preliminary meeting with the county archivist, Ms Susan Edwards, helped to prioritise the collections that were reviewed. In terms of resources for Caribbean Studies, most of the GRO's collections centred on the records of religious organisations and societies which document involvement in anti-slavery campaigns; such as the minute books of the South Wales Society of Friends dating back to the early 19th century and the files of the Cardiff Sympathetic Society (dated 1812-1846). Other records included the papers of landed families with estates in the Caribbean region. One such was the collection of the Mathew Family (Reference D/D Mw 1-342) which contained documents about plantation holdings on the islands of St Christopher, Nevis, St Martin and Antigua. Archival material on the history of Black and Asian peoples in the Cardiff area was more varied and included Glamorgan County Council records, the papers of church-based and charitable organisations located in ethnically diverse areas of Cardiff, documents relating to South Glamorgan's shipping and coal exporting industries and collections featuring photographs of Cardiff's dockland residents dating from the late 19th century to the 1960s. Collection descriptions were collated for the following record series:
Other collections highlighted by staff at the Record Office as potentially relevant to the survey included:
It is likely that at least 12 ISAD(G) descriptions from the GRO's records will be included in the CASBAH database. Further details about the work of the Glamorgan Record Office, their collections and opening hours can be obtained c/o:
NB: The following articles about the history of Black and Asian peoples in Cardiff were recommended by Marika Sherwood (BASA) in advance of the visit and helped to contextualise the information found in the collections surveyed at the GRO:
Butetown History and Arts Centre (BHAC) On Thursday 26th July CD and RSB visited the Butetown History and Arts Centre to meet the Project Director, Mr Glenn Jordan, and the Research and Archive Officer, Ms Molly Maher, and obtain information about archival materials on the history and life experiences of Black and Asian peoples in Cardiff. For information, Butetown History and Arts Centre was established in 1987 as a centre for the collection and preservation of resources documenting the social history of the communities in Cardiff's docklands (also referred to as "Tiger Bay" and "The Docks"). Funded by the Glamorgan County Council, the Arts Council for Wales, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Home Office 'Connecting Communities' funding and a grant from the EU the centre is currently involved in a range of community outreach activities, educational projects, local history research initiatives and arts exhibitions (mainly photography) geared towards raising awareness about Cardiff's multicultural history and heritage and preserving the history of Butetown's diverse communities for posterity. In terms of archival materials the centre houses the following resources:
In the time available RSB and CD were only able to collate collection descriptions for the photograph and sound archives. Nevertheless Glenn Jordan provided us with a bibliography of key secondary sources which could be used to obtain more background information about the history of Black and Asian peoples in Cardiff, including:
Molly Maher was also able to provide copies of the BHAC's list of indexing terms used on their in-house database of records from the Bay People's Photographic Archive. Further information about the BHAC can be obtained c/o:
Printed and Audio-visual ResourcesCD completed the distribution of survey questionnaire to libraries, resource centres and specialist a-v repositories during the w/c 16th July. In total 184 questionnaires were circulated to 88 public libraries, 64 academic libraries and 32 specialist repositories. To-date 21 completed questionnaires have been returned and it is hoped that the project will have at least 80 collection descriptions for export to the CASBAH database by the end of August. The closing date for the return of questionnaires has been extended to 24th August. Collaborative Collection ManagementCD's CCM report was discussed at the CASBAH Steering Group meeting on 19th July and it was agreed to arrange the first meeting for the CCM module group during the first week in November 2001. Awareness Raising, Outreach and Training InitiativesThe project team finalised the following programme for the CASBAH Black History Month event at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 15th October 2001: Venue: Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 28 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DS Purpose: The event is an opportunity for research projects and academic institutions involved in improving access to research resources for Caribbean Studies and the history of Black and Asian people in the UK to display information about their work to the wider community. Programme of events: Between 3-6pm representatives from the following projects and organisations will display a selection of resources about their work and information about the history and heritage of Black and Asian peoples in Britain:
6.15pm :15 minute presentation from performance poet, Freddy Macha 6.30 - 7.30pm : Dr Sandra Courtman, lecturer in Caribbean literature at Staffordshire University and current President of the Society for Caribbean Studies, will present a paper featuring information about her research into the portraits of post-war Caribbean migrants from the Dyche studio photographic archive. The seminar paper will be introduced by Tim Shaw (Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies). 7.30pm: 15 minute presentation from performance poet, Freddy Macha. 7.45pm: Closing presentation from the CASBAH team. (Formal presentations will end at 8pm and the event will close at 9pm). Details about the event will be advertised on the CASBAH web site from early September onwards. In addition to the above, CD and RSB have continued to circulate information about conferences, events and publications related to Caribbean studies and Black and Asian history studies via the CASBAH-RSLP listserv and the CASBAH web site. IT: Project Web Site, Database and Subject GatewayThis month CD has updated the 'News and Events', 'Progress Reports' and 'Project Data' web pages. Further web page updates are planned towards the end of August. Statistics on the number of visits to the site are shown in the table below:
Listserv: There are now 97 members of the CASBAH-RSLP listserv and a total of 22 messages were posted to the list during July 2001. MySQL: RSB has exported batches of data from the Manchester and Leicestershire regional archive surveys to Frances Blomeley at the ULCC. Full details are provided in the Project Researcher's July Report, below. JE's report on the use of UNESCO thesaurus subject headings and the construction of the CASBAH keywords index for the MySQL database was presented to the Steering Group on July 19th. Further details will be provided in the September progress report. 3. Action Points / Priorities for August-September 2001General: 1) Due to annual leave in August, the next Progress Report will be circulated at the end of September 2001. Archives: 1) RSB will continue to work on recording archive survey methodologies for the survey tool document. 2) JE and RSB will carry out preparatory research for the forthcoming Belfast survey at the HMC during w/c 6th August 3) JE and RSB will complete the Belfast archive survey on Monday 13th - Friday 17th August. 4) The Glasgow archive survey will take place during w/c Monday 10th September. Printed and Audio-Visual Resources: 1) CD will continue to collate collection descriptions from responses to the CASBAH questionnaire and will begin uploading information to the MySQL database in September. Collaborative Collection Management: 1) CD will circulate information to all the libraries participating in the Printed Sources survey from 20th August onwards asking for volunteers to participate in a CASBAH Collaborative Collection Management Module Group. The first meeting of this group will be scheduled for early November 2001. Awareness: 1) CD will continue to circulate batches of the new CASBAH leaflet to UK libraries, archives, museums, resource centres, education authorities, partner institutions and groups serving the African Caribbean and Asian communities to promote the work of the project. 2) CD will post information about the CASBAH Black History Month Dissemination Event on the CASBAH web site from the end of August onwards. Display materials for the event will be prepared throughout August and September. IT: 1) CD and RSB will export batches of data from the Glamorgan archive survey to Frances Blomeley at the ULCC in September. 2) CD will continue to make amendments and revisions to the CASBAH web site http://www.casbah.ac.uk on a monthly basis. 3) CD will prepare a short summary of the work completed during the Glamorgan regional archive survey for inclusion on the CASBAH web site's 'Project Data' page towards the end of August. Carol Dixon: 2nd August 2001 Project Researcher's July ReportRoiyah Saltus - Blackwood - Project Researcher General Summary The main focus this month has been organising survey data now housed on the CASBAH test server, and working with Julie Evans on the database that will house our subject heading and keywords. Regional Surveys were also conducted at the Glamorgan Record Office Survey and the Butetown History and Arts Centre. Core Collections and Regional Surveys
IT: Database and Subject Gateway Data gathered from the following sites has been uploaded to the CASBAH test server:
Data from Institute of Latin American Studies will be uploaded by the end of August By way of summary, please note that by the end of August 2001, data from our partners and associates - save for two partners and the archives of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies- will have been uploaded to the test server. In addition, by the end of August 2001, four of the five regional surveys will have been completed.
Awareness raising, Outreach and Training Initiatives
Please note that due to annual leave and the Belfast survey during the month of August, my next progress report will be submitted at the end of September 2001. Roiyah Saltus - Blackwood Tuesday, 31 July 2001
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