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Progress Report 2

February 2000 - March 2000

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

  • Archives
  • Printed Sources
  • Awareness
  • IT

Goals for February

Goals for March

Important Dates

General Summary of Activity

The Launch of the project on 23rd February was very well supported by partners and friends of the project. We welcomed approximately 70 people to the launch including BAAWP members, Vic Gray, Chair of the National Council on Archives; Dr Chris Kitching of the Historic Manuscripts Commission, Steve Brace, Director of Education for the Commonwealth Institute and representatives of various RSLP project teams.

As well as preparing for the launch, I have concentrated this month on our requirements for the project database. A meeting of the IT group discussed functionality, information transfer and field requirements and a basic outline of the decisions made is listed below in the IT section for discussion.

David Crook, Project Director of the NOF Immigration bid at the Public Record Office; Rozina Visram, author of Ayahs, Lascars, and Princes: Indians in Britain, 1700-1947; Lola Young, Project Director of the National Museum and Archives of Black History and Culture have agreed to sit on the Steering Group of the Project. A representative for Caribbean Studies has still to be confirmed. A listserve has been set-up at Mailbase. It is publicly listed and people can join automatically, there is also a link to our web page for more details.

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Modules

Archives

Continuing the process of drawing threads of previous research together I have set up another database recording archival references in publications. This is to identify collections already used for research and also to record keywords, and descriptions of useful record series. These will all be of use in the survey stage of the project. I am in the process of photocopying replies to the BASA questionnaire in order to send them out with a template letter asking for record offices' involvement in the project. I will also ask for information about the subject terms used in describing relevant collections and for any updated collection information. Mailbase have accepted my application for a closed list-serve for the archives module, and this should be operational very shortly.

I have made an appointment to visit Bedfordshire and Luton Archives on the 16th March to look at the background information for their survey of Ethnic Group Archives and also to hopefully secure their participation in this project. I attended the latest meeting of the Black and Asian Archives Working Party at which among other reports the report of the Training subcommittee was given and I am sure that project input will be useful.

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Printed Sources and Audio-Visual

The collection information has been keyed and placed within the draft web-site for the project. A casbah-print-av listserve has also been set-up and will soon be very useful. The first task for the module group will concern survey strategies. Simon Baker, British Film Institute, has expressed an interest in joining this module group and has already passed on a very useful article about the Racial Identity Database set up by UCLA Film and Television Archive.

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Awareness

I am in the process of writing the articles mentioned in last months progress report and have also been approached by Stella Keenan to write an article for focus, the journal of the International Group of the Library Association. I hope to have these finished for the middle of March. A write-up of the project's Launch reception will also be sent to the Society of Archivists’ newsletter. As stated in the introduction a public listserve has been established at Mailbase and this should be active very soon.

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IT

www.casbah.ac.uk has been established. At present it contains the information that is still available via the ICS web-site. However, Julie and I attended Dreamweaver training last week, so hopefully, we should be able to design something rather more exciting soon.

As mentioned above, the IT module group consisting of Dr Francis Blomeley- ULCC, Howard Falksohn-Lambeth Archives, Maxine Miller-LMA, Charlotte Shaw-LMA, David Ward, Julie Evans and myself met to discuss the project's database requirements. UKOLN held a concertation day attended by Julie Evans and I, to discuss the elements RSLP projects could include in their collection descriptions. We intend to take these on board but if it is not possible to include the schema intact, we will map the relevant fields to RDF (Resource Description Framework) for UKOLN's use.

It was agreed that archive descriptions would use ISAD(G) elements with name, place subject access points. Additional fields included a geographical reference so regions could be selected for search purposes. We envisage using a map of Britain as one means of entry to the database. Also given the attempt to consolidate previous research use of collections, an acknowledgement field was agreed on to cite the source of the information where this is unpublished. The database will use MySQL software and will be held at ULCC. The database will be accessible via the web, with a password protected editing facility.

The printed and audio-visual source fields will be circulated to the module group for comments. It is planned that participating institutions' details will be tabled separately and then linked back to collection information. Organisations with archives will be identified using the HMC identity codes. We are trying to decide on an established means to identify all libraries and organisations with libraries, if anyone has any ideas for this please contact me. We are currently considering using the identity codes for inter-library loans.

I intend to create an Access database using the fields and arrangement of the MySQL software, to facilitate surveying and recording the data on-site. This will also be made available for Lambeth's use in the Black History Project they are working on. For individual entries or modification, a web interface will allow inputting directly to the ULCC database. The data will be downloaded as web pages, this enables free text searching, as well as by field and keyword.

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Goals for February

1 Establish Project Web-site - achieved

2 Project Launch 23rd February - achieved

3 Discuss database requirements for archives, printed sources and AV material - achieved

4 Develop survey strategies for printed sources via e-mail discussion with Printed Sources Module group - to do

5 Set up listserve- achieved

6 Write up articles - in process

7 Approve final draft of information leaflet- in process

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Goals for March

1 Develop survey strategies for printed and audio-visual sources

2 Develop survey strategies for archives

3 Finalise IT requirements

4 Develop web-site

5 Complete articles and circulate information leaflet for approval

6 Publicise listserve

7 Produce dissemination strategy

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Important Dates

1 Partners' Printed Source and AV collections surveyed by end of March

2 Archive Surveys at Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London Metropolitan Archives and University of North London completed by end of April

3 Archive surveys at Wolverhampton and Modern Records Centre completed by end of May

4 Steering Group Meeting 23rd March 2000 2pm at ICS Menzies Room

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