Untitled Document

Progress Report 3

March 2000 - April 2000

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

Archives
Printed Sources
Awareness
IT

Goals for March

Goals for April

Important Dates

General Summary of Activity

The main areas of attention this month have been organising the Steering Group meeting on the 23rd March, creating the web-pages which are now on trial and maintaining or initiating contact with the other projects. The project researcher interviews are organised for 5th April and the interview board consists of David Ward, Julie Evans, Sam Collenette and Maxine Miller, LMA. The archive and printed sources module groups have been set up and the survey strategies are being discussed. Internet Resources for Caribbean Studies have been passed to University of North London. Please send any more relevant URLs to me. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport are including our project as a case study in their policy documentation for the Social Inclusion Committee. This document will be published in May.

I said a few words about the project at a Caribbean Studies conference organised by Amanda Sives. The conference was very useful especially in impressing on me the multi-disciplinary nature of Caribbean Studies. Julie and I visited The British Library to see the sterling work done by Stella Britzolakis, Anne Summers and Carole Holden surveying the Manuscript and Newspaper collections. We also met Nigel Lutt at Bedfordshire and Luton Record Office to discuss the inclusion of their 'Sources for records relating to Ethnic Minority Groups' and to research the process of their survey. I met Sam Walker at the Black Cultural Archives to discuss our projects and future co-operation. Last week I attended an RSLP project management workshop, which was very useful and I intend to put some of the suggestions made there into practice.

We are pleased to welcome Rosemarie Mallett as the Caribbean Studies representative on the Steering Group. Minutes of this meeting will be circulated to all partners soon.

Modules

Archives

After sending out 86 follow up letters to the BASA questionnaire I have received positive replies from approximately 30 repositories, many of which also hold relevant Caribbean Studies material. I attended an Oral History Workshop in Cardiff, which was very useful in terms of practical guidance in setting up such projects and in highlighting the relationship this type of project forges between the institution and the subjects. Many of the participants expressed an interest in CASBAH and one attendee had worked on a recording project with Asian families in Birmingham in the 1980s. I spent one day at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth and found many collections of interest particularly to Caribbean Studies. I also made some useful contacts with local researchers interested in Welsh connections with the Caribbean and the Slave Trade. I visited Glamorgan Record Office in Cardiff and found several collections documenting the Black presence there and procedures in place to note references to Black and Asian people found in the parish registers. One reference noted the baptism of a black servant in Cardiff in 1687.

Printed Sources and Audio-Visual

The National Library of Wales has a reasonably large collection of printed material relating to the Caribbean and I will be contacting the Library to ask for their involvement. Representatives from the Mapping Asia project, concerned with printed sources, visited the Institute to discuss issues relating to collection descriptions for printed sources and suitable database formats. We also discussed survey methods and ideas for a web form that would allow direct inputting in order to lessen the burden of data entry.

Awareness

I have arranged to speak at the Ethnic Minority Archives training day at Nottinghamshire Archives on the 5th July. I have also sent in an article to the Library and Information Group Newsletter. Julie will be writing an article for focus, the newsletter of the International Group of the Library Association. The casbah-rslp@mailbase.ac.uk discussion list has been very quiet but I will be putting out some more messages and updates on it and I hope that you will all feel encouraged to use it to publicise related events or activities.

The new web-pages are up at http://www.casbah.ac.uk/private

We intend to put up as much information as possible, so that interested parties can chart the progress of the project. Please direct any comments about content or style to the casbah-partners listserve for discussion.

Goals for March

1 Develop survey strategies for printed and audio-visual sources - underway

2 Develop survey strategies for archives - underway

3 Finalise IT requirements - yes for archives, printed sources - a few fields to agree

4 Develop web-site - yes

5 Complete articles - yes

6 Circulate information leaflet - to Steering Group at meeting

6 Publicise listserve - underway

7 Produce dissemination strategy - underway

Goals for April

1 Visit partners - discuss role in project, any problems and establish time-scales for collection information.

2 Continue outreach and awareness activities

3 Organise surveys scheduled for May

4 Interview for Project Researcher Post

5 Circulate Steering Group minutes and operational plan for April- June

Important Dates

We plan to begin surveys once the project researcher post has been filled, so this means putting back the planned timing. It should also be borne in mind that these are still approximate dates as the length of surveys needed is to an extent, unknown.

1 Archive Surveys at Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London

Metropolitan Archives and University of North London completed by end of May

2 Archive surveys at Wolverhampton Archives and Modern Records Centre completed by the end of June

3 20th July 2000 - Steering Group Meeting