Progress Report 5

May 2000 - June 2000

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

• Archives
• Printed Sources
• Awareness

IT

Action Points

Appendix 1: Project researcher's summary of the London Metropolitan Archive survey

General Summary of Activity

London Metropolitan Archives survey has been completed, thanks to Emma Stewart, Maxine Miller at LMA for their support and of course to Roiyah for her very hard work. RSB has produced a report about the survey as part of this document, which can be found at Appendix 1 below.

The second project survey at the University of North London has been arranged for June 12th - 16th and will be accompanied by Janet Foster of AIM 25. Collaborative meetings were held with the Royal Geographical Society, the Natural History Museum and Janet Foster. Lambeth Archives have been sent a copy of the Access database to load their survey results into. A meeting in June has been arranged with Lambeth for SC and RSB to discuss methods used to identify records relating to Black and Asian people. Louise Craven, PRO will also be visited to discuss how UNESCO and LCSH might work in the context of the project.

More articles have been written and presentations on the work of the project have been arranged for the future. The new web-pages are up and available to the public.

Modules

Archives

SC met Dr Andrew Tatham at the Royal Geographical Society to discuss the New Opportunity Fund bid made by the RGS with LASER and also material, primarily for Caribbean studies, held there. The New Opportunity Funding bids from the Royal Geographical Society and Public Record Office have not yet been decided. SC also visited the Natural History Museum to survey their Archive collections, again for Caribbean Studies material, which was plentiful. Janet Foster, project surveyor for AIM25 and co-author of 'British Archives' visited the CASBAH project to discuss how AIM25 and CASBAH could co-operate and a list of record series that would fall within the project's remit were sent to encourage interaction. Further responses to the BASA questionnaire follow-ups have been received and these are beginning to be input onto the database. SC and RSB visited Andrew Lewis at the HMC to discuss keywords, how to transfer information to or from the NRA and to do some preliminary research for the LMA survey. AL has been extremely active in flagging up relevant collections among the NRA's listings.

Printed Sources and Audio-Visual

Collection description tables and draft data-entry guidelines are currently being piloted at ICS. Once any necessary changes have been made these will be circulated to partners. We are considering whether extra fields should be inserted to cover all the information required for the collection management module and how best to present the fields. A map of key libraries and institutions has been started and the databases for printed and archive descriptions combined into one database. This should enable easier cross-domain searching and prevent information of value to both resources having to be entered twice.

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Awareness

Following further tweaking the web pages are now available to the public to view. There is a great deal of information contained within these pages, ensuring that the project is as transparent and accessible as possible. It should also allow interested parties to see exactly what information we require and how we intend to use it. An article for GLAN (Greater London Archive Network) has been accepted for the June issue and one for ACARM (Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Record Managers) is nearly ready for submission. The Society for Caribbean Studies are including an article in their newsletter which will be extremely useful in alerting a large number of our potential users and contributors to the projects aims. Thanks to Amanda Sives, ICS for her part in organising this. The PRO has agreed to distribute information leaflets for the project as the exhibition for Immigrants and Aliens tours the country. Anyone interested in hosting the exhibition should contact Roger Kershaw (roger.kershaw@pro.gov.uk) to discuss arrangements. Information Leaflets will be printed and circulated to partners in the next month. A slot at the Society for Caribbean Studies Conference and the Society of Archivists Ethnic Minority Training Day in July will raise the profile of the project further. A presentation to the students of LUCAS (Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies) has also been mooted for the autumn term, although this will need confirmation.

IT

In order to maintain the integrity of each survey we have decided to save a version of the database for each one. In this way the maximum can be learnt both by the project and by the institutions. At LMA some material was discovered which may contain useful references, but was unable to be checked in sufficient detail to be included on the database at this stage. Further investigation into the material will allow a decision to be reached. Any records which were thoroughly checked and found to contain no relevant information will also be useful to keep as reference both for the institution and the project. Liverpool University Special Collections and Archives have entered information relevant to the project onto the HE Archive-Hub hosted by Liverpool University. Frances Blomeley, ULCC has developed a tool which will enable Archive-Hub descriptions to be transferred directly to the project database without the need for manual input. It is likely that this method can also be used for other electronic finding-aids. Plans for this month include drafting the format for search results. Site details for institutions which have already provided collection information or are partners in the project have been input into the project database and some pilot data has been entered. This will continue to be input.

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Action Points

Extend the grid/map of institutions to be included and surveyed across UK Define survey and mapping methodology for Black and Asian History and Caribbean Studies Collate and assess results of LMA survey Review strategy for next site, conduct UNL survey in co-operation with Janet Foster, AIM25 and organise University of Warwick survey. Circulate questionnaire for collection descriptions of printed/AV collections to partner institutions Write more articles Distribute Information Leaflets to partners Continue input of archive collection descriptions Draft format of search results page Monitor use of web-page

Appendix 1 Summary of the survey conducted at LMA (May 15 - June 2)

1) The GLC Press releases I had access to a copy of the press releases (subject, title and ref). Working from the database and the subject index of the press releases I developed CASBAH's keyword database. Total number of entered keywords: 59 (quite a few still need to be entered) Sample:coloured, 'Non-european Brisith Subjects', immigrants, mixed schools,minorities

2) The LCC archive collection - Records of the London-wide elected bodies Of the 44 binders, 32 were relevant and were searched. The various department were listed as sub-collections and include: Education Committee and sub-committees School divisions (with index and miscellaneous) Organisational, Financial and General Further and Higher Education Branch Housing Total number of entries:76 Sample of key entries directly related to the project: LCC/Children's Department/Children in Care/Miscellaneous papers and files/League of Coloured Peoples Ltd LCC/Children's Department/Miscellaneous papers and files/'C' Division: Special Groups of Children LCC/ Architect's Department/Town Planning Division/ Estates Consulted in Town Planning Schemes up to 1951/ The National Bank of India LCC/Education Officer's Department/Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Education/Subject and policy files - General/ Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council - General Papers,

3) The LCC archive collection - Hospital records The aim here was to look at the records for St Thomas' Hospital Group. The records for the group are in 8 binders. The group includes: Grosvenor Hospital General Lying -in hospital Lambeth Hospital, Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women St Thomas Hospital St Thomas' Children's Psychiatric Day hospital (formerly St Thomas' Baby Hostel, Florence Nightingale Collection The records are divided into the following sections:

Class A - General Hospital Administration, Class B - Patients Administration, Class C - Nursing Staff, Class D - Finance Office, Class E - Endowments, Class Y - Miscellaneous, Class Z - Prints and photographs

Total number of entries:45 Sample of key entries: LMA/Records of Charities/Family Welfare Association/ The Welfare of Coloured People in London:Steering Committee Meeting Book LMA/Record of Hospitals/ St Thomas' Hospital/Children's Hospital/ Administrative Records/ Particulars of Sisters and Staff Nursery Nurses: arranged alphabetically LMA/Record of Hospitals/ St Thomas' Hospital/Children's Hospital/22 photographs of nurses and mothers with babies

4)Photographs Collection The information covering this section came in the form of a database (provided by LMA) and their subject index binders (2 binders). Total number of entries: 28 Sample: Africa Centre: Mrs Sally Mugabe opens an art and craft exhibition Anti-Racism Year events with Ken Livingstone Royal Festival Hall: Paul Robeson exhibition Black classical concert, part of "Visions 85" GLC/ILEA London Youth Festival

5)Video Collection This information is also held on a database Total number of entries:4 Sample: Black Music Fair Anti-racism in Practice

Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood