Progress Report 6

June 2000 - July 2000

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

• Archives
• Printed Sources
• Awareness
• IT

Action Points

Appendix 1: Project researcher's June Report

General Summary of Activity

The past month's activity has focused on the survey of the Trade Union Congress Library at the University of North London, where our thanks go to Chris Coates and Susan Davy for their help and advice. More details of the survey are available in the printed sources section and in Roiyah's report. The team has also been busy organising the next round of surveys at the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University and Wolverhampton Archives. We've continued contact with partners, visiting Goldsmiths to discuss the printed survey strategy and offer help. The main thrust of this is to be sure partners' collections are covered properly and that archive collections aren't left out.

Thesauri have also been a theme. Louise Craven at the Public Record Office was extremely helpful and has given us a great deal to think about. More details are given about our plans for this in the IT section.

More articles have been submitted and leaflets distributed to most partners. Please let us know of any other publicity opportunities we could submit articles for.

Modules

Archives An archive questionnaire and key record series list, have been completed and will be circulated. These are both based on the work of the Irish Women's History Project and were sent to us by Anne Summers, British Library. The record series list is a good step towards identifying records series of use for Caribbean Studies and Black and Asian History, as well as giving a very good indication to archivists, academics and other interested parties as to the scope of the project. The document has been circulated so far to Marika Sherwood, Hakim Adi and Gad Heuman for comments. The archive questionnaire will indicate the information we require from archivists and will help to complete collection descriptions where we have some information but insufficient as yet to put onto the database.

Archive surveys at the Modern Records Centre are planned for the second week in August 7th-11th and at Wolverhampton Archives for the week of the 17th.

A useful publication tracing the movement of peoples in Haringey has also come to light, 'Connections: Haringey Local-National World Links' by Sylvia L Collicott published by Haringey Community Information Service and Multi-Cultural Curriculum Support Group. Sarah Henning at the British Records Association has been extremely helpful, and has agreed to let us know of Caribbean estate papers which placed by the association.

Contact details have been received for members of the Public Services Quality Group, which conducts the annual survey of visitors to British Archives. One thought is that we might use the results of the survey to extend our archive strategy. The results compare the returns for ethnicity to census information and we could perhaps select archives to survey based on these returns. Other ideas for the strategy will be finalised at the Steering Group Meeting 20th July.

Printed Sources and Audio-Visual Collection description tables and draft data-entry guidelines have been circulated to partners and a workshop organised for the 13th July to discuss application methods. The Trade Union Congress Library survey was extremely useful as we went through the first stage of compiling the references to material relevant to Caribbean Studies and Black and Asian History to then try and assess the best method of describing the material. Before beginning the survey, describing the collections by the organisation producing them seemed the best approach. However, because the classification is by subject, organisational material is spread throughout the collection, which would not make life easy either for TUC Library staff or the researchers. It is this balance between arrangement and description that we need to establish, which means different techniques for different systems.

Institute of Race Relations and Institute of Latin American Studies will be contacted to discuss survey requirements.

Awareness The ACARM article has been submitted, as has one for the British Records Association and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Newsletter.

Project reports have been produced by Lambeth for posting on the web-site and this will be added shortly. A report for COSMOS should also be ready soon.

RSB has extended the mailbase list-serve dramatically and will be sending out regular reports soon. Through Roiyah's efforts the project is now linked to from the Black Information Link web-site at www.blink.org.uk

IT The meeting with Louise Craven was very useful. First JE and SC were given a demonstration of PROCAT and the indexing principles used. Then a brief discussion on UNESCO and why the PRO had chosen UNESCO above Library of Congress Subject Headings. Then we spoke about the project and the difficulties particular to it given that we wanted researchers to search both printed-audio-visual collections and archive collections simultaneously. One idea is to test out both thesauri using case study collections and see which is the best.

The Museum Development Agency has an Ethnographic Terminology Working Group http://www.mdocassn.demon.co.uk/uk.htm#ethno which SC has contacted for advice. The group was set up in 1996 and 'resolved to concentrate on a thesaurus of ethnic group names, using self-ascribing names as the preferred terms wherever possible, but also including other names to aid retrieval from older sources.'

It would be very useful to launch the keywords we have come across onto the web as the beginning of an authority file that can be added to, dividing the terms into subject, name (corporate/personal) and place with details, dates and descriptions. The individual survey databases will hopefully, subject to technical difficulties, also be launched on the web.

Transferring data from Access to MySQL is proving to be a slow process and this is something we will be discussing at our next IT meeting. A search layout form has also been drafted.

Action Points

Extend the grid/map of institutions to be included and surveyed across UK

Collate and assess results of LMA survey Collate and assess results of TUC survey Organise Wolverhampton and MRC surveys

Arrange meetings with Institute of Race Relations and Institute of Latin American Studies to discuss survey requirements if any. Collection description Workshop for Printed and Audio-Visual Sources 13th July

Discuss data transfer Continue input of archive collection descriptions Update web-site and discuss how databases and authority files could be displayed. Test thesauri case studies

Prepare for Steering Group meeting 20th July

Appendix 1: June Report - Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood

During the last four weeks CASBAH's second survey has been completed, our mailbase membership as been increased, and I had the good fortune of attending the Caribbean Studies Conference in Birmingham.

Printed Collections Survey - The Trade Union Congress Library, University of North London (Chris Coates) The survey covered two important areas: the TUC periodicals and the Collection's card catalogue. The work on the card catalogue was specific to TUC where there exists no automatic searching system. In surveying the card catalogue the overriding aim was to (1) begin the work of developing collection descriptions by drawing out subject headings pertinent to the project, and (2) to create a database that provides the full description of the classmarks, the total number of cards photocopied for each subject heading and key entries of the work found within these subject collections. The main resources on hand in which to tackle the card catalogue have been (1) words, phrases, organisations and people found in the previous survey and while researching the TUC as it relates to the aims of the project, and (2) subject headings lists provided by Chris Coates.

The identifying of subject headings, and the photocopying of the cards took one week and a half. I am presently analysing the cards and working on the database. The photocopies and database will be sent back to Chris Coates to develop her collection descriptions.

Mailbase My aim this month was to begin to work on further developing our mailbase. I have sent off a number of email shots to groups and individuals previously contacted urging them to become members. Links have also been established with organisations on the Internet dedicated to either Caribbean Studies, or Black and Asian people in the UK. This has proven successful: membership is steadily increasing and I have received positive responses from the UK based organisations I reached out to.

Caribbean Studies Conference I was able to attend the Caribbean Studies Conference and I enjoyed the day immensely! The papers were insightful and it will be well worth a visit to their website in a few weeks when the papers will be made accessible. I gave a very brief over-view of the project. I will be contacting the Caribbeanists who attended, however, to request that they contribute information regarding the Caribbean studies side of the project. I was also able to express my keen interest in the activities of this organisation and I was very pleased to be voted the Caribbean Studies secretary.

Month of July The aims for July are to complete in full the two surveys already conducted, to survey the MRC, to develop stronger links with our mailbase members and with other similarly related organisations.