12 May 2005

1 Update of cataloguing projects

1.1 MH 12 (Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Poor Law Unions and Other Local Authorities) (Southwell project). Work on 3 pieces had started.

1.2 MH 12 (Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Poor Law Unions and Other Local Authorities) (Manchester project). Work on the first piece had started (300 ff out of 390 ff).

1.3 'Your Caribbean Heritage' Project. (HLF funded project to catalogue CO Caribbean correspondence pre-1926: year 2 of 3 years.) 14 pieces had been completed.

1.4 MH 27 (Poor Law Board and Local Government Board: Poor Law Administration Department and Metropolitan Department: Poor Law School Districts and London School Board, Correspondence). Work on the first piece had started

1.5 HO 73 (Home Office: Various Commissions: Records and Correspondence). Work on the first piece had started

1.6 'Travel to the UK' Project: BT 26 (Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists). 50 pieces had been completed

1.7 Home Office correspondence pilot project. Work on 2 pieces had been started

1.8 SC 1 (Special Collections: Ancient Correspondence of the Chancery and the Exchequer). DC had already reported that work had started, and two volumes had been done

1.9 C 13 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Pleadings 1800-1842). Stage 1: 2796 items had been put into the Catalogue.

1.10 C 4 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Answers etc, before 1660). 1 box had been completed.

1.11 SP 87 (Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions). 1 piece had been completed.

1.12 WO 373 (War Office and Ministry of Defence: Military Secretary's Department: Recommendations for Honours and Awards for Gallant and Distinguished Service (Army)). Ongoing.

1.13 WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers' Documents, First World War 'Burnt Documents' (Microfilm Copies). Ongoing

1.14 STAC 10 (Star Chamber Miscellanea). Ongoing

1.15 PL 6 (Palatinate of Lancaster: Chancery Court: Pleadings, Bills). Ongoing.

2 The Governance of Cataloguing Projects

2.1 It was intended to raise the profile of cataloguing and put it on the same level as digitisation, and this affected the status and roles of the existing Cataloguing Board and Interdepartmental Cataloguing Team.

2.2 It was agreed that the Cataloguing Board would be subsumed into the Online Board. Certain members of the Cataloguing Board would become members of the Online Board, to ensure representation of cataloguing experts. The function of the Online Board in relation to cataloguing projects would be to ratify (not evaluate) the scoring and approval of those projects given by the newly-empowered Interdepartmental Cataloguing Team. The Online Board would be looking at the demonstrable outputs from a project, how that was going to be demonstrated and how it would be promoted, as requested in the Cataloguing template.

2.3 The Interdepartmental Cataloguing Team would assume the responsibilities of the Cataloguing Board and be empowered to approve cataloguing projects submitted to it for approval. The scoring criteria and system would be exactly those at present in use by the Cataloguing Board.

2.4 The Interdepartmental Cataloguing Team would change its name. As its responsibilities had been enhanced, its membership should also be enhanced to include some members of the old Cataloguing Board.

2.5 Certain people were nominated as those who should get together to take forward the membership, constitution and terms of reference of the Interdepartmental Cataloguing Team and report to the July Cataloguing Board meeting.

3 Cataloguing Project proposals for 2005-2006

3.1 The Cataloguing Board gave its approval to the following: (1) FO 954 (Private Office Papers of Sir Anthony Eden). (2) T 70 (Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading with Africa and successors: Records).

4 User Advisory Group update

4.1 The User Advisory Group had set up a Working Group on the Abolition of the British Slave Trade, the anniversary of which would be marked in 2007. The group consisted of academics expert in the history of slavery from the British perspective, inhouse experts, inhouse colleagues working on related projects (eg Your Caribbean Heritage), the Social Inclusion Manager, and the editor of Research Guides. The group aimed to produce a number of guides on different aspects of slavery: eg the slave trade; abolition; slavery as an institution; indentured and unfree labour; with an overview/introduction to the whole topic to be drafted by Professor Jim Walvin, University of York.

5 New standards in the archival community: CASBAH and CAAP

5.1 The Board looked at literature concerning CASBAH (Resources relating to Caribbean Studies and the History of Black and Asian people in the UK) and CAAP (Community Access to Archives Project). See also the website at www.casbah.ac.uk/about_project.stm

5.2 The CASBAH literature consisted of an archive survey tool to assist archivists in researching collections relating to the history of the Caribbean and of black and Asian people in the UK, and a report on the indexing of collection descriptions for the CASBAH database. 16 partner institutions were involved in CASBAH.

5.3 The CAAP literature consisted of an Outreach Pack and a Final Report.

5.4 The standards contained in all these documents were being taken forward in the archive world by the National Advisory Service; and it was intended to take forward CAAP and CASBAH in the next phase of A2A.

6 Cataloguing Guidelines

6.1 The Cataloguing Guidelines had now been issued. They were in two parts: Part A was concerned with Data Elements, and part B with the Editorial Standards Framework. The existing guidelines had been thoroughly revised.