25 February 2005

1 Update of cataloguing projects

1.1 ADM 29 (Admiralty: Officers' and Ratings' Service Records (Series II)). The target was to cover ADM 29/1-96. This had now been achieved.

1.2 ADM 139 (Admiralty: Continuous Service Engagement Books). 12 out of 20 pieces had been completed.

1.3 'Travel to the UK' Project: BT 26 (Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists). 121 pieces had been completed.

1.4 BT 372 (Board of Trade: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Central Register of Seamen: Seamen's Records ('Pouches')). It was intended that this would go forward.

1.5 BT 390 (Ministry of War Transport: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Merchant Seamen who served on Royal Navy ships under the T124X and T124T agreements: Records)
and
BT 391 (Ministry of War Transport: Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen: Merchant Seamen, Special Operations Records) It had been agreed that work on these should be postponed until the next financial year.

1.6 C 4 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Answers etc, before 1660). The target of 12 boxes had been met.

1.7 C 13 (Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Pleadings 1800-1842). 9,000 items had been completed out of a 10,000 item target.

1.8 C 14 (Court of Chancery: Clerks of Records and Writs Office: Pleadings 1842-1852). 6 out of 7 years had been completed.

1.9 CAB 65 (War Cabinet and Cabinet: Minutes (WM and CM Series)) 43 pieces/edit sets out of 57 were complete.

CAB 66 (War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda (WP and CP Series)). 67 pieces/edit sets were complete. Target complete.

Grand total of 111 out of 124 or 89% completed.

1.10 CAB Supplementary Finding Aids. The work was expected back from Mauritius very soon.

1.11 Cataloguing Guidelines. These were in the final stages of proofreading and checking, in time for the new cataloguing year in April.

1.12 CO 'Your Caribbean Heritage' Project. (HLF funded project to catalogue CO Caribbean correspondence pre-1926: year 1 of 3 years.) 151 pieces had been completed.

1.13 Coded lists. Of the four coded lists scheduled to be converted before the end of March, two had been completed: HO 190 (Ministry of Munitions and Home Office: Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) and State Management Districts: Carlisle Office: Records) and HO 207 (Home Office and Ministry of Home Security: Civil Defence Regions, Headquarters and Regional Files). A scheme had been worked out to deal with the remaining two: HO 187 (Fire Brigades Division and Fire Services Department) and HO 192 (Ministry of Home Security: Research and Experiments Department, Registered Papers).

1.14 CP 52. (Court of Common Pleas: Brevia Files.) Files for the first seven years of Edward III, out of his first ten, had been completed.

1.15 E 179 (Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Particulars of Account and other records relating to Lay and Clerical Taxation) into the Catalogue. Four of this year's five counties had been completed. The next would be Somerset.

1.16 E 179 Wales. 12 out of 13 counties had been completed.

1.17 E 179 Clerical subsidies pilot project. The bid had been submitted.

1.18 E 179 Devon. (Friends of TNA grant). Nothing had been done yet, as an editor would not be available full-time until Spring 2005.

1.19 FO 383 (Foreign Office: Prisoners of War and Aliens Department: General Correspondence from 1906). Cataloguing of all of the 547 pieces had been completed. The series level description had also been completed. Marketing work was being planned.

1.20 HO 1/HO 144 Citizenship/Naturalisation Project.
The edit set for HO 144 for the years 1931-1934 was to be uploaded on to the Catalogue.
HO 1/10 and HO 1/13 were ready for release. Remaining work was mis-sorted pieces HO 1/14-16.

1.21 HO 17(Home Office: Criminal Petitions, Series I). 6 pieces had been drafted to Word.

1.22 HO 47. (Home Office, Judges' Reports on Criminals.) 9 out of 10 pieces had been edit checked prior to upload.

1.23 HO 73 (Home Office: Various Commissions: Records and Correspondence). (A two-year project.) Out of 6 pieces, HO 73/51-53 had been drafted to Word; and HO 73/52 had now been foliated.

1.24 IR Valuation Office record plans. In upgrading the descriptions of VO maps, Phase 1 was complete. Phase 2 data capture was two-thirds complete. It was hoped to complete data capture by the end of March, and upload in April.

1.25 MH 12. (Local Government Board and predecessors: Correspondence with Poor Law Unions and Other Local Authorities). The basic editing of 2 pieces was now complete.

1.26 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). 9 pieces out of 10 had been drafted to Word.

1.27 MT 6 (Ministry of Transport and successors, Railway Divisions: Correspondence and Papers) and WO 208 (War Office: Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence, and Directorate of Military Intelligence; Ministry of Defence, Defence Intelligence Staff: Files). Scoping was underway.

1.28 PL 6 (Palatinate of Lancaster: Chancery Court: Pleadings, Bills). There had been little progress due to the high level of FOI inquiries.

1.29 Retrospective Map Conversion.

Target 1: To produce full catalogue entries for a further 15% of orderable pieces in the 37 map extract series. 100% completed against this year's target, ending this phase of the project.

Target 2: To bring to 65% the entries uploaded and released into the Catalogue for pieces in these series. 74% of entries had been released into the Catalogue, exceeding this year's target. Post-upload editing was currently in hand on a further 11% of entries. Basic editing was now starting on phase 2 of the project (WO 78 and LRRO 1).

1.30 SC 8. (Special Collections: Ancient Petitions.) The target for this year of 6,000 items had been completed. Files 81-120, petitions 4001-6000, had finally been released onto the Catalogue.

1.31 SP 87 (Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, Military Expeditions). 10 out of 10 pieces had been completed. Target met.

1.32 STAC 10 (Star Chamber Miscellanea). There had been little progress due to the level of FOI inquiries.

1.33 WO 166, 169, 170, 171 and 172 (Second World War unit war diaries). Amending infantry and cavalry unit titles. Of 450 to amend, 433 had been done. 324 entries were in edit sets.

1.34 WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers' Documents, First World War 'Burnt Documents' (Microfilm Copies). This was ongoing.

1.35 WO 373 (War Office and Ministry of Defence: Military Secretary's Department: Recommendations for Honours and Awards for Gallant and Distinguished Service (Army)). Progress was being made on this.

2 Cataloguing Project Proposals for 2005-2006

2.1 The Cataloguing Board gave its approval to the following:

(1) SC 1 (Special Collections: Ancient Correspondence of the Chancery and the Exchequer). This project could go ahead.
(2) Coded Lists. In future, the conversion of any coded list should be treated as a Cataloguing Project.