MEETING OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND PARLIAMENTARY
ARCHIVES GROUP UK (PPPAG UK)
PARLIAMENTARY ARCHIVES, 23 APRIL 2009
PRESENT.
Caroline Shenton (CS – Chair) Parliamentary Archives (PA).
Maria Castrillo (MC – Secretary) National Library of Scotland (NLS).
Nigel Cochrane (NC) Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex (UE).
Sue Donnelly (SD) London School of Economics (LSE).
Graham Jones (GJ) Welsh Political Archive (WPA).
Stephen Scarth (SS) Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)
ITEM
1. APOLOGIES.
Jeremy McIlwayne (JMc) Conservative Party Archive (CPA).
Helen Roberts (HR) Labour History Archive and Study Centre (LHASC).
2. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING (23 October 2008).
Typo in item 5.5. to be amended: ‘The digital preservation strategy and
roadmap are now’.
3. MATTERS ARISING.
CS thanked JMc for the design and production of the group’s leaflet.
HR will leave LHASC soon to start a new post as project archivist of the
PaxCat Project.
Contact details of CS to be included in the Website.
4. FOI/DPA REQUESTS.
CS reported that attempts to establish deposit agreements with owners of
some collections with restricted access were moving forward. Although
general enquiries at PA have decreased, FOI requests have increased.
SD reported that LSE archives have received few FOI requests recently.
5. REPORTS FROM INSTITUTIONS.
5.1. Welsh Political Archive:
Life has been dominated during recent months by the financial problems.
Annual grant from the National Assembly for Wales increased by only
1.7 per cent, so cutbacks imperative. Thus: Library has now been closed
ACTION
to readers on Saturdays from 1 April 2009; the hope is that this will not be
forever, and there are discussions on re-opening (with a restricted service
to readers) from possibly next September or October.
Several senior posts will be lost or combined, and the contracts of many
staff now coming to an end will not be renewed.
£2M recently received from the National Assembly to advance our
digitisation projects, mainly of old newspapers and journals.
Gwyn Jenkins, Director of Collection Services, will be retiring at the end of
July. Avril Jones, currently head of the automation section at NLW, has
been appointed to the vacant position, taking up her post from 1 August
2009.
Progress is slow on the up-grade of the North Reading Room (printed
materials) and it will probably be July or August before the room is opened
to the public once again.
The new cataloguing system called VIRTUA is working quite well. At the
moment most of the archivists are working flat out to convert all our old
lists and catalogues on Word format on ISYS into a format which is
acceptable to VIRTUA – a slow, tedious and cumbersome task.
Accessions are few, but have received some additional papers of Lord
(John) Morris of Aberavon (and there are still more to come), and some
further records of the Parliament for Wales Campaign from the 1950s and
an additional group of papers of Peter Hain MP. When time allows, I am
still working on the John Morris Papers which run to more than 100 boxes
already.
There are plans to establish this summer a Lloyd George website
containing digitised images of his letters and early diaries, the material
which was used in the LG Exhibition in 1995, films featuring LG, and
photographs etc. Should be fully operational in about a year – spring of
2010.
The 2008 annual lecture was delivered by Lord Elystan-Morgan on the
theme ‘Some Political Reminiscences’ at the Library on Friday, 7
November 2008 – brilliant lecture + well attended. The text is available
on the NLW website in the section on the WPA. Mr Rhodri Morgan AM,
First Minister of the National Assembly for Wales, will deliver next year’s
annual lecture at the NLW on Friday, 6 November 2009, on the theme
‘Ten Years of Devolution: Reflections of a First Minister’.
WPA Newsletter no. 40 should be published in September 2009.
I have recently completed making a Welsh language TV documentary with
Ffion Hague about the private life of David Lloyd George, based on her
recent book, due to be screened in the autumn on S4C.
5.2. London School of Economics:
Acquisitions: Received further papers from Lord Ashdown, including final
instalment of the diary from his time in Bosnia, Liberal Democrat policy
papers and papers from the post 1989 Liberal Party.
Cataloguing: The finding aids for Richard Wainwright (Liberal MP), Tory
Reform Group, Federal Trust and Alf Morris (Labour MP) have been
completed and the Fabian Society handlist is now online following editing
and indexing along with general election ephemera for 2001 and 2005.
Work is currently underway on papers of David Steel (Liberal), Merlyn
Rees (Labour) and Geoffrey Finsberg (Conservative) – just to be fair to all
the major parties. Work should begin on the Society of Labour Lawyers
over the summer.
Steel and Wainwright Project: Work is now completed on the papers
of Richard Wainwright and onto Steel. About to begin a round of publicity
and are sending out briefing papers on our Labour, Liberal and European
collections to academic departments throughout the country. Plans are
also underway for a seminar on the Survival of Liberalism to take place in
early 2008 in conjunction with the Wainwright family and the Liberal
Democrat History Group.
Foyle Foundation Project: Work is now underway on papers of Sir
Geoffrey Finsberg, Conservative MP for Hampstead.
CALM: Over the summer we are planning to begin implement subject
searching on the Archives Catalogue.
Digitisation: LSE is one of the participating libraries in a CURL project
19th century pamphlets online – which will digitise 23,000 paper copy
pamphlets, which focus on the political, economic and social issues that
fuelled the great Parliamentary debates and controversies of the 19th
century.
LSE Archives are about to begin digitising our collection of early 20th
century political posters. Are about 90 posters in all from Liberal and
Conservative Unionist parties. They will be available via the Archives
Catalogue and we hope also to provide an online exhibition. They will be
followed by a small collection of Soviet posters.
Are also investigating the digitisation of the Fabian Tract series.
Storage: Work is beginning on plans to extend the Archives Division
storage area in early 2008. The new space will be incorporated into the
existing storage area.
5.3. Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex:
No new accessions to report in the last six months.
A major extension to the Library is being carried out. This will increase
space for archives, rare books and other collections material.
A collection of video-recordings of ‘Question Time’ donated by a political
broadcaster has arrived. However, it has not been widely publicised
because of copyright issues.
5.4. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland:
Accessions
Trade Union and political papers of Lord Blease of Cromac, c.1940-2000.
Blease was a NI Labour Peer though never served as an elected
representative (Ref: D4439).
Minute Book of the South Belfast Constituency Labour Party, 1945-1960
(Ref: D4440).
Peter McLachlan, Unionist Party of Northern Ireland Assembly Member;
member of the Peace People; and Director of the Belfast Voluntary
Welfare Society, 1960s-1990s (Ref: D4448).
Additional papers of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association, 1980s2008, (Ref: D3762).
Papers of George Quigley, Chairman of the Review of the Northern
Ireland Parades Commission (Ref: D4447).
Cataloguing
Cataloguing of a substantial addition of organisational papers of the Ulster
Unionist Party, 1980s to 1996 nears completion (Ref: D1327).
Electronic Catalogue
PRONI’s electronic catalogue went live in the Public Search Room in
October 2008, and live on the internet in January 2009. This was the
culmination of a five year project and was formally launched on 2 February
2009 by Edgar Jardine, the Deputy Secretary of PRONI’s parent
Department, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL). The
onsite application is provided by bespoke software developed by DS Ltd
and comprises reader registration, document ordering, repository
management and the searchable catalogue. The online application was
developed and hosted by the Northern Ireland Civil Service and supports
searching and browsing. In total, there are just over a million items
available for searching and browsing. This represents about 60 percent of
PRONI’s catalogue entries. The remaining entries are being processed in
due course.
Staff
Aileen McClintock was appointed the new Director of PRONI in Spring
2008, following the retirement of Gerry Slater, a former PPPAG
representative.
New Accommodation
As reported in previous meetings, PRONI is relocating to new purpose
built facilities in the Titanic Quarter. The Titanic Quarter is currently
undergoing a complete redevelopment. The site which already houses the
Odyssey Entertainment complex will also encompass a Titanic Museum, a
Signature Project, Belfast Institute of Further Education, restaurants and
apartments.
Time Line

11 November 2008 – PRONI signed for the site.

24 November 2008 – Gregory Campbell, Minister for DCAL and
Nigel Dodds, Minister for Department of Finance and Personnel
held a media presentation.

24 November 2008 – Construction commenced.

23 April 2009 – Current position – First and Second floors of the
four story Repository build has been built.

October 2010 – Expected date of receipt for keys of new building.

October-March 2010 – Decant.

Spring 2011 – New building due to open.
5.5. Conservative Party Archive:
Reader numbers: 2008 ended as the CPA’s busiest year to date, with
reader numbers up 20% on 2007 and the number of files consulted up by
62%. 2009 has started off equally busy.
New Acquisitions: since the last meeting we have taken in the first
deposits of material from the Association of Conservative Peers, Society of
Conservative Lawyers, and the Conservative Friends of Poland.
Conservative Party Conference: sales of merchandise produced for
the exhibition stand at last year’s conference – the first time the CPA
attended as an exhibitor - generated approximately £3,500 during the
conference itself, but continued afterwards for some time, generating
£14,000 in total. This has meant that the trustees are very keen that the
CPA take an exhibition stand to the conference every year in future.
Plans are already in hand to host a joint reception with the People’s
History Museum at the 2009 Party Conference in Manchester.
Turning Points Exhibition at the Palace of Westminster: the
exhibition took place as planned during the week of 5th-12th December,
with a reception held on the 8th and a seminar on the 11th.
The reception went very well and the speeches by Peter Brooke, Ken
Morgan and David Steel were all very good, although only 60-70 guests
attended out of potential of 500, and the launch was marred by a 3-line
whip being called in the Commons at 6pm just as Betty Boothroyd was due
to speak.
The seminar was filmed by BBC Parliament and should be broadcast in due
course.
Revised Guide to the Conservative Party Archive: after several
delays, the revised Guide to the Conservative Party Archive was published as a
pdf document on the CPA website at the beginning of April.
Part-time Assistant: at its meeting in March the trustees of the CPA
agreed to fund the appointment of an assistant out of the proceeds of the
sale of conference merchandise, part-time for 6 months in the first
instance.
5.6. National Library of Scotland:
New and Prospective Accessions
Three scrapbooks of Nicholas Fairbairn, 1947-1960 (Acc. 13022).
The acquisition of new collections has been deferred until the summer as a
result of the limited amount of storage available for processing them. This
is a consequence of the ongoing works in the Library’s Visitor Centre and
the flood suffered by the Library in late February. The transfer of new
collections will be resumed after the summer. So far a number of
donors/depositors have approached the NLS and MC will be contacting
them again in late June/early July to arrange the appraisal and transfer of
their collections:


Scottish Conservatives
Christopher Harvie, Scottish Nationalist





Association of Non-Smokers Rights (unsure)
Further papers of Lewis Robertson
Further papers of George Younger
Further papers of Lord Russel Johnston
Papers of Gordon Wilson, Scottish Nationalist
Exhibitions and Outreach: at present MC is mainly working on NLS’
summer exhibition 2009 on the Scottish Diaspora.
Other News: completion of the new Visitor Centre is expected for late
June on time for the opening of the summer exhibition.
As a result of the flood in late February it is still uncertain when the
collections transferred to a temporary location will return to the main
building. This has had an impact on the acquisition and accessioning of new
material, as the space available for storage is very limited.
5.7. Parliamentary Archives:
Steve Ellison, former Clerk of the Records, had received an OBE in the
New Year's Honours.
Four top constitutional documents had been loaned to the British Library
for its Taking Liberties exhibition and had been seen by 97,000 members of
the public - the Death Warrant of Charles I (1649), the Petition of Right
(1628), the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Great Reform Act (1832). The
exhibition closed at the in March 2009. See
http://www.bl.uk/takingliberties
Recent media interest had included an episode of Who Do You Think You
Are? (with the model Jodie Kidd) and BBC Radio 4's The Long View (on
historical allegations against peers).
The Archives had been restructured into three new teams - Records
Management, FOI and DP; Preservation & Access; Public Services &
Outreach. Four new posts had been created: a Preservation & Access
Archivist and another Assistant Records Manager (both permanent) and
two temporary posts: a Digital Preservation Specialist and additional
Records Manager to backfill business as usual while our permanent
Records Manager supported the rollout of an EDRM system in Parliament.
Adrian Brown, Head of Digital Preservation Research at the National
Archives, had been recruited to fill Caroline Shenton's previous job as head
of the Preservation & Access team.
The MPs' expenses situation in the Commons was having a knock-on effect
in the Archives in terms of its own FOI work in the Lords.
Future public outreach work was focussed on the Connecting with
Communities project - a four-year programme of outreach events with
regional archives partners illustrating through record collections how
Parliament has influenced the lives of ordinary people across England and
Wales. See
http://www.parliament.uk/visiting/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/peoplea
ndparliament.cfm
6. ALL-PARTY GROUP ON ARCHIVES:
SD reported that the group has held further meetings but it is unclear
whether any initiatives are moving forward. The group does not create or
issue documents and papers. It was agreed that PPPAG UK would monitor
the activities of the group as far as possible.
7. AOB:
SD provided an update on the work of the Special Repositories Group
(SRG) to which PPPAG UK is linked. The Society of Archivists has asked
each member of SRG if they want to become independent groups. This is
not a good option for PPPAG UK as the group is too small.
SD has represented PPPAG UK at SRG meetings for some time. SD
suggested that the group should discuss the appointment of a new
representative at the next meeting in October.
8. DATE AND VENUE OF NEXT MEETING:
22 October 2009, 2 p.m. London School of Economics Library.