Political Party and Parliamentary Archivists Group
Minutes of the meeting of the Political Party and Parliamentary Archivists Group
held on Thursday May 1st at 2 pm in the Book Committee Room, John Rylands
University Library of Manchester, Deansgate.
Those present: Stephen Bird (secretary, pro-tem), Alan Bell, Iain McIvor, Steve
Ellison, Graham Jones.
Apologies: Gerry Slater, Sue Donnelly.
Steve Ellison suggested that the Group involve the parliamentary archivists connected
with the regional Parliaments.
Stephen Bird said the Jill Spellman’s replacement had not yet been appointed
The minutes of 18th October 2002: Page 4 Young Scotland Society amended to
Young Scots Society.
Home Page.
Alan Bell said the PPAG Home Page had been mounted on the Bodleian Library
website. He suggested that the Bodleian appoint someone to work on it.
International Contacts
Stephen Bird reported on the coming IALHI conference in Dublin, in which he was
hoping to participate with Janette Martin, who had taken his place on the Co
-Ordinating Committee.
Alan Bell said he hoped to go to the Dublin conference.
The Socialist International Bibliography was being put on a website at the Friedrich
Ebert Stiftung by Rüdiger Zimmerman.
Steve Ellison said he regretted that the new President of the ICA Section of Archives
and Archivists for Parliaments and Political Parties was to disinclined hold regular
meetings of the Steering Committee. However, there would be an annual meeting of
the Section in Madrid in September at which the main topics would be promotion of
archives through websites and selection policies for archives. He would attend the
Madrid meeting.
At the European level there was more co-ordination amongst the European archivists,
particularly the Scandinavians.
SE had attended a meeting in Brussels on electronic records management for
Parliamentary archivists sponsored by the ECPRD (European Centre for
Parliamentary Research and Development). The second part of this conference on the
subject of digital preservation would take place in The Hague in May 2003.
Alan Bell mentioned the European parliamentary papers of Russell Johnston.
Data Protection Act
Steve Ellison said that legislation under the Freedom of Information Act would make
the Act applicable to Parliament before 2005. The FOI Officer based in the Record
Office and also responsible for records management had to ensure House of Lords
compliance with the two Acts. Both Houses in advance of 2005 were planning to
publish certain details of Members’ expenses.
Alan Bell spoke of the problems of deposit agreements on the question of who was
the data controller. An example of this were the papers of Godfrey Cromwell of the
Britain-Russia Centre for Scotland. The deposit had to be changed from a permanent
loan to a donation to make the Library the data controller.
Graham Jones mentioned the access rule was 70 years from the date of the file.
Alan Bell spoke of the restrictions in giving information outside Europe.
Graham Jones mentioned how the act clashed with the wish for more users and more
access to the Welsh Assembly archives. Stephen Bird said the development of the
John Rylands Library was dependent of open access to its collections.
Graham Jones spoke on the relevance to the act in disclosing clerical misdemeanours
in the Welsh Church archives.
Reports from Institutions.
National Library of Scotland
Alan Bell and Iain McIvor spoke on developments and new acquisitions in the
National Library of Scotland. Ian Wood had deposited a large collection of British
and Socialist pamphlets. The Edinburgh branch of the Graphical, Papers & Media
Union has deposited its papers. Another interesting deposit was the correspondence
between Walter Elliott and Lady Blanche Dugdale. There was also some political
papers relating to the SNP in the literary papers of Neil MacCallum.
A new online index to modern political manuscripts is going live.
The source lists of political records in the NLS have been submitted to Labour
History, Scottish Labour History and Journal of Liberal Democratic History.
The NLS held a launch for Scotland’s Parliament: Triumph and Disaster.
Lord Steel had deposited his Scottish papers to the NLS. An agreement with the LSE
Library would ensure that all his future papers relating to Scotland would go to the
NLS.
The Labour History Archive & Study Centre
Stephen Bird said there were problems about storage space due to the postponing of
the one site plan for the People’s History Museum.
LHASC had acquired further papers of John Atfield, the Secretary of the CPGB
Cultural Committee. They contained some interesting Historical reminiscences of CP
members.
The LHASC had been putting together an educational pack on the history of the
Labour Party, which could be turned into website. The project had been turned down
due to the fact that they had not got a school and a teacher ready to install the project.
Steve Ellison referred to his office’s recent project with the National Archives for a
web resource on citizenship, which was an important component of a learning and
access strategy.
The Welsh Political Archive
Graham Jones said he was fully involved with the sorting of the Goronwy Roberts
papers.
Nia Mai Williams had sorted and listed the Bert Pearce papers, which were de facto
the official papers of the Welsh Communist Party.
There were additional papers of the Thomas Jones and his daughter Eirene White.
They had been promised the papers of Sir Graham Daniel.
There were more papers of Ron Davies and Cynog Davis.
They had collected the papers of 40 constituency papers of the Welsh Assembly
elections.
Ron Davies was still due to give the annual lecture. The last one was given by Merfyn
Jones.
House of Lords
Steve Ellison said there had been few private collections taken in. The Erskine May
papers had been bought for £20,000. The Record Office had microfilmed these in the
1980s when they were located in private ownership by former Speaker Weatherill.
SE updated the group on progress with the electronic cataloguing project, mentioning
difficulties with the recruitment of cataloguing archivists, and with the Victoria Tower
repository improvement project.
Next Meeting
The next meeting would take place in the National Library of Scotland on Thursday
16th October at 2pm.