Minutes of the Meeting of the United Kingdom Parliament and Political Parties Archive Group

Minutes of the meeting of the United Kingdom Parliament and Political Parties Archive Group held at the National Library of Scotland

on Thursday October 16th.

Those present: Emily Tarrant (Bodleian Library), Stephen Scarth (PRONI), Sue Donnelly (London School of Economics), Iain MacIver (National Library of Scotland), Stephen Ellison (House of Lords), Alan Bell (National Library of Scotland), Stephen Bird (Labour History & Archive Study Centre) (Secretary, pro-tem).

Apologies: Graham Jones, Janette Martin.

1. Minutes of May 1st 2003

a)It was agreed that Stephen Bird would send these minutes electronically for corrections.

b)Emily Tarrant had replaced Jill Spellman as Conservative Party archivist.

c)SPICE

(i)Steve Ellison said he would contact someone in the Welsh Assembly to join.

(ii)He asked Stephen Scarth if there could be somebody to represent the Northern Ireland Assembly. Stephen Scarth said this would be difficult.

d) Data Protection Act

(i)Steve Ellison said he was preparing Parliament for the Freedom of Information Act. The updating of the office survey had been delayed. By 2005 when the Freedom of Information Act had been implemented Parliament should have been brought under the Data Protection Act.

(ii)Alan Bell spoke about Christine Woodland’s problems mentioned at the Archives & Resources Committee of the Society for the Study of Labour History. She was attempting to implement the disclaimer policy. The Information Commission had been asked if a disclaimer was enough. Under the Data Protection Act, every file should be checked and a decision on it recorded. A disclaimer policy would cover this and leave it on the reader’s head. Christine had had problems with disciplinary cases in trade union files.

(iii)Steve Ellison asked about acquisition policies. Alan Bell said that negotiations had changed, although policy of general acquisition remained the same.

(iv)Sue Donnelly spoke on the problems of depositing trade union papers, which should remain in the hands of the owners. Alan Bell said there should be diplomacy in negotiations, but this could not guarantee success.

2. Home Page

a)Emily Terrant said she was happy to take it on. She had validated the colour contrast. It was ready on the point to be data valid. She asked if there was anything needed to be updated. Sue Donnelly said all PPAG members should look at it and submit their additions by 15th November.

b)There was the section linking local records offices. This was divided into three sections, England, Scotland and Wales. Alan Bell suggested she go straight on to ARCHON.

c)Emily said she had given the page a more professional look. There would be a series of pages instead of one long page. This meant there would be easier means of navigation. Sue Donnelly said she would put these changes past PPAG members to comment.

d)Emily had an idea for getting statistics. There was a site called Extreme Tracking, which was free.

3. Conferences

a)International Association of Labour History Institutions (Alan Bell and Stephen Bird.

(i)At the 2003 IALHI conference in Dublin there were four projects worth mentioning. The first one organised by the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam was a pilot cataloguing project, involving having finding aids for all IALHI member institutions. Details of collections were being collected with the view of putting in a bid for some financial support.

(ii)The Socialist International Bibliography had been put on line by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Bonn. This meant that additions could be implemented.

(iii)The IISH was also setting up a labour history periodicals index.

(iv)The Feltrinelli Institute in Milan was looking into setting up an international site on the Spanish Civil War.

b) Anglo-Australian Labour History Conference Manchester.

Alan Bell, Janette Martin and Sigrid McCausland of the Australian National University had spoken at a stand on labour archives at the Anglo-Australian Conference held under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Labour History and the Australian Labour History Society at the Manchester Metropolitan University.

c) International Council on Archives (Steve Ellison)

(i)Steve Ellison is now on the Steering Committee of the Parliaments & Political Parties Group of the ICA. It does not meet because its chair prefers to contact its member by email.

(ii)The Annual Meeting of the PPAG ICA was held in Madrid. It was dominated by parliamentary archivists. This was not considered to be good. Neither section should be dominated. The separation of the two sections was discussed but dismissed. The possibilities of having equal nominations from the parliaments and political parties and having a rotating chair were also discussed.

(iii)The main topic of the conference was the selection of documents.

(iv)Sue Donnelly asked if there were any other cross-party organisations like PPAG UK. Steve Ellison did not know of any other one, but Stephen Bird said SPD and the CDU archivists worked closely together in Germany.

4. Reports from Institutions

a) Labour History Archive & Study Centre (Stephen Bird)

(i)LHASC had received the papers of John Atfield, the Secretary of the CPGB Cultural Committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party papers 1976-92. They were about to receive the papers of the Communist Party activist, Monty Johnson.

(ii)The long term plan to move to one site is now becoming more positive. However it was still long term.

(iii)Stephen Bird would be going to London on 27th October to assess papers of Tom Sawyer, the former Labour Party General Secretary. He will also speak to members of Party headquarters staff to assure preservation of archival material.

b) National Library of Scotland (Alan Bell)

(i)New acquisitions were the papers of Scottish Nationalist George Dott; 7/45 Leith branch Dockers Union minutes; Ian Wood’s research papers on his biography of John Wheatley. ASH Scotland papers (grim photographs); Dunbartonshire Conservative & Unionist Association papers.

(ii)They were awaiting the list of the David Steel archives. Alan would co-ordinate with Sue Donnelly on this.

(iii)There were big changes afoot in the National Library of Scotland, Iain MacIver was taking early retirement.

c) House of Lords Record Office (Steve Ellison)

(i)New improvements to bring archives into line with BS5454 were being met. This did however mean less space.

(ii)The cataloguing project was going well. Online cataloguing would be complete by 2005. It had Speaker’s approval.

(iii)The records management policy had been implemented. The staff were being given guidance about what should be disposed of and when.

(iv)There was a new acquisitions policy. Selection would be based on core themes, such as women in Parliament and House of Lords reform. They were no longer collecting personal papers, apart from office holders related to the running of parliament, such as the Speak or the Leader of the House.

d) London School of Economics

(i)There was not much material, apart from some new Fabian Society papers. They were awaiting some Social Credit papers, which were currently in Moidart.

(ii)They were cataloguing Peter Shore’s papers. The file description should be completed next year.

(iii)They were continuing to download catalogues. These would be put out to tender next month.

(iv)The Liberal Democrat History Group was setting up an election Ephemera database.

(v)Chris Cook was updating his Sources of British Political History.

e) The Conservative Party Archives (Emily Tarrant)

(i)There had been a deposit of 24 boxes and two flat packages of Conservative Research Department publications. They had also received 10 boxes of Centre for Policy Studies papers, as well as some Brent East election material.

(ii)There was a major project in converting their catalogue to EAD.

f) The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (Stephen Scarth)

(i)They were channelling their catalogues on to CALM.

(ii)There was a digitalisation project on the Covenant of 1912. People could search for a name on it.

5. Any Other Business.

a)Sue Donnelly now sat on the Specialist Repositories Group committee. They planned to do a special edition in ARC July 2004. She intended to write something on the PPAG. Other members’ contributions were very welcome.

b)Alan Bell said that the Scottish political parties were surprisingly more open in their access policies. Steve Ellison moved a vote of recognition of the contribution Iain MacIver made to the committee and everybody wished him a happy retirement.

c)The next meeting would be on Thursday April 22 in the London School of Economics.

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