Contact: Janet Smith tel. 01962 846154

1. Introduction

1.1 This report provides the background to a practical demonstration of Hampshire Record Office's computerised cataloguing system for archives. It explains how the system was developed and the progress that is being made towards making the full catalogue of Hampshire Record Office's archive collections available online. This supports Aim 5 of the County Council's Corporate Strategy (Improving Services).

2. Background

2.1 Hampshire Record Office helped to pioneer an archive cataloguing and management system which has now become the market leader across the country. CALM 2000 Plus for Archives has been in use at Hampshire Record Office since late 1996.

2.2 The system was initially commissioned by Suffolk County Council from Nottingham-based company DS Ltd, a leader in the field of providing information management solutions to local authorities, universities and other organisations. (Hampshire County Council Library Service has long used the DS Galaxy system for its library catalogue.) DS was keen to develop a system for archives which would have a wider market than a single record office, and it was agreed that staff from Hampshire and Suffolk record offices should work together on a project to develop it and ensure that it met archivists' particular requirements. Joint work was carried out during 1995 and the first half of 1996 and involved thorough analysis and testing of the system's linked databases.

2.3 In the early years particularly, Hampshire Record Office played a leading role, with Suffolk Record Office, in developing the system and demonstrating it to archivists from many local authority and other record offices. Use of CALM 2000 spread quickly and it is now the leader in the field, with over 200 institutional users. The two senior archivists most closely involved in its development for a number of years jointly chaired the CALM 2000 User Group, a national body which meets regularly to discuss future developments. They also compiled the first user manual for the system.

2.4 CALM 2000 was installed in Hampshire Record Office in November 1996, initially on a local area network, later on IT2000, and it is now used by virtually all staff in the office for a range of processes: cataloguing the historic archives, including film and sound archives, processing or accessioning all new material acquired, and also recording the preservation work undertaken by the office's conservation team. Use of CALM 2000 has transformed working practices in the Record Office, for example removing the need for typescript catalogues and handwritten index cards, and replacing the use of paper forms.

2.5 Since 1996, CALM 2000 has been used for the cataloguing of incoming new collections of archives. As the system allows the easy import and export of data, the Record Office, with the help of IT Services, has been able to import records from a number of Oracle databases previously used, giving an impetus to the important programme of converting the office's existing manual catalogues into electronic form. However, much remained to be done.

3. Conversion of manual catalogues

3.1 All archive catalogues created between 1947 (the year when the Record Office was first established) and 1996 existed only in manual, paper form. Anyone wishing to find out what material was held in the Record Office needed to consult the paper catalogues and indexes, either through a personal visit or by a postal enquiry to identify material relevant to their enquiry. Searching the catalogues and indexes could be laborious and time consuming.

3.2 Record Office staff began a gradual programme of catalogue conversion, re-keying the text of the catalogues into CALM 2000. However, as this work could only be undertaken as other demands of the public service allowed, progress was steady but slow and at least another ten years' work would have been necessary to complete the task.

3.3 In 2003 it was agreed that £40,000 should be made available from the Recreation and Heritage Policy Fund over a period of three financial years to speed up and complete the work. That decision supported both Aim 5 of the Corporate Strategy (Improving Services) and the aims of the Cultural Strategy to widen and improve access for all to cultural services.

3.4 Two dedicated data inputters were appointed in March 2003 and their funding continues until July 2004. Huge progress has already been made in the work of catalogue conversion and 62% have now been completed. Since summer 2003 the completed catalogues have been accessible online through the Hampshire Record Office web site (www.hants.gov.uk/record-office/catalog/index.html). This was a significant step forward in improving access to archive holdings.

3.5 At present the online catalogue contains over 380,000 catalogue records. The aim is to complete the inputting of all catalogue data by the end of 2004. This will re-establish Hampshire as a national leader in archives online. Setting aside the national institutions such as The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) only one other county record office has so far completed a fully searchable online archive catalogue incorporating detailed descriptions of every item in its collections.

4. Impact

4.1 Feedback from online users and users of the system within the Record Office searchroom has been strongly positive. As more and more catalogues have been added to the system, the benefits to record office customers and staff have been clearly visible: quick and easy retrieval of a wealth of information using simple free text searching.

4.2 Hampshire continues to be in the forefront of developments to CALM. Since January 2004 record office customers have been able to place orders for documents in the search room, using the intranet version of CALM available there. Again Hampshire has played a leading role in developing this part of the system, and is currently the only record office to use the document ordering facility.

4.3 In addition, the Hampshire Photographic Project, run by Hampshire Archives Trust and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is currently working towards making 10,000 images available online via CALM. Items to be digitised are held not only by Hampshire Record Office, but by a variety of partners, both institutions and private individuals, extending the use of CALM to widen access to historic material held throughout the county. This will also enable material in private hands, as well as in the County's collections, to be accessible to the public via the Internet.

5. Linkages

5.1 At a national level, staff from Hampshire Record Office are involved in discussions with the national institutions, other local authority archive services and university archives about the development of a national web portal which will link all online archive databases (referred to in the National Council on Archives publication Changing the Future of Our Past (2002) p.22). This will allow users to cross-search all the databases in order to locate information about archives wherever they are to be found. Some of Hampshire's catalogues have already been contributed to a national online project, Access to Archives (A2A), and the aim is that ultimately all archive catalogues will be electronically linked via the Internet. CALM 2000 has been developed using international standards of archive description to facilitate such cross-searching. If government funding can be secured the vision of an online national archive catalogue is fast approaching reality.

5.2 Equally significantly, for Hampshire people interested in their county's heritage generally, work is under way within the Recreation and Heritage Department to identify suitable software packages that will allow the archives database (CALM) to be linked to both the museums database (MODES) and the libraries database (Galaxy). This would mean that a single search e.g. for `railways' would identify any relevant material, whether held in the Record Office, in one of the county's museums or in a local studies collection in a library.

6. Conclusion

6.1 The work of catalogue conversion now nearing completion in the Hampshire Record Office re-establishes Hampshire's archives service as a leader in the field of electronic archives. It is making Hampshire's archives widely accessible via the Internet and is facilitating the searching and retrieval of records by customers and staff. Those who visit the Record Office are able to identify and order in advance the material they need to see, helping them to make more efficient use of their time in the Record Office. As digital images are added to the system in the future, many will be able to undertake much of their research remotely, reducing wear and tear on original archives.

Recommendation

That the Recreation and Heritage Policy Review Committee note the demonstration of Hampshire Record Office's online archive catalogue system and express their support for the aim of widening access to Hampshire's archive collections by electronic means.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the act.

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