An Archivist Takes a (Useful) Break

Talk given to the Society of Malawi at Blantyre Sports Club on Tuesday 27 November 2007 by Anne Thomson

It's over 18 months since I read an unusual e-mail circulated on the archivists' e-mail list in the UK. It was a Friday afternoon in January and I was glancing through the messages before I locked up for the weekend. In amongst the requests for advice on which company makes the best acid-free boxes and how people were coping with the intricacies of converting old paper catalogues for transfer to webpages, there was this message: "Is there an archivist out there who would like to help by doing some voluntary archive work in Malawi?" I thought "that's for me!" What a wonderful opportunity to return to Africa and do something useful at the same time. In truth, though, I did not believe that it could or would happen. I thought about it all weekend and wrote a message asking for more details. Well, as you can see, it did happen. My employers, Newnham College in Cambridge agreed to give me 3 months unpaid leave, I contacted Dora Wimbush at the Society and the planning began. As well as Newnham College who provided me with some funding, I am indebted to the Society of Archivists and the Smuts Memorial Fund for financial help in making this project possible.

Soon after I arrived, Sandy Dudley asked me if I would give a talk to the Society of Malawi about my work. I am totally unaccustomed to speaking in public and so I hope that you will be gentle with me.

I thought that I could speak a little on three connected topics - my work back in England, my work over the last two and a half months here at Mandala House and something on archives, in general.

I am the College Archivist at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. I have worked at Newnham for 18 years in both the library and the archives.

Some seven or eight years ago, it became clear that the college library was running out of space. The beautiful original building dates from 1897 with an extension added in the 1960s. The 1960s part of the library was not wearing well. It was agreed that this part of the building could not be extended or repaired and so a new library was planned.

In 2003, the new library, with purpose-built archive facility was completed and I became the College's first full-time professional archivist. The new space has desks for two archivists, two visiting researchers and a secure store room, with environmental controls, for the archives. Lest you think that this is probably all par for the course at Cambridge, let me assure that it was not always the case. When I began work at Newnham, the archives were stored in two separate locations within College - a large understairs cupboard and a basement room which proudly announced its dual purpose on a sign on the door - 'Archives and Boiler Room'- a crime in the archive world even greater than marking boxes 'Misc.'!

Let me say a few things about my place of work and what that work involves.

Newnham is one of the 31 colleges of Cambridge University. It was founded in 1871 to provide higher education for women, many, many years before women were granted membership of the University. Although there were men in the Cambridge academic community who supported the higher education of women - the philosopher Henry Sidgwick was the main force behind the setting-up of what became Newnham - many were bitterly opposed.

From 1881, 10 years after Newnham's foundation, women were allowed to sit the Tripos exams and have their papers marked. The results were recorded separately from those of the men. This resulted in a furore in 1890 when Philippa Fawcett, Newnham student and daughter of suffragist Millicent and Postmaster General Henry, gained the highest marks in Pt.1 of the Maths Tripos. The title of Senior Wrangler is awarded to the student with the highest marks in the Maths Tripos. When the results were read out in the Senate House, Miss Fawcett was placed 'above the Senior Wrangler'. As no woman was a member of the University, she could not be awarded a University 'title'.

Votes followed in 1897 and 1921 on whether women should be awarded degrees and become members of the University. The result on both occasions was a resounding 'No'. There are photographs in the archives recording the scenes at these votes. Hundreds of Cambridge M.A.s (elderly vicars and schoolmasters from around the country) were transported to Cambridge in order to cast their votes. All 'No' presumably. Tempers ran high and in 1921, although the vote had again gone against the women, a number of male undergraduates stormed up to Newnham with a battering ram and destroyed the beautiful bronze gates at its entrance, a memorial to its first Principal. In 1921 a rather grudging fudge was agreed - women passing the Tripos exams could be awarded the 'title' of degree and so certificates marked 'title of degree' were posted to the successful women. Not for them the degree ceremony in the Senate House.

Dorothy Garrod, another Newnham student and eminent archaeologist, became the first female professor in Cambridge in 1939 which must have been a very strange position to hold - Professor whilst not being a member of the University. It was not until 1948 that women were granted full membership of Cambridge University, more than 25 years after Oxford had capitulated.

In 1998, the University arranged a huge day of celebration, or was it maybe by way of an apology, when over 900 women who had studied at Newnham and Girton before 1948, returned for the day to be treated to lunch at their old colleges and to attend a ceremony at the Senate House. It was a wonderful day and enjoyed by all. I think the thing that interested me most was that of all the women I talked to, not one said that she had felt upset at the inequality of her situation whilst at university. On the contrary, most said that they had been delighted to be there and had often been the first person in their family to get a university education. They had often been encouraged by their school mistresses to apply and, in the main, had nothing but praise for the experience. They talked of the pleasure of having, as Virginia Woolf had recommended, 'A Room of One's Own' and the social whirl which resulted from being outnumbered many times by the number of male undergraduates! Being many years younger than these women, I had confidently assumed that they would feel at least some hurt and bitterness at the injustice of the situation whilst they were students, but it was not the case and an important lesson for me to have learned.

In the 1970s the mens' colleges began to admit female students and by the the 1980s all had done so. Girton, the other women's college founded at the same time as Newnham took male students from the late 1970s. Newnham has remained an all female establishment. This means that its student body and its fellowship are all female. It does NOT mean that it is a convent - there are many male members of staff, some academic members of staff are male and there are many male students to be seen around college at any time of day.

There are two other women's colleges in Cambridge - New Hall set up in the 1950s which has an all female student body and a mixed fellowship and Lucy Cavendish, founded in the 1960s which is for 'mature' female' students. This in theory means over age 21, but in practice, Lucy Cavendish takes many women in their 30s, 40s and 50s. All former Oxford women's colleges now admit male students. The debate over 'mixing' tends to raise temperatures and emotions. It is not one over which many people feel that it would be fine either way. It will, no doubt, continue to be discussed by Newnham's Governing Body.

From this, you can probably see that Newnham has an interesting history and for researchers interested in the University, the 19th century, women's higher education, the college's many distinguished alumnae and those looking into their family tree, the archives are a very rich resource. There are diaries, letters, photographs, committee papers, clubs, official college records, student magazines - all in their way part of Newnham's unique past. Many visitors come each year, some for an hour or two and some, in the case of researchers from abroad, for several weeks.

I now have specialist archive software called CALM and am adding information on all the records in my care, to this database. It works well and has a very powerful searching facility but is quite expensive with an annual running cost - to cover helpdesk and version updates - of over £1,000.

So, that is my Cambridge job.

And now to the Society of Malawi - my present place of work. I have been here for over two months and have two and a half weeks remaining. I have had a wonderful time in Malawi and have met many people - all as friendly and helpful as I could have hoped.

I don't think it would be inaccurate to call this part 'Heat and Dust'. I expect that many of you are familiar with the Society of Malawi setup at Mandala House but I will explain a little of what is there for those who may not have visited.

The predominantly wooden structure of Mandala House contributes greatly to its charm but, with its wooden slatted ceilings, also to the huge quantities of dust and grit which, even with windows mostly tightly closed, cover most surfaces each morning.

Firstly, there is the library itself - a lovely light book-lined space and its adjoining office. Then there is the board or meeting room, a rather grand air conditioned space where the Society's committee meetings take place.

Leaving that end of the building, the heat builds up at the 'archives' end. There is a small narrow space, next to the kitchen, known as the Map Room, probably because the many (unsorted) maps are stored there. There are cupboards in this space which, at present, hold boxed newspapers of the 1980s and 1990s and back issues of the Society Journal. I'll come back to that!

Another narrow, fairly hot space is the Work Room. This has three lockable metal cupboards for archive storage and the work bench of the bookbinder, Ellaton Mkwate, who provides expert binding and repair skills for needy Society material.

That leaves my main work room - the 'Archives Room'. It too is pretty hot but does have a fan. Shelves, nearly ceiling high, line most of the walls and there is a built-in cupboard where the photographs are stored.

For the first week, I tried to acquaint myself with what was where and to sort the many periodicals which were in a bit of a jumble - ranging from the Nyasaland Farmer and Forester, through African Wild Life to the Third World Quarterly. It was probably in my second week that Dora said gently "Have you looked in the sideboard in the meeting room?" No, I hadn't. Maybe I had hoped that it was full of sherry glasses. It wasn't - it was full of ordinances, proclamations, estimates and regulations relating to the government of Nyasaland. When I was rejigging my plans to accommodate this material, Dora said "and the other two cupboards in the library office?" I bravely threw them open. That is not strictly true as almost all the cupboards in the library and archive do not close properly - so they are either flapping open or wedged shut. Can I make a plea here to anyone with influence, that this fairly small job could be seen to? Books and papers for long term preservation need all the help they can get - and particularly so in an African climate - so the cupboards, when closed, form an extra line of defence against the light and dust.

So what was in the two cupboards - one had piles of papers relating to all things 'tea' as well as many copies of past Society journals (yes, I'm coming back to that!) and the other was full of huge, leather-bound accounts ledgers of the Imperial Tobacco Company dating from the first half of the 20th century.

I sat down again with 'my plan'. I had a plan for about the first eight weeks - the trouble was that it was a different one each week! Things loomed large, then small, new things appeared and my thoughts changed accordingly. The layout of the rooms and the fairly restricted space mean that, with large quantities, it is not always possible to store like with like. It is very easy to lose the plot. "I'm going to move this stuff over there - but where shall I put what is already over there in the meantime? I need to find a space for it so must move something else..." - very soon I am engaged in a completely different job and the original stuff unmoved!

So, what else do we have - apart from periodicals, Nyasaland government material, tobacco ledgers, 'tea' papers and the Journals - to which I shall return? Well, we have a lot of Malawi government material - gazettes and reports, photographs (including the amazing collection put together by Barbara Lamport-Stokes) diaries, maps and newspapers (including some early British Central African Gazettes, bound copies of the Nyasaland Times and some in Malawian languages from the time of WW2) - we have information on health, education, churches, tourism, agriculture, wildlife, transport, development, banking - and much more. We have records from the Cholo Garden Club of the 1930s, the Mulanje Mountain Club and programmes from the Nyasaland Players' many productions. We have numerous invitations and programmes from major events which have taken place in the country. We have a book called David Livingstone: the weaver boy who became a missionary which belonged to John Chilembwe. We have collections of papers belonging to WHJ Rangeley and Christine Gordon-Smith and the diaries of W P Ronaldson which cover a period from the 1920s to the 1960s, amongst others.

Whilst collecting together material on health and nutrition, I found that Jessie Williamson, a Newnham student in the 1920s had been Nyasaland Government Nutritional Investigator here in the 1930s and written an influential book Useful plants of Nyasaland which has been reprinted many times and is still in print today - Useful plants of Malawi. Her obituary appears in the Society Journal of 1993 and I will be able to take a copy of this back with me to lodge in the Newnham archives.

So how to start sorting all this paper? The way one is taught to tackle cataloguing an archive is to use a hierarchical plan, based on the structure of the organisation and its functions - relating the groups of records one to another and so giving them context. The function of creator or department of the record is all important. So say, in a school, a bank, a hospital - there would be an obvious framework there - the Managing Director/Chief Executive/Board of Governors at the top and things slotting in below and alongside - committees, finance, staff, research and development, curriculum - a chain of responsibility and decision-making - all documents having their place in relation to all other documents.

But the Society archive is altogether different. Apart from the papers relating to the Society itself, all the rest of the material is 'collected' - from many different sources. So, the only sensible way to list is to do so by subject - e.g. tea plantations, early graves, missions, national parks and so on. In a set up run by volunteers, it is of the greatest importance that the system be simple and easy to use. What one needs to be able to do is to find things and just as the Dewey Decimal System is probably not the most appropriate for a very small library, a complicated hierarchical catalogue with intricate numerical reference codes is not the easiest to use for a small archive.

The issues of access, cataloguing and preservation are inter-related. In order for researchers to be able to access papers successfully, they need to be listed in an understandable way and need to be in good enough shape to be handled. If possible, everything should be boxed up. Papers in an envelope or folder, then in an archive box, kept on shelves (not on the floor) in a secure storage space, will have their life prolonged. This is particularly true of archives in an African climate. Often there is reluctance to spend money on archives, but the time and money spent on putting one's 'archive' house in order, is quickly and amply repaid - the right papers can be found easily, reducing unnecessary handling which is good for the papers and saving time which is good for the researchers. In archive training terms it is having 'physical and intellectual control' of your material.

What I have started in my 3 months here can be refined and improved on indefinitely - that is the way with archives - the job is never finished. Lists can be made of the contents of boxes, at present marked for example 'National Parks' or 'Air Transport'. If the shelf arrangement is found to be satisfactory, then more permanent labels can be attached to the shelves. Covering dates applied to a periodical title e.g. 1960-1982 can be added to, to indicate volume and issue numbers and any missing parts. The more information that is added, the smoother the retrieval and replacement of the documents.

Veronica Jana, a young Malawian woman who already works for the Society has a keen interest in the archives and in the history of her country. She recently attended a short course run by the National Archives in Zomba on basic library, archive and records management skills and I very much hope, and she would like, that with the agreement of the Society, she take on some of the many jobs I will have to leave undone. To this end, we will spend some time together in my last couple of weeks to go over what is required.

So - the future of the Society archives? Well, keep up the good work. Recruit new members and with luck, new volunteers. It seems to me that one of the problems of running the Society with purely volunteer help (and this, of course will not be peculiar to the Society of Malawi) is that it is difficult to ensure continuity. When one starts a new job, there is information, rules, guidance on how the job is to be done. Usually, I think that is not the case with volunteers. There is no manual, no head of department. Each person is giving what time he or she can spare and doing what is required, as they think best. This can lead to more than one way of doing things being adopted over a fairly short space of time.

I would recommend that some guidelines are drawn up, agreed by the committee and printed out, in a folder, for any new volunteer to read. Very simple things like making sure all visitors sign the visitors' book and are supervised as much as the number of volunteers on duty allows. A simple form could be filled out for each visitor giving name, date of visit, subject of interest, what papers and books were consulted and any photocopies made. This may seem arduous but it is very helpful for keeping track of material and for subsequent visits of any researcher.

A collection policy is a good idea. Mandala House does not, at least to me, have the potential for 'extension' and so the space for the archives is likely to stay as it is. Very little of it is currently unused and so the implications are obvious. My main recommendations would be a) to avoid keeping unnecessary photocopies b) dispense with duplicate copies and c) to discourage people from 'dumping' material - unsorted and possibly unwanted.

Decisions will need to be taken - do we want to continue collecting government gazettes, for example? We have a fairly unbroken run of them - Nyasaland and then Malawi - up to 2002? Should we restart or not duplicate what is already held in Zomba?

This raises another issue that I have had to rethink during my visit. The issue of primary material - original material - and the question of copies. An archive would, by definition, have material that is primary source material - so, not published and not held elsewhere - and, in general, would not hold many photocopies. So, for example, in my job back in Cambridge, I would not preserve copies of material (say, the University Reporter) which I know to be held and preserved by Cambridge University Library. I would not keep copies of material concerned with anything Newnham-related but held by another repository. I would note what it was and where it was held and pass this information to any interested party. This is made easier by the fact that many archives and libraries now have on-line catalogues, so that material can be viewed/copies requested long distance.

But I can see that it is different here. There are few libraries and archives and information can be hard to come by. I can see that it would not be sensible to tell a visitor that what she was seeking was held at the University of Mzuzu and that she would have to visit there or consult their website. It's a long way and she may not have easy internet access. So, I can see that the case is strong for keeping all material relevant to the study of Malawi and to related historical and scientific subjects - and this can include copied material. I have seen that the Society library and archive is seen as a fine resource and has many visitors every week. So keep collecting - just remember to look at the space available.

One important project that the committee of the Society hope can be started soon is the digitisation of the photograph collection - that is a worthy and worthwhile plan but it is a big job and needs hardware, software and commitment. I would hope that when the time comes, the original photographs can be safely removed from their plastic sleeves and transferred to polyester ones. They should then be boxed up and stowed away to be brought out on special occasions only. Heat, light and handling are the greatest threats to the preservation of photographs and the scanned images would allow high quality copies to be produced for researchers and for display purposes.

And so to the Society Journal! One of the first jobs I did when I started work here was to do a 'journal count'. You probably all know that the Society, founded in 1946, has been producing a journal twice-yearly (apart from a few odd years with one issue or three) since 1948. These are a fine information resource. The count revealed that although there are very few issues of the early years, from the mid 1980s we have quite large stocks - in some cases well over 100 copies. With space so restricted, storing such numbers does not make good sense.

So - over to you - what to do with them? There is a list of the issues available and an index to the articles contained. Obviously, the Society would like to sell them - and does so, in small numbers, at 500MK each. But the large quantities? I believe that free copies would be considered for institutions with little cash to spare. If anyone does have any thoughts on this, please let me know or any member of the committee. A final Journal thought - a friend in the UK had a Christmas present last year - a hollow device the size and shape of a brick into which one packs wet newspaper. The water is then squeezed out and the 'brick' dried. They make wonderful fuel for an open fire. Just a suggestion - if all else fails!

On more general archive issues - I think that the questions and challenges facing archives today are as great as at any previous time - Legislation in the UK and the US on Data Protection and Freedom of Information has meant that organisations have had to put their 'records' house in order. If the public is free to ask for information to be provided, and in a given time frame, it is necessary to know 'do we have that information?' and if so, 'where is it?' It has meant that archives and the newer 'records management' function have moved from the bottom of the priority list and many more companies and institutions have started to employ archivists and records managers. This has to be a good thing. An institution's records/archives are like a person's memory and so necessary for efficient functioning. Substance, meaning, status and pride - a collective memory - not to mention being able to fulfil legal requirements - are all made possible with effective record keeping and orderly archives.

Added to this are the challenges of the digital age. Most records today are 'born digital' - that is the record is created on a computer - the print-out made of it is, therefore, not the original record. This presents many problems and I think that we are in a transitional stage at the moment - still a long way from the 'paperless office'. Systems need to be put in place to monitor who has access to a particular document, who has made changes - when and why and so on. This is known as 'version control'. Data must be 'migrated' regularly to new software versions to ensure that information is not left 'stranded' with no way of gaining access to it.

These are prickly questions with no hard and fast answers at present. Maybe most of these do not affect the Society archives at present, but I think it is wise to be aware of the issues as they affect us all - as more and more data is held about each and every one of us.

I will stop now and make way for the musical part of the evening. I have enjoyed my time here and thanks to all who have helped and befriended me. Perhaps I'll come back in a few years, when I retire, to see if my labels are still in place. And in the meantime -

• Avoid sellotape
• Date everything
• And remember that today's letters, posters and newspapers are the archives of tomorrow

Thank you