1. General
The mission of the Library, Archive and Open Research Service (LAORS) is to provide excellent information-related services, resources and support to the School in pursuit of its mission to improve health and health equity in the UK and worldwide.
Maintaining accurate documentation on the School’s collections is central to the purpose of the Archive Service. This information forms two parts: accessioning information and cataloguing information.
- 2. Accessioning
Recording the provenance of physical and digital archive material collected by the Archive Service is of vital importance in preserving the integrity of the School’s archive collections. The Archive Service will accession every donation of records in order to achieve this.
The accession record will give a unique reference number, preliminary indication of the scope, content and creation dates of the collection, record its legal status, any restrictions on access, its size (usually number of boxes), as well as the contact details of its source and the date of accession.
This information is held on an Access Database. This contains details of all accessions since the Archives Service was established in July 2002.
If necessary, material will be stored in a quarantine area while it is checked for signs of pests and mould, which could adversely affect other collections.
A gift agreement will be signed by the Archivist & Records Manager and the donor or depositor for collections received from external depositors. Internal collections do not currently require a signed form as these records belong to the School, although there are circumstances where an agreement is required eg where a collection includes records from the staff member before they worked at the School eg Piot collection.
All subsequent accessions will be covered by the main agreement unless there is a substantial change in circumstances and another form is necessary. A hard copy is held in a file in the Archivist & Records Manager’s office and a digital copy is also held.
The unique reference number assigned to each accession will be linked to the catalogue record however the full details of the accession will not be made available to the public.
The appraisal field in CALM will be used to record actions relating to the evaluation of the accession for permanent retention, as well as quantities of material confidentially disposed of or returned. The Copyright field records any specific information relating to any known intellectual property rights; where no information is given, staff are guided by the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and any relevant updates. The Access and Conditions fields will be used to record information relating to any restrictions on access and the date the material may be opened; where restrictions relate to personal data, staff will adhere to the Data Protection legislation.
The Archives Service aims to maintain a good relationship with its donors and depositors in order to maximise the relevant information provided at the point of accession and to ensure that contact details are kept up to date.
The Archives Service has a good working relationship with The Wellcome Collection which holds a number of LSHTM collections (deposited before the Archives Service was established in 2002) and is discussing the possible transfer of some of these collections.
- 3. Cataloguing
Cataloguing the archive material held by the Archive Service is essential to enable access to the research community.
The Archive Service co-ordinates cataloguing through a managed priority plan, the annual operational plan, staff members’ annual personal development reviews and a set of detailed procedures.
All cataloguing conforms to current professional standards, namely principle and mandatory elements of the General International Standard of Archival Description (ISAD(G)), National Council on Archives rules for the construction of personal, corporate and place names and International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (ISAAR(CPF)).
The six essential elements of any catalogue are as follows:
- Reference number
- Title
- Creator
- Covering dates
- Extent
- Level of description
The Archive Service also records, as relevant and necessary, scope and content, administrative history, custodial history and acquisition, potential accruals, arrangement, any restrictions on access, copyright, related and associated material and cataloguing status.
New catalogues will be created directly onto the CALM database and, once made live, will be available through the on-line catalogue.
In some circumstances, interim box lists will exist for collections. These may be made accessible to the public on request.
Born digital and digitised archival material are stored on the School’s secure server, high level descriptions are stored in the digital asset register and catalogued in CALM.
Digital images and assets are catalogued in Assetbank, the School’s Digital Asset Management system. These are cross references with the CALM record. This system is only available to the public on request.
Digital research datasets are listed and stored in Data Compass, the School’s Research Data Management Repository.
- 4. Cataloguing backlog
The Archive Service has a backlog of uncatalogued material. This has been calculated as 46% (30% is listed and in preparation for cataloguing, 16 is new accessions) of the Archives Service’s total holdings. Working according to the Collections Development Priority Plan, archive cataloguing will be allocated to staff through objectives in the annual operating plan, annual personal development reviews and regular team meetings where tasks are allocated.
In 2022, the archives team committed to a new way of working with large collections. Rather than one member of the team being assigned a large collection, the team will work collectively on collections to ensure that good progress is made and that appraisal decisions are made jointly. This has proved successful with the Minter collection and the methodology is being applied to other collections.
For large collections, the Archives Service will continue to seek external funding.
As part of our commitment to decolonisation, existing catalogues are being reviewed for outdated colonial language and former colonial country and place names Entries are being been edited to increase the discoverability of these collections.
Cataloguing guidelines on offensive language and content have been developed to assist staff in this activity. These guidelines are applicable to all of our collections and not just those relating to our colonial material.
- 5. Finding aids
The Archives catalogue is available on the Archives website. There is also further information on some of the Archives Service’s most popular collections including the Ross Collection, Nutrition collection and HIV/AIDS collections on the archive web pages.
Collection level descriptions are also accessible on AIM25, the Archives Hub and TNA Discover.
- 6. De-accessioning
There are some areas of the collection that may be considered for de-accessing. This may be for the following reasons:
- The material does not fit the collection management criteria
- Publications and reprints that can be moved to the Library
- The material should not have originally been catalogued
De-accessioned material will be disposed of in accordance with the de-accessioning procedures.
- 7. Implementation and review
This Collections Information Statement will be communicated to LAORS staff, to interested parties within LSHTM, and to external agencies and others with an interest in its context on demand. It will be made available to the public via the Archives web pages.
The Collections Information Statement will be reviewed every two years by the LAORS Management Team. This does not preclude earlier review should internal or external development warrant it.
8. Useful sources
Policies and sources of advice consulted during the drafting of this Access Statement include:
King’s College London, Archives Collection Information Policy
UCL Institute of Education Archives Collection Information Policy
Archivist & Records Manager
October 2023