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There is no summary of this meeting yet. One is written once the council publishes the minutes. The agenda and papers are below.
The Chair and Members of the committee welcomed Andrew Dulley to his first meeting of the Joint Committee following his appointment as County Archivist and wished him well in his new role. He thanked everyone for their wishes and outlined that he looked forward to working with everyone going forward.
In accordance with the Code of Conduct adopted by both Authorities, no interests were declared.
Resolved that the Minutes of the West Glamorgan Archives Committee meeting held on 15 March 2024 be approved as a correct record.
Resolved that Councillors R V Smith and C Phillips be elected Vice Chairs of the Committee for 2024-2025.
The County Archivist presented a report which outlined the work of the Joint Archive Service during the period March – August 2024. Use of the Service He reported on the figures relating the use of the service via its various platforms both in person and online. He referred to the steady increase in numbers across the board, but outlined the large increase at the Neath Mechanics Institute and thanked the Neath Antiquarian Society for their continued help, support and partnership at the facility. Talks and Seminars He reported that three schools have received sessions during the period since the last meeting. He outlined that the service offers its services to schools in both authorities, and he will link up shortly with NPTs heritage officer to try and further develop the link with NPT schools. The service has run two sessions for university students. The Service has also continued its involvement in a collaborative group with the teacher education department at Swansea University, Richard Burton Archives, South Wales Miners Library and Partneriaeth to help produce archival resource packs for teachers. Talks to Groups Staff have also provided talks to various local groups. The service continues to run a monthly session for the Glamorgan Family History Society, Swansea Branch. He reported that on 22nd July the Service assisted the Royal Institution of South Wales hosted the launch of Swansea History Journal (Minerva), vol. 32 in the searchroom. Other Publicity and Joint Working He referred to the publication of the service’s annual report which went online at the end of May, it contains various articles from both staff and guest authors on matters such as Aberafan’s fourteenth century charter, the Morriston Orpheus Choir archive, records of the Neath Philosophical Society and Neath’s first museum, the project to digitise glass slides, Swansea’s Isolation Hospital, and a retrospective on the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike. It can be found at https://www.swansea.gov.uk/countyarchivistannualreport He detailed the recent media interest relating to the delivery of a postcard, originally posted in 1903, to the Swansea Building Society in Craddock Street. The Service was contacted for assistance in providing historical contextual information and as a result the he was interviewed by both BBC Breakfast and BBC Wales. This surprise opportunity gave the service a chance to demonstrate how history can bring people together. He referred to the online exhibition that is planned for the autumn, relating to the Aberafan Borough Charter of c. 1306, which is held at the Service. It will incorporate a new translation and transcription of the text to enable it to be studied, and it will tell the unique story of how the charter came to be written and what happened to it subsequently. The Archives Online Catalogue He outlined that further to the report at the last meeting detailing that the Archive Service online catalogue had stopped working and that work was ongoing to find a solution. After lengthy discussions with the supplier and Swansea Council’s IT Department, it was decided to switch to another product called Epexio, which is also used by Glamorgan Archives. From a user’s point of view, there are many benefits to this new product, for example, it supports multi-level searching, and a Google search will turn up results from the catalogue, neither of which the old catalogue system could do. While working with Glamorgan Archives, the system developers also created a bilingual Welsh/English interface, which was not a feature of the old system. The purchase of Epexio has had some budgetary implications but provision has now been made for this. He reported that all the Archive Service catalogues are also available on the Archives Hub, which has enabled them to be available while the main catalogue is not working. This situation will continue after the purchase of Epexio in order to make the catalogues as widely available as possible. The new system will hopefully be live by the end of the year. Digitisation of Glass Slides He outlined that the service holds a large number of glass positive and negative slides, most of which are not listed. There are many issues connected with handling them and with making them available in their original form, so it was decided to have them sent away for professional scanning. 50% grant funding was acquired from Welsh Government to make this possible. The slides are being digitised by a commercial supplier, TownsWeb Archiving, and the first consignment of digital images was sent to the service in July. These include hundreds of images of pre-improvement or demolition work in Swansea, taken in the period 1930-1948, a period of extensive dereliction, slum clearance and change to the townscape. Although previously uncatalogued, these are mostly readily identifiable and will be catalogued progressively as time permits. The intention is to make them the subject of an online exhibition once they are catalogued. Staff He reported that there have been significant changes to the staff during the past two quarters. The staff complement is currently 6.6 full time equivalent with one full-time vacancy. Kim Collis retired as County Archivist in June, having held the post for a little under 20 years. He first joined the service back in 1992, serving first as Senior Archivist then as Principal Archivist, before succeeding Susan Beckley as County Archivist in August 2004. He paid tribute to Kim and outlined that his contribution has been immense, including planning the new searchrooms for the Civic Centre Project in 2006-7, masterminding the reader’s ticket system, gaining UNESCO recognition for the Neath Abbey Ironworks collection, overseeing the achievement of accredited status, guiding the move towards digital preservation and high-level planning for the removal of the service and its collections to Y Storfa. Kim had sought constantly to apply examples of best practice observed in Record offices around the country. A man of integrity and principle, he was a moderniser who managed to advance and develop the Archive Service in the face of austerity and dwindling resources. He outlined that he had been appointed as Kim’s successor in June, and was formerly the Assistant County Archivist, who has been part of the service in Several capacities (Archivist, Principal Archivist and Assistant County Archivist) since 1995. This leaves a corresponding vacancy, which he hopes will be filled soon. The post of Archivist, vacant since the departure of Katie Millien at the end of January, was filled in May by Lowri Jenkins a fluent Welsh speaker, she came to us after many years’ experience working as an archivist at the National Museum of Wales and at the Museum of Welsh Life in St Fagans. Bethany Amos finished her time as Archive Trainee at the end of August to take a well-deserved place on Liverpool University’s archive course. Her time at the Archive Service had been very productive, in particular her work in preparing digital archives for ingest into the digital repository when the time comes. The newly-appointed Archive Trainee Lily Britton, a recent history graduate from Aberystwyth University began work this week. Professional Meetings and Training He listed the various professional groups, meetings and training undertaken by staff had attended during the two quarters. Joint Working He detailed that the Service has formed a co-operative partnership with staff at Swansea Museum in a project to discover, collate and promote records and artefacts relating to the LGBTQIA+ community in Swansea. The project is the subject of a funding bid led by Swansea Museum and it is intended that it will result in an oral history reminiscence project. The Service continues to work with the Rich History Project, based in Port Talbot. During the past half-year we have assisted with sources on the history of Mynydd Dinas and information relating to the Aberafan Charter. He had also been part of discussions about the feasibility of a museum in Neath Port Talbot and has explored options with the NPT Heritage Officer regarding the keeping of documents that form part of the former Neath Museum’s collections. Accessions of Archive Collections He detailed the various archives received by the Service during the quarter. Y Storfa He gave a verbal update on the current situation with the development of the new building and facility and outlined the excellent ongoing preparation work being undertaken by staff in anticipation of the move. A site visit to the new facility can be arranged for Members at an appropriate time in the future.
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