{"id":786,"date":"2019-11-19T13:39:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T13:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/?p=786"},"modified":"2019-11-19T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T13:50:14","slug":"un-reports-political-pamphlets-and-robot-arms-introducing-the-british-library-of-development-studies-legacy-collection-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/archives\/786","title":{"rendered":"UN reports, political pamphlets and robot arms – introducing the British Library of Development Studies Legacy Collection Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Danny, Caroline & Tracy take us on a trip down into the IDS basement…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We started work on the British\nLibrary of Development Studies Legacy Collection Project just over a month ago,\nand thought now is a good time to introduce the project team, to explain what\nwe will be doing for the next three years and to talk a little bit about what\nwe\u2019ve discovered so far in the IDS basement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project team, who are based\nwithin the Library\u2019s Collections Team, consists of Caroline Marchant-Wallis\n(who has transferred over from the Keep), Tracy Wilson (formerly Library\nSupport Assistant) and Danny Millum (ex-University of London). All of them\nclaim that they were shown a completely different, smaller, cleaner room during\ntheir interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) Legacy collection is located in the basement of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and tracks the unfolding story of international development and health systems in the Global South over the last half century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Organisation of Afro-Asian Latin American Peoples Solidarity, Tricontinental bulletin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The collection is one of the\nmost comprehensive in its coverage of government and official sources,\nparticularly published in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia between the\nmid-1960s and mid-1990s, with selective coverage of other countries that were\nkey sites of development and health research and innovation during this time\n(Francophone Africa, the Middle East, North Africa and South\/Central America). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
An advert for cruises from Colombian government publication Econom\u00eda colombiana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Its value lies both in the\nbreadth and scope of its contents, and the fact that the collection primarily\nderives from low- and middle-income countries where limited funds, civil\nconflict, environmental disasters and simple neglect has often led to\nsubstantial archival destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Some of the collections from the BLDS basement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The entire BLDS collection\ncomprises c. 1,300,000 items, of which just over one million lie in the Legacy\ncollection. These range from government and international agency reports and\nstatistics; pamphlets and writings by civil society actors, research institutions\nand political parties; documents from participatory and community-based\nresearch and serials and related books from low and middle income countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
BLDS archival material<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The main work of the BLDS Legacy\nCollection Project will be to make these diverse, yet interrelated, materials\naccessible and user friendly through cataloguing, tagging and\ncross-referencing, and the creation of integrated guidelines that will help\nresearchers better understand the collection as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, some work is going\nto be required in improving the way the collections are housed and preserved.\nAs anyone who has visited the IDS basement (and from the look of it when we\nfound it, that\u2019s not many of you) will know, it\u2019s pretty jam packed with\nbulletins, fliers, pamphlets, journals, working papers, conference proceedings and\nmuch more \u2013 so the masks you may have seen Tracy, Caroline and Danny wearing\nare not just fashion accoutrements but also vital pieces of health and safety\nequipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as getting to grips with the collections, we\u2019ve also been getting to grips with the unique BLDS automatic stacks system, which literally re-invented the wheel in deciding that the best way to move a mobile shelf would be to use a compressor, hydraulic pumps and a series of robot arms in a complex and fragile design which breaks down continually. Strangely the BLDS is the only one of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
The BLDS robot arm in action<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve already done quite a lot\nof work in tidying the place up, including cleaning the former\ntoilet-cum-archive room and in more drastic cases deciding the best thing is\njust to lock the door and never return – if you\u2019re a fan of the house of horror\napproach to library facilities then we\u2019d of course be more than happy to give\nyou a tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The mystery door <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, we\u2019ll be posting regular updates on the project, but for now we\u2019d better get back to cataloguing. 25 items down already, so just 999,975 to go. No idea why they thought this would take three years\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Danny, Caroline & Tracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Danny, Caroline & Tracy take us on a trip down into the IDS basement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[150885,26],"tags":[209,151045,96951,4161,150885],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9fi5f-cG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}