15 Apr 2014

Grenada Heritage: May Day – Save Our Archives

09:00 by Chief LibrarianNo comments

Getting Ready for May Day 2014

15 April 2014 · in Continuing Education, Digital Preservation, Disaster Planning, Outreach and Advocacy, Policies and Procedures, Preservation, Society of Archivists. ·

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To download your this logo or similar ones, please visit SAA’s website at http://www2.archivists.org/initiatives/mayday-saving-our-archives/mayday-logos

It’s that time of year again for archivists–the annual May Day event where we highlight the necessary activities for disaster preparedness. The news is full of disaster that strikes, whether natural or man-made. Once the safety of the people involved is secure, our thoughts as archivists go towards the records–both paper and digital, to ensure that that they are recoverable. Often we are so busy with reference requests, processing, visiting alumni events and classes, that we think we’ll get to the disaster plan later.

“But on 1st May – this year and every year – you can do something that will make a difference when and if an emergency occurs. That’s the purpose of MayDay – a grassroots effort whose goal is to save our archives.” (SAA Website)

We are at the mid-month, so we don’t have long until 1st May, but it is plenty of time to plan to do something simple to honor MayDay 2014. Here are some suggestions from SAA:
  1.  Create or Update your Contact Lists.
  2. Review or Establish Basic Emergency Procedures
  3. Conduct a Disaster Drill
  4. Conduct Scenario Exercises
  5. Invite Your Local Firefighters to Visit Your Repository
  6. Survey the Building for Risks
  7. Make Sure All Collections Are in Boxes
  8. Make Sure Boxes Are Off the Floor
  9. Identify the Most Critical, Essential, Important Records
  10. Inventory Emergency Supplies
  11. Review Your Emergency Preparedness Plan
  12. If Your Repository Doesn’t Have an Emergency Preparedness Plan…MayDay is a good time to get started.

On 1st May, we will be reviewing our Emergency Preparedness Plan and submitting it to review. In our new Records Retention Schedule, we are noting which records are “vital” in the event of a disaster.

Be sure to see the latest post from HERA, “Disaster Prevention on the Fly,” and if you can, attend the free webinar on Thursday, 17 April at 1:00pm (EST) The Supercharged Management System: Applying the Incident Command System in Cultural Repositories by David Carmichael, ‎Director, Records and Information Management at Atlanta Housing Authority. Here’s the description of the class:
Every cultural repository needs two management structures: the day-to-day, business-as-usual hierarchy, and a “supercharged” management structure that takes over temporarily during a crisis or whenever events threaten to overwhelm normal business routines. Emergency responders have used just such a supercharged structure for years: the Incident Command System (ICS). Whether you are preparing for fires and floods—or planning a major public event—the Incident Command System is a proven management tool that safeguards lives, property, and priceless collections. Learn how to put it to use at your cultural organization!

So be thinking about what activity (or activities) you will be conducting at your school, and send them to SAA at MayDay@archivists.org. They would like to track who participated, what they did, and how it might help another similar institution. Be sure to also post in the comments here what you did at your school. Maybe we can get our list to grow every MayDay!
 
Resources
  • Heritage Preservation National Task Force: Includes links to resources, both online and in print, in preparing and responding to disasters.
  • Watch Heritage Preservation’s Facebook page for weekly disaster preparedness tips throughout the month of May.
  • HP’s Alliance for Response: Alliance for Response is a national program on cultural heritage and disaster management. Through a series of local Forums, it builds bridges between the cultural heritage and emergency response communities before disasters happen. Find a group near you!

18 Mar 2014

Grenada Heritage: Know Your History (18 March)

10:00 by Chief LibrarianNo comments

This Day in History

Posted on 18 Mar 2014 in Today in History

On this day, 18 March 1649, French colonists from Martinique landed in the Lagoon, St. George’s and initiated a successful European settlement in Grenada, which subsequently led to the destruction of the indigenous population. This year marks the 365th anniversary of that event!

In 1649 Governor Du Parquet of Martinique, after sending an emissary to Grenada to build a house at a suitable site where arms and munitions could be stored until a proper fort built, advertised for volunteers to colonise Grenada, offering tax exemptions and land grants. It was the last attempt, following a number of unsuccessful plans and attempts by the French. Between 1638 and 1649 a number of prominent French adventurers cast covetous glances at Grenada, which due to its proximity to South America held promising economic possibilities, especially for trade and/or plunder. The first of these was Phillip de Poincy, French governor of St. Christopher. Around 1639/40 he decided to take possession of the island with the establishment of a settlement, but abandoned his plans because of the hostility of the Island Caribs in the Windward Islands and the great distance between Grenada and St. Christopher. In 1643, Jean Aubert, governor of Guadeloupe, had an agent sent to the island, but a planned settlement never materialised. In 1645 the French Compagnie des Isles de l’Amérique granted a commission as governor of Grenada for five years to Philibert de Noailly, but despite his efforts he never succeeded in landing a settlement.

On 14 March 1649, “Two vessels and two barks with enough rations for several months,” building materials, arms and munitions, departed Fort St. Pierre, Martinique with 45 colonists for Grenada. On 17 March the invading party dropped anchor off Grenada, and the next day arrived at the St. George’s Harbor where they established their settlement. On 25 March du Parquet officially took possession of Grenada in a ceremony following the construction of Fort l’Annunciation, a palisade fort. The unusual activity brought a part of Island Caribs to question the French about their appropriation of the Island Carib land. The impasse was was soon resolved by the promise of French protection against a supposed British attack and the exchange of gifts, especially whisky and wine.

Historians, including Jean-Baptise Dutertre and Raymund Devas, have claimed that Chief Kairoüane sold Grenada to the French for beads, knives, mirrors and two bottles of brandy. The fact that the Amerindians brought animals and fruits to exchange for the French “gifts” proves that they were merely trading with them, and the exchange could not have been construed otherwise by either party! Also, Chief Kairoüane was in no position to “sell” the island, a fact made clear when he was banished from the island by his fellow Amerindians because he was unable to expel the French.

The French immediately set about the task of clearing land for the cultivation of food crops like cassava and cash crops like tobacco. By June 1650 du Parquet had made plans to purchase Grenada, Martinique, St. Lucia and the Grenadines from the bankrupt Compagnie des Isles de l’Amerique for a mere 41,000 livres (about £1,660), thus “legalizing his claims” to those islands (hence the incorrect date of the Grenada’s settlement of June 1650). Within seven months of the French landing, the Island Caribs began to stage attacks against them in an attempt to dislodge them from the island, especially after they established a second settlement at Beausejour. Following a decade-long conflict between the two groups that say bloody confrontations, ambushes, guerrilla war by the Amerindians and sabotage, the French successfully reduced the Island Carib population and eliminated their threat.
As part of the Dr. James D. Pitt Voices of Grenada Lecture Series, the Grenada National Museum will host a presentation by John Angus Martin titled “French Settlement of Grenada: Dispelling Five Historical Inaccuracies” at 5:15 PM on Tuesday 18 March 2014. Please join us for a discussion on the arrival of the French and the destruction of the Amerindians on Grenada.

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Drawing of the initial French settlement on the sandbar at the entrance to the Lagoon and plan of Fort Royal, c. 1667.

See Island Caribs and French Settlers in Grenada, 1498-1763 by John Angus Martin for a more detailed history of the French settlement in Grenada and Island Carib resistance. Get your copy at the Grenada National Museum, Art and Soul Bookstore and Teachers’ School Supplies, Ltd. in Grenada, and at Amazon.com.

31 Jan 2014

Grenada National Archives - Endangered Archives Project

22:00 by Chief LibrarianNo comments

Grenada National Archives - Protection, conservation, access

The threat to archives -
“Documentary heritage reflects the diversity of languages, peoples and cultures. It is the mirror of the world and its memory. But this memory is fragile. Every day, irreplaceable parts of this memory disappear for ever.”
UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.

Ric Greaves on histories in peril

Sadly very little protection or conservation has been undertaken by Grenada and reconstructing this important and endangered archive relies heavily on a 1968 document produce by E. C. Baker’s called A Guide to Records in the Windward Islands.  Thankfully the Endangered Archived Project number 295, undertaken by the British Library (with the financial support of Arcadia) has now managed to give us ‘access’ to at least some 4500 digital images from our existing archives.

Back in 2009 the British Library (with the financial support of Arcadia) began an US$64,000 project to protect and disseminate historical records of pre-industrial societies such as our own.

This British Libraries EAP was part of the US$18.0 million awards of some 41 research grants for records throughout the world, including the Caribbean, which are fast disappearing through neglect, physical deterioration or destruction - the Endangered Archives Programme is aimed at safeguarding some of this documentary heritage world-wide. The entire programme now has over one million images available online!  They have new online collections every month which has taken the total number of images available in our collections over this one million mark. These collections come from India (EAP201), Lesotho in Southern Africa (EAP279), Mongolia (EAP529) and finally our own Grenada (EAP295).

Although 132 volumes of deed records and local government correspondence were identified in Grenada, the EAP295 Project had to remain modest in conception and rooted in practicality – it was not aimed at promoting theoretical advances in archival management or cutting-edge technology in digital preservation – it was about quick achieving result on the ground.

Project EAP295 began with two weeks of digital photography under a team from the University of Manchester led by Dr Laurence Brown and photographer James W Robinson which took place in November 2010.  This was only a part of the unique historical archives of our island, material which provides a micro-vision of how Grenada was transformed in the late eighteenth century by imperial conflicts, the expansion of plantation slavery and revolutionary politics.

The two main sources of records are from Government House and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court records reveal the multi-racial alliances and conflicts that marked slave society while the Government House correspondence shows the local negotiations and conflicts that shaped the prolonged transition to a free society during the mid-nineteenth century.

During Hurricane Ivan in 2004 the Grenada Public library (our National Archives) lost part of its roof and the Government House correspondence became displaced and out of order. There was no item-level index of this material so series P material needed to be ordered chronologically then digitisation focused primarily on those works which were seen as the most fragile due to their age or unbound condition. This greatly hampered the project which needed to have material chronologically reordered before digitising could take place.

The project focused on digitising just twelve volumes and files of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor’s correspondence covering the period 1764-1879 and the Letter Books of the Administrator and Colonial Secretary (series P) because these were far more fragmented than the Governor’s correspondence.

The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry. Many of the bound volumes of French Deeds identified by the project required such extensive preservation and conservation work that their digitisation would have destroyed their physical structure. By stabilising their storage and digitising those materials in the Supreme Court Registry which were already fragmentary or fragile, the project was able to make a significant step towards its original aims.

Digitisation also continued in the Supreme Court Registry on the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers for St Georges and records related to Forfeited Estates, 1794-1802. During this time one of the Archival researchers employed by the project cleaned, sorted and ordered the French Deed bound volumes and unbound materials.

The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry.  Digitisation also covered some of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers.
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A total of 4589 pages were finally digitised, indexed, catalogued and a full list of digitised documents now available online are:

EAP295/1
"Holding of Government House are listed in Baker (1968), pp. 14-18. After Hurricane Ivan, around half this material has survived, with particularly heavy loses of documents from the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century. Digitisation focused on the earliest surviving records of Government House”.


EAP295/1/2
"Holding of Government House are listed in Baker (1968), pp. 14-18. After Hurricane Ivan, around half this material has survived, with particularly heavy loses of documents from the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century. Digitisation focused on the earliest surviving records of Government House”.

EAP295/2
The earliest family records held by the Grenada Supreme Court Registry is for the French period 1762-1785.

Unbound French legal document.
These boxes of unbound French legal documents was reconstituted by Dr Curtis Jacobs (UWI Grenada)




Note: Arcadia is a grant-making fund established in 2001. Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin form the Donor Board. Peter Baldwin is Chair of the Donor Board. The fund was formerly the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund. As of September 2013 Arcadia had awarded grants of more than $243 million.

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