GASHE

The Project

GASHE intends to provide an integrated gateway to Higher Education Institutions’ (HEI) records, the primary resources for Scotland’s educational, intellectual and cultural history. Scottish Institutions of Higher Education have made a vital contribution to the learning and culture of the British Isles, and the records that they have generated over the last half millennium attract attention from researchers from around the world. Historians of all disciplines, educationalists and social scientists find these resources of immense value to their research interests. The project is unlocking outstanding collections of archives and related materials in differing media, covering a vast chronological breadth and across a diverse range of higher educational institutions, to a wide range of academic disciplines.

Many collections are only partially catalogued and many others provide inadequate descriptions. The final product will be an on-line resource, describing a variety of educational, intellectual and cultural resources to recognised international standards, which will allow seamless searching of archive and manuscript collections across ten higher educational institutions. The on-line resource will enable subject and functional guided navigation as well as providing value added biographical and institutional access points.

Project Aims

• Web-based subject / functional / chronological navigational aids to provide individual and cross-institutional searching among the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) collaborators and linkages to other holdings.

• Unlocking of previously inaccessible research collections.

• Innovative function and activity descriptions created providing added value for the academic user, cutting across record creating units and thereby cutting wasted research time.

• Ground breaking professional archive research into functions and activities for archival access.

• Traditional record creating unit descriptions.

• A combination of description types for predecessor and affiliated bodies as prioritised by the Project Evaluation Group.

• An Internet accessible extended version of descriptions of Scottish bodies based on Adrian R Allan, University Bodies, A survey of Inter- and Supra- University Bodies and their Records, (Archives Unit, University of Liverpool, 1990).

• Creation of higher education authority files feeding into current UK authority file compilation work.

• Contributions to international standards work for recording contextual information for archival and manuscript materials and to research into SGML/XML delivery of archival finding aids.

• Evaluation of TFPL functional activity model for HEI archives to provide access to GASHE records via functional and activity access points.

Achievements to date

• Over 8000 descriptions have been completed at various levels.

• Project evaluation groups have been established and the GASHE academic discussion list is accessible through the GASHE website.

• The project website is live and regularly updated with quarterly newsletters and additional information of interest.

• Academic interest in the collections held by the partner institutions has increased since the start of the project.

• The Project Management Group (PMG) is fully established and meets on a regular basis. It meets regularly and the minutes of its meetings are mounted on the project’s website. Other more regular consultation takes place on the rslp-gashe mailbase.

• Functional Descriptions Guidelines and Methodology based on the JISC funded TFPL Report 98/631. Study of the Records Lifecycle, 1999 have been developed. The Methodology is on the web site for discussion and wider dissemination.

Project Partners

• University of Glasgow

• University of Edinburgh

• Heriot-Watt University

• University of St Andrews

• University of Strathclyde

• Glasgow School of Art

• Glasgow Caledonian University

• University of Dundee

• Napier University

• Edinburgh College of Art

Project Staff

Programme Director (P/T)
Lesley Richmond (University of Glasgow)

Project Manager
Victoria Peters

Project Archivist (Glasgow and Edinburgh) (P/T)
Victoria Peters

Project Archivist (Glasgow and Edinburgh)
Laura Newman

Project Archivist (Glasgow) (P/T)
Andrew Jackson

Project Archivist (St Andrews) (P/T)
Rachel Hart

Project Archives Assistants (Glasgow)
Natalie Milne
Yvonne Ewing

Computer Technician (P/T)
Neil Leitch (University of Glasgow)

Contact Details

Project website

http://www.gashe.ac.uk

Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 2 July 2002