Mine of Information

Gwybodaeth am y Glofeydd

http://www.mineofinfo.ac.uk

Background

The South Wales Coalfield is the largest continuous coalfield in Britain, covering much of the former counties of Mid and West Glamorgan, Gwent, Eastern Dyfed and southern Powys. The development and history of the coalfield is an important area of research in its own right, but it also demonstrates the far-reaching effects of rapid industrialisation, nationalisation and later denationalisation, and affords valuable comparisons with other coalfields in the UK and abroad. The development of the coalfield reflects developments in Wales as a whole, and may be regarded as a microcosm of the changing historical, economic and political circumstances of the Welsh nation.

Aims

Mine of Information is a cross-sectoral project managed by the University of Wales Swansea (UWS). It aims to improve access to research resources relating to the South Wales Coalfield by creating online catalogue records for archives and printed books located in partner institutions, holding the records in an EAD and MARC compatible database at the University of Wales Swansea, and enabling cross-searching of these by the end-user via the Web.

Objectives

• Improve the quality and quantity of research on the South Wales Coalfield by helping researchers in all sectors to identify materials of interest using the Internet.

• Relate this material to the wider context of the development of the coal mining industry in this century.

• Increase knowledge of material held outside partner institutions by means of a mapping exercise.

• Facilitate cross-searching of MARC (bibliographic) and EAD (archival) descriptions, evaluating the ENCompass content management system along with other less costly options.

Methodology

The UWS project team is creating descriptions for UWS material and for local record office holdings. Funded HE partners are doing their own cataloguing and transferring records to UWS as agreed in the Project Plan. The PRO and NLW are undertaking cataloguing work on their own account, and will submit relevant records to UWS in consultation with the Project Manager. Records will be held UWS and accessed via the Mine of Information website.

A search facility will be provided to enable simultaneous searching of records in all formats. After evaluating commerical alternatives, an in-house solution has been developed.

Achievements to date

• Full partner consultation completed; agreement reached over indexing and other standards.

• Website available with full database access

• Warwick cataloguing completed; EAD descriptions available on Warwick’s website and on the MOI database.

• Cataloguing at other sites is reaching completion according to the timescales set out in the Project Plan.

• EAD data entry tools developed for UWS archival descriptions.

• Cataloguing work at UWS completed for archives and nearly complete for library materials.

• Mapping of other materials is almost complete.

• Additional para-professional staff time has been used to undertake the more routine retro-conversion work on both UWS and local record office material.

• Extensive consultation of academic and other users undertaken.

We would welcome comments and suggestions on the project from users and stakeholders, either via the project website or directly to the Project Manager (details below).

Project Manager

Lead Institution

University of Wales Swansea

Partner institutions

University of North London

University of Nottingham

University of Warwick

National Library of Wales (NLW)

Public Record Office (PRO)

Carmarthenshire Archives Service

Glamorgan Record Office

Gwent Record Office

West Glamorgan Archive Service

Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 3 July 2002