Introducing the University Records Project

Ever wanted to know more about the history of the University of Hull? Well that’s the focus of a new cataloguing project here at Hull History Centre. 

This is the first post in a project blog series which will track Hull University Archives’ epic quest to get ready for the University’s centenary in 2027. That gives us three and a half years, which should be enough, right… (mildly panicked tone)?!

We’re aiming for at least one post a month and we hope you’ll follow our progress. We’ve also got a project webpage where we’ll be posting news and lists of recently catalogued collections as they are released or updated.

Project webpage

The task at hand…

We’ve known the centenary was coming for some time now and we knew that the University would want to celebrate. Last year, things seemed to pick up on campus – a few appointments were made to support centenary efforts within the wider university, and Hull University Archives started to receive initial enquiries about what we hold that could be useful.

Whilst we know roughly what University records we have (photographic collection, VC’s files, annual reports, minutes of council, senate and committees, etc.), these collections are largely uncatalogued. Separate to these key records, we have lots of small collections documenting individual departments, societies and personalities associated with the University. In some cases, box lists exist and can provide a rough overview of what is in these collections, but for the most part we face the exciting challenge of uncovering the details! With this in mind, we need to undertake some major cataloguing work if we are going to be able to respond to requests from elsewhere in the University in the run up to 2027.

Photograph showing Principal Morgan, Thomas Ferens, H.R.H. Prince George (later Duke of Kent), and Lord Mayor Benno Pearlman at the official opening of the University College of Hull, 10 Oct 1929

How we’ve ended up here…

Historically, the University Archives focused on cataloguing and making available our large deposited collections, as these are widely used by academics and other researchers, from Hull and all over the world. This meant that our own institutional records were not always the top priority. But with the centenary focusing everyone's minds, we decided that now was the time to tackle our own history.

So, where to start…

In July 2023 we began the mammoth task of tackling the backlog of uncatalogued records that have been created by the University of Hull since its foundation in 1927. We’re not going to lie, this is a daunting task that fills us with a not insignificant amount of dread!

Instead of panicking and ignoring the problem, we decided to tackle it head on. The first step was to do some digging and bring together everything we had that might help us. We started by searching out any and all box lists, old half-finished catalogues, collections management spreadsheets, etc. This was largely a desk-based exercise. We created new folders and sorted everything into one main storage location. 

Armed with this information, we created a master collections management spreadsheet. We included columns to record information about each collection, information such as physical location, whether any box lists exist, accession numbers (records of when material came into the archives), previously assigned reference numbers, extent of material in linear meters, rough contents (where known), and whether any descriptive records have already been created in our collections management database.

Our new master collections management spreadsheet, ready to go!

As you can see, there are a lot of blanks that need to be filled. Taking the time to do this work early on will make future stages of the project much easier.

Next, we needed to create an intellectual framework (known as a cataloguing schema) into which we could sort the different records we hold. Doing this gives structure to large collections and helps researchers make sense of them.

What archival theory tells us… 

The usual approach, according to archival theory, is to take an organisational structure chart and replicate this using a hierarchical system of reference numbers. You can then slot in individual series of records according to the area under which they were created. For example:

DBX – Records of Business X 

DBX/1 – Records of CEO and Board

DBX/1/1 – Governance Documents

DBX/1/2 – Correspondence Files

DBX/1/3 – Minutes

DBX/2 – Records of Human Resources

DBX/2/1 – Personnel Files

DBX/2/2 – Policies and Guidance

DBX/3 – Records of Marketing

DBX/3/1 – Publicity Material

DBX/3/2 – Subject Files

When we did our desk-based survey, we discovered that past attempts had been made to create a cataloguing schema for existing University material but that these had all ended up discarded and unfinished. It’s a complex task to devise a framework that accurately reflects the structure of an organisation like a university, which can evolve over time. A quick, hypothetical example:

Research institute X is opened as a self-governing entity. The University then changes its funding model and the institute is subsumed into a department. Its core functions continue but it is now overseen by the department’s governance structure. The records created to record the institute’s activities span a period covering both the institute and the departmental periods. Where do you situate this single series of records to most accurately reflect organisational structure – an ‘institutes’ series or a ‘academic departments’ series? Would you split it? Not if you want to retain the archival integrity of the series.

Our approach…

We revisited these past attempts and tried to puzzle it all out. After much headbanging, we decided to do away with complex organisational charts and half-workable schemas, opting for a slightly off-the-wall solution: we wouldn’t bother creating a structure at all! Instead, we decided to use a running sequence of reference numbers, cataloguing the different collections one after the other and in no particular order.

‘Woah’, we hear you say, ‘that’s madness!’. Don’t worry, we have an alternative plan to bring it all together so that researchers have a hope of understanding what records the University has created. We plan to clearly outline the administrative and functional context of each set of records in the usual collection description that sits at the beginning of an archive catalogue. 

Additionally, we are developing a research guide, to be hosted on the website, that will include a URL back to the guide from each individual collection catalogue uploaded to our online catalogue. The guide will provide a more traditional overview of the University and will list individual collections under pages dedicated to functional themes. By doing this, we can mention the same collection under multiple thematic headings, thus solving our headscratcher above and ensuring that researchers can find all relevant records without us tampering with the archival integrity of individual collections.

Future proofing…

Another benefit to this approach is that it allows for future expansion of the collections. With a running sequence we can simply keep adding new collection references and we can slot new collections into the accompanying research guide. 

Fellow archivist colleagues may call us mavericks but we think we now have a workable approach! 

So, that was our summer. We’ve laid the groundwork and now we can get cracking….

Claire Weatherall, Archivist (Hull University Archives)