Notice Board

Minutes of the AGM 2024

SCOLMA (UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa)

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2024

Minutes of the 62nd Annual General Meeting held online via Zoom
on Friday 28 June 2024 at 11:00 BST

 

Present: Jenni Skinner (Chair), Sarah Rhodes (Secretary), Lucy McCann (Treasurer), Patricia Hewitt, Marion Wallace, Terry Barringer, Stephanie Kitchen, Charles Fonge, Liz Haines, Dawn Wright, Mariam de Haan, Barbara Spina, Katie Sambrook, Ben Carson, Anne Samson and Sally Bevan

Apologies: Alison Metcalfe and Mandy Banton

1. Approval of the Minutes of the 61st AGM (posted on the SCOLMA website http://SCOLMA.org)

The Minutes were approved as a true record, proposed by Jenni Skinner and seconded by Lucy McCann. There were no matters arising.

2. Report of the Chair 2023/24 (Jenni Skinner)

Jenni Skinner provided the following report of the past year to the Meeting:

Committee Meetings

Since our last AGM in June 2023, SCOLMA has held two online committee meetings in November 2023 and March 2024. We hope to arrange our next meeting in Autumn as an in-person/hybrid meeting as we prepare for our conference in 2025.

Online Seminar Series

In lieu of an annual conference in 2024, SCOLMA successfully ran a spring lunchtime seminar series on the theme “African Studies in the Digital Age.” The series included 5 online seminars structured as conversations or roundtables, featuring collection holders, researchers, digital experts and artists from the UK, Africa and beyond. Panellists spoke to a range of themes with a focus on the digital:

· Digital Re-Curation of African Archives
· Digital Resources for African Studies – Teaching & Research
· Digital (Re)Connections and Dispersed Collections
· Publishing, Platforms, & African Literature in the Digital Age
· Online Engagement, African Archives & Digital Public History

The seminars were incredibly well received, with 522 people who registered via Eventbrite, and over 295 attendees across the series which resulted in a 57% attendance rate overall.

Recordings will be made available on SCOLMA’s YouTube channel over the course of the next year, alongside recordings from our conference in 2023, to help maintain engagement with SCOLMA activities during the period between the series and our biennial conference.

The organising team will provide their reflections in our SCOLMA journal Africa Bibliography, Research & Documentation as well as provide a Q&A style response to the series on the Africa in Words blog, a platform for voices whose focus is on cultural production and Africa.

Our enormous gratitude goes to the following committee members who organised the fantastic speakers and produced the hugely successful online series: Liz Haines (Programme Secretary), Charles Fonge (Web Manager) and Ben Carson (Co-opted member)

SCOLMA Conference 2025

June 2025 will see the return of the popular SCOLMA conference which has now moved to a biennial schedule. Planning is currently at the very early stages for the in-person conference, with our initial task to be securing a venue.

IAI (venue for the 2023 conference) and the Bodleian’s Weston Lecture Theatre are potential venues and relevant committee members will explore AV technician support for recording the proceedings to be made accessible after the event.

We are beginning to explore themes, sponsorship, and the formation of a planning committee. Going forward, the conference will become a biennial event, alternating with the spring seminar series.

Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation (ABRD)

The joint IAI and SCOLMA journal, Africa Bibliography, Research & Documentation continues to publish important and engaging content under the expert editorship of Terry Barringer. The editorial committee, consisting of Terry Barringer (editor), R.E. Bartholomew (compiler, Africa Bibliography), Stephanie Kitchen (IAI, managing editor), Barbara Spina (IAI and SCOLMA) and the Chair of SCOLMA, continues to meet regularly on Zoom, with Ben Carson attending meetings when the Chair has been unable to.

Cambridge University Press provided usage statistics indicating an increase in the number of downloads of ABRD journal articles and reviews with 564 downloads in 2022, rising to 691 in 2023.

Volume 3 of the journal is due to be published in November 2024 and will consist of eight articles including an exhibition review, several book reviews, and papers from the SCOLMA 2023 conference: “Africa and the Environment: Archives and Data in the Climate Emergency”. Prospective articles for Volume 4 include a mini festschrift for Hans Zell, and articles ranging from the preservation of mining archives in Zambia, to the complexities of digital co-curation projects. Several prospective articles will also be contributed by speakers at our online seminar series “African Studies in the Digital Age”.

The editorial committee continues to explore ways of incorporating new and more mediatised aspects of knowledge production in shorter formats, as well as retaining traditional papers to ensure the journal remains in touch with current trends in publishing.

IAI and SCOLMA self-nominated the ABRD for the biennial Conover-Porter Award for Excellence in Africana Bibliography or Reference work. We gratefully received three endorsements from Carli Coetzee (President of ASAUK), Peter Limb (MSU Libraries) and Livingstone Muchefa (National Gallery of Zimbabwe).

Looking toward 2025, the ABRD will be published as two issues online and a print version retained, with publishing schedules and formats to be reviewed in 2026. This move would increase workload, and it has been suggested that an editorial assistant be recruited from the SCOLMA committee and increase the copy-editing fee for Barbara Spina. Discussions are still underway, and we look forward to updating SCOLMA members and the committee with further developments. I would like to thank the editorial committee for their hard work and expertise ensuring the calibre and longevity of our journal.

Advocacy

Following on from SCOLMA’s concerns about the fate of the Rhodesian Army Archive, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request was submitted to the National Archives on 26 January 2024. The National Archives responded on 22 February 2024 to the SCOLMA Chair. The response was circulated to the committee before our meeting on 19 March. TNA’s response concluded that SCOLMA refine and resubmit our questions as it was indicated that the cost of compliance exceeded the appropriate limit.

A SCOLMA sub-group will reframe and resubmit its request considering TNA’s suggestions with a focus on digitally accessible information the TNA may hold regarding the archive.

Website and Communications

Work has progressed steadily on developing SCOLMA’s new website, which aims to refresh content, fix integrations, and add new features such as a membership page. The site will transition to WordPress hosting in phases, with a target launch for later this summer.

Charles Fonge, SCOLMA’s Web Manager, alongside Ben Carson have made significant contributions to the continuing success of our online presence and online seminar series through expert branding and promotion of our events using the Eventbrite registration platform and Twitter/X. Work continues to edit, caption and clip the five recordings from our seminar series to be included on our YouTube channel as mentioned previously. The online production aspect of the seminar series was no mean feat, and the organising team now have a tried and tested workflow, schedule and set of document templates for the next seminar series in 2026.

Committee members continue to tweet regularly (@SCOLMA), sharing information from our constituent institutions, affiliated organisations and the archival and publishing world concerning African collections. Like last year there was a steady increase in followers, rising from 673 last year to 702. Members also continue to share opportunities, book launches and events via our Jisc mailing list, LIS-SCOLMA, we encourage those interested to sign up and share their news with our community too.

European Librarians in African Studies (ELIAS)

The 17th ELIAS Annual Meeting took place at The National Archives, Kew, London on 24 May 2024. The event was hybrid, with SCOLMA members Liz Haines (TNA) & Dawn Wright (SOAS) in attendance as hosts and organisers of the event. Jenni Skinner and Ben Carson attended the meeting in person, whilst Lucy McCann, Sarah Rhodes and Terry Barringer attended via Zoom alongside many other attendees from Europe.

Papers included:

• The Portal for African Collections (PARC) a new meta-catalogue for the Africana collections in Basel
• Cataloguing the Detached Papers of the Royal African Company
• Exploring indigenous concepts through film restitution and found footage film production
• Synergizing Archival Research and 3D Field Documentation for Preserving Endangered Vernacular Architecture in Tigray
• Listening to the records: audio drama from Second World War documents in Swahili and Hindustani

In-person attendees had the opportunity to tour the Collections Care Department which covered the ongoing research into the historic use of insecticides in the FCO records, as well as enjoy a fantastic display of documents and books from TNA’s research collections.

At the Business Meeting it was agreed that the Working Group would remain the same (elections were held in 2022). The ELIAS Annual Meeting in 2025 will tie in with the next ECAS Conference in Prague. The Working Group will contact libraries in Prague to see if they can host their next meeting.

I would like to extend our thanks to Liz Haines and Dawn Wright for organising this hybrid event which brought SCOLMA & ELIAS members together in person for the first time in 5 years.

African Studies Association (UK)

As Chair I attended the ASAUK AGM in October and provided SCOLMA updates at the online ASAUK meetings in December and April. Attending the ASAUK Council meetings has been enlightening, lively and enjoyable, covering topics such as the 2024 biennial conference plans, prize nominees, successful writing workshops, and the impact of the Africa Charter on research partnerships.

SCOLMA was gratefully acknowledged by ASAUK President Carli Coetzee for the guidance provided by the Treasurer, Lucy McCann and former Treasurer, Pat Hewitt regarding the administration of membership (GDPR and security) and mailing lists.

As always, we thank Stephanie Kitchen for continuing as ASAUK representative at our committee meetings.

Thank you and committee

While personal membership numbers remain modest, SCOLMA’s revised conference and seminar models aim to extend our reach and engagement. We look forward to further strengthening SCOLMA’s activities in the coming year through our conference, journal and advocacy work.

SCOLMA continues to work hard together to promote, organise and share events and work on African-related collections in our institutions and beyond. My sincerest thanks to all members for their commitment (patience) and support over this past year. I would particularly like to thank Lucy McCann, Treasurer; Marion Wallace, Development Officer; and Sarah Rhodes, Secretary who have provided such incredible guidance, timely reminders and wonderful support during my first year as Chair.

Thank you also to all our officers and representatives for their continued hard work during the past year: Terry Barringer, editor of Africa Bibliography Research and Documentation; Marion Wallace, Development Officer; Liz Haines, Programme Secretary; Charles Fonge, Web Manager; Dawn Wright, our ELIAS representative; and Stephanie Kitchen, ASAUK representative on the SCOLMA committee.

Thank you to our elected and co-opted members Mariam de Haan, Katie Sambrook, Pat Hewitt, Alison Metcalfe, Barbara Spina, and we welcome Ben Carson to the committee as a newly elected member.

In return a vote of thanks was given to Jenni for chairing the Committee over the past year.

 

3. Financial Statement and approval of the audited accounts (Lucy McCann) – circulated prior to the meeting

Appointment of auditor

Lucy McCann, SCOLMA Treasurer, spoke to her report and commented on the audited accounts for 2023 (both were circulated prior to the meeting).

Income:

Since 2022 SCOLMA has been a personal membership only organisation and this is reflected in the significant drop in income within ‘Membership and Subscriptions’. It follows the merger of SCOLMA’s African Research and Documentation with the International African Institute’s Africa Bibliography to form Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation where institutional subscriptions are operated by Cambridge University Press. It took time for these changes to bed in and some subscription income received had to be refunded in 2022. Membership income for 2022 was £355 and for 2023 was £337.73.

The 2023 conference provided a useful income stream with generous sponsorship received.

Royalties of £126.89 were received from EBSCO.

The miscellaneous income of £300 was a donation towards the shipping of the books to the Jagger Library in Cape Town.

Expenditure:

Our main expenditure in 2023 was on the conference and that was covered by the conference receipts.

The payment of £470 for membership access to ABRD was for two years (2022 and 2023).

The conference sponsorship meant that there was a surplus at the end of the year.

Update:

The generous sponsorship received for the 2023 conference enabled us to offer honoraria to a number of speakers who contributed to the ‘African Studies in the Digital Age’ online seminar series at the beginning of 2024. Two new members joined as a result of the seminar series.

One new expense which we now incur is Eventbrite charges when we use Eventbrite to manage and ticket our events.

Peter Westley produced the audited accounts for 2023 and has agreed to audit the accounts for next year’s AGM subject to approval at this AGM. We agreed to increase the audit fee to £500 per annum as it has been £400 since 2012.

Balance of account at 24 June 2024 = £7,406.26.

The proposal to reappoint Peter Westley as auditor, was proposed by Lucy McCann and seconded by Jenni Skinner. The approval of the accounts was proposed by Barbara Spina and seconded by Sarah Rhodes. All were in favour.

4. Appointment of Officers and Committee

The following nominations were received:

Chair – Jenni Skinner (Centre of African Studies Library, University of Cambridge)
Secretary – Sarah Rhodes (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Treasurer – Lucy McCann (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Editor – Terry Barringer (Individual member)
Web Manager – Charles Fonge (Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York)
Programme Secretary – Liz Haines (The National Archives)
Development Officer – Marion Wallace (Individual member)

Elected:

Mariam de Haan (British Library) – elected 2022
Katie Sambrook (Kings College London) – elected 2022
Patricia Hewitt (Robert Sainsbury Library, University of East Anglia) – elected 2023
Alison Metcalfe (The National Library of Scotland) – elected 2023
Barbara Spina – (Individual member) – elected 2023
Ben Carson – (Centre of African Studies Library, Cambridge) – elected 2024

Co-opted:
Dawn Wright – (SOAS Library, University of London)

ASAUK representative: Stephanie Kitchen – (International African Institute)

Proposed by Patricia Hewitt and seconded by Lucy McCann committee officers and members were elected nem con.

5. Any Other Business

Lucy McCann reported that the Borien Trust, the charity that had kindly delivered the book donations collected by SCOLMA members for the fire-damaged Jagger Library, will be sending three more containers to South Africa in September. It was very happy to transport more books on behalf of SCOLMA if there were more to send.

The Chair and Secretary will liaise with regard to autumn dates for the next proposed in-person meeting, with the former inviting Sally Bevan from the London Metropolitan Archives to attend as an observer. Marion Wallace noted the importance of the Conference sub-committee meeting in September if possible to start discussions on themes, venue, sponsorship etc. She volunteered her services to join the sub-committee which were accepted.

The AGM was closed at 11:32

Sarah Rhodes, SCOLMA Secretary – 9 July 2024

 

Notice of SCOLMA AGM 2024

SCOLMA Logo

Registered Charity no. 325086

SCOLMA (UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa)
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2024

 

The 2024 AGM will be held online via Zoom on Friday 28 June 2024 at 11:00 BST.
If you wish to attend, please notify Sarah Rhodes, SCOLMA Secretary (sarah.rhodes@bodleian.ox.ac.uk) by 24 June 2024.

 

AGENDA

1. Approval of the Minutes of the 61st AGM (posted on our website)

2. Report of the Chair 2023/24 (Jenni Skinner)

3. Financial Statement and approval of the audited accounts (Lucy McCann)
• Appointment of auditor

4. Appointment of Officers and Committee

The following nominations have been received:

• Chair – Jenni Skinner (Centre of African Studies Library, University of Cambridge)
• Secretary – Sarah Rhodes (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
• Treasurer – Lucy McCann (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
• Editor – Terry Barringer (Individual member)
• Web Manager – Charles Fonge (Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York)
• Programme Secretary – Liz Haines (The National Archives)
• Development Officer – Marion Wallace (Individual member)

Elected:
• Mariam de Haan (British Library) – elected 2022
• Katie Sambrook (Kings College London) – elected 2022
• Patricia Hewitt (Robert Sainsbury Library, University of East Anglia) – elected 2023
• Alison Metcalfe (The National Library of Scotland) – elected 2023
• Barbara Spina – (Individual member) – elected 2023
• Ben Carson – (Centre of African Studies Library, Cambridge) – proposed 2024

Co-opted:
• Dawn Wright – (SOAS Library, University of London)
• ASAUK representative: Stephanie Kitchen – (International African Institute)

5. Any Other Business

Minutes of the AGM 2023

SCOLMA (UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa)

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2023

Minutes of the 61st Annual General Meeting held at SOAS, London, and online on Friday 23 June 2023 at 13:15.

Present in person: Lucy McCann (Chair), Sarah Rhodes (Secretary), Patricia Hewitt, Marion Wallace, Terry Barringer, Stephanie Kitchen, Charles Fonge, Liz Haines, Mandy Banton, Ben Carson, Jody Butterworth, and Anna De Mutiis

Present online: Jenni Skinner, Dawn Wright and Barbara Spina

Apologies: Katie Sambrook and Jayne Pucknell

1. Approval of the Minutes of the 60th AGM posted on the SCOLMA website.

The Minutes were approved as a true record, proposed by Terry Barringer and seconded by Marion Wallace. There were no matters arising.

2. Report of the Chair 2022/23 (Lucy McCann)

During the past year SCOLMA has moved from operating wholly online to a hybrid format with a return to some in person events while continuing to use Zoom and Teams for meetings and other activities. For the last three years the AGM has been online. We are very pleased that some of us have been able to meet in person at SOAS today for this year’s conference and AGM while still connecting with remote participants.

2023 conference

SCOLMA did not hold a conference in 2022 when there was a limited response to our Call for Papers, perhaps caused by continuing uncertainty over travel and gatherings as a result of the pandemic. We are very pleased that today’s conference has come together to examine the critically important subject of Africa and the Environment. We are grateful to our speakers for the wide range of topics being covered; to our sponsors Taylor & Francis and Adam Matthew; to SOAS for the venue and particularly to Anna de Mutiis of the International African Institute for her technical support today. One of our speakers, Livingstone Muchefa from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, had hoped to be here in person but was unable to obtain a visa. With the assistance of our sponsors SCOLMA had planned to support his visit but we are very pleased that he will join us online.

African Research and Documentation/Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation

The first issue of Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation, SCOLMA’s new journal in collaboration with the International African Institute, was published in the autumn of 2022 and a launch event was held at SOAS on 1 December. Munyao Kilolo of Itu?ka and the Kiswahili Prize for African Literature and Dr Ida Hadjivayanis of SOAS participated in an ‘In conversation’ on African language publishing, translation and literature. The hybrid event attracted a good audience with questions coming from attendees on the African continent. The event was recorded and is available here.

The first volume consisted of an editorial and seven articles, two from Africa-based authors. The second volume is on schedule for publication in autumn 2023, with at least six articles and several
book reviews. It will include an article from Clive Kirkwood, Mandy Noble and Michal Singer (of UCT) on What we lost in the Jagger Library Fire. Several proposals are under discussion for the 2024 volume which will also include papers from SCOLMA’s 2023 Conference: Africa and the Environment: Archives and Data in the Climate Emergency.

The editorial committee, consisting of Terry Barringer (editor), R.E. Bartholomew (compiler, Africa Bibliography), Stephanie Kitchen (IAI, managing editor), Barbara Spina (IAI and SCOLMA) and the Chair of SCOLMA, meets quarterly by Zoom and is in constant email contact. Editing and production routines are now established and working well.
We are grateful to the entire editorial committee and colleagues at Cambridge University Press for all their work in getting the new journal underway so successfully.

Books for the Jagger Library, University of Cape Town

Following SCOLMA’s seminar in June 2022 on the fire at the Jagger Library in Cape Town and its aftermath SCOLMA put out a call for the donation of African Studies books to replace ones destroyed in the fire. A good response was received and, in liaison with UCT librarians, 180 books were selected and sent to Oxford along with a large collection of government publications. The books were transported to South Africa as part of a shipment organised by the Borien Educational Foundation for Southern Africa (BEFSA), which regularly sends books and equipment to schools in the region, and SCOLMA raised some funds towards the shipping costs. The books arrived at UCT on 22 May.

Advocacy

In July and August 2022 SCOLMA wrote two open letters to The National Archives concerning the withdrawal from public access of the FCO 141 series (the migrated archives) following the discovery of insecticide contamination in the papers. SCOLMA requested better communication with key stakeholders, the reinstatement of public access to the records as soon as possible and the dissemination of the methodology and safe handling guidance developed in order to benefit other institutions with insecticide-treated materials in their collections. We hope that SCOLMA’s intervention, along with that of others, encouraged TNA to put resources into testing the papers and led to public access being restored in October. Yesterday afternoon (22 June 2023) TNA held a workshop on the historic use of insecticides in library and archive collections, a very useful outcome of this episode.

SCOLMA remains concerned about the fate of the Rhodesian Army Archive and is discussing a Freedom of Information request.

Committee meetings and seminars

SCOLMA has held two committee meetings since the last AGM, on 1 December 2022 and on 3 March 2023. The 1 December meeting was SCOLMA’s first hybrid committee meeting with seven members of the committee meeting in person at SOAS and five joining on Zoom. We are grateful to SOAS for providing a room with the necessary IT. As this format enabled colleagues with longer distances to travel to attend I am sure that we will hold more hybrid meetings in the future.

On 17 January our Programme Secretary Marion Wallace organised an online seminar with Rebecca Adams, archivist at the London Metropolitan Archives, about her work cataloguing the Africa Centre Archive there. The seminar was most informative and there was good attendance. It was recorded and is available here.

Web Site and Communications

We are indebted to Jenni Skinner, ably assisted by Charles Fonge, for managing SCOLMA’s website during another year, organising our online events and putting the recordings onto YouTube – a new venture for SCOLMA! We are fortunate to be able to call on their technical expertise and we are very pleased that Charles has agreed to take on the role of web manager.
We continue to tweet regularly and now have 673 followers on Twitter (@Scolma), a slight increase from 643 a year ago. We encourage anyone interested in SCOLMA’s activities to subscribe to our Jisc mailing list, LIS-SCOLMA, where we publicise news and events.

European Librarians in African Studies (ELIAS)

The 16th ELIAS Annual Meeting took place at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne on 30th May 2023. A number of papers looked at the theme “Images of Africa”. The event was hybrid – Jenni Skinner, Alison Metcalfe and Dawn Wright attended via Zoom.

At the Business Meeting it was agreed that the Working Group would remain the same (elections were held in 2022) with the possible addition of the host for the 2024 meeting. ELIAS will approach SCOLMA to see if they are amenable to a combined SCOLMA / ELIAS meeting to be held in the UK in 2024. The ELIAS Annual Meeting in 2025 will tie in with the next ECAS Conference in Prague.

Jos Damen reported that the ELIAS website has not yet been transferred to a new system. The website is also the ELIAS archive and a transfer would take time. One possibility is if any ELIAS member has an intern who would like to take on this task.

The ELIAS logo has not yet been used and Magali Meunier will recirculate to members in due course.

African Studies Association (UK)

I attended the ASAUK AGM in September, the Council meeting in December and sent a report to the April meeting on behalf of SCOLMA. The meetings are always very informative and useful and we are very grateful for the input of Stephanie Kitchen as ASAUK representative at our committee meetings.

Thank you and committee

The SCOLMA committee has continued to work as a strong team and I would like to thank all members for their commitment and support. I would particularly like to thank Pat Hewitt who is stepping down from the role of Treasurer after four year and has managed our finances most efficiently during a time of change, and Sarah Rhodes for her ongoing work as our reliable Secretary.

Thank you also to our other officers and representatives for their hard work during the past year: Terry Barringer, editor of Africa Bibliography Research and Documentation; Marion Wallace, Development Officer and Programme Secretary; Jenni Skinner, Web Manager; Dawn Wright, our ELIAS representative; and Stephanie Kitchen, ASAUK representative on the SCOLMA committee.

This year’s AGM sees some changes in our roles. I am grateful to Liz Haines for agreeing to take on the role of Programme Secretary and Charles Fonge for becoming Web Manager. I am particularly grateful to Jenni Skinner for taking up the mantle as Chair of SCOLMA, a role she will fill admirably.

In return a vote of thanks was given to Lucy for chairing the Committee so admirably herself.

3. Financial Statement and approval of the audited accounts (Patricia Hewitt) – circulated prior to the meeting

• Appointment of auditor

Patricia Hewitt, SCOLMA Treasurer, spoke to her report and commented on the audited accounts for 2022 (both were circulated at the meeting).

From 2022, SCOLMA had become a personal membership only organisation. This reflects the significant drop in income within ‘Membership and Subscriptions’. It follows the merger of SCOLMA’s African Research and Documentation with the International African Institute’s Africa Bibliography to form Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation where institutional subscriptions are operated by Cambridge University Press. It has taken time for information on these changes to be recognised, hence much of the subscription income received has had to be refunded (including a block of institutional payments received at the end of December 2021 so not refunded until 2022). Membership for 2022 accounted for £355.

As the conference was not held in 2022, there was no opportunity to attract income from this event as with past conferences. Royalties of £143.26 were received.

The financial update for 2022 noted that membership numbers were disappointing. However, 2022 had been a transitional year and opportunities to publicise the role of SCOLMA have yet to be fully exploited. Providing access at a significantly reduced rate to the merged journal Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation should attract new members. Nonetheless, it will take time for the new model to bed-in and it will be necessary to publicise SCOLMA actively to raise membership numbers.

On the positive side, the outgoings within the organisation was significantly lower. SCOLMA no longer bears the cost of producing and publicising African Research and Documentation nor the associated cost of the editorial honorarium (now paid by Cambridge University Press.)

The balance of account at 9 June 2023 = £8,308.46 with a deficit of £2701.

The proposal to reappoint Peter Westley as auditor, was proposed by Terry Barringer and seconded by Lucy McCann. The approval of the accounts was proposed by Stephanie Kitchen and seconded by Charles Fonge. All were in favour.

4. Appointment of Officers and Committee

The following nominations have been received:

Chair – Jenni Skinner (Centre of African Studies Library, University of Cambridge)
Secretary – Sarah Rhodes (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Treasurer – Lucy McCann (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Editor – Terry Barringer (Individual member)
Web Manager – Charles Fonge (Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York)
Programme Secretary – Liz Haines (The National Archives)
Development Officer – Marion Wallace (Individual member)

Elected:

Mariam de Haan (British Library) – elected 2022
Patricia Hewitt (Robert Sainsbury Library, University of East Anglia)
Alison Metcalfe (The National Library of Scotland)
Katie Sambrook (Kings College London) – elected 2022
Barbara Spina – (Individual member)

Co-opted:
Dawn Wright – (SOAS Library, University of London)

ASAUK representative: Stephanie Kitchen – (International African Institute)
Proposed by Sarah Rhodes and seconded by Marion Wallace, committee officers and members were elected nem con.

5. Any Other Business

The SCOLMA committee will discuss the proposal for a future joint meeting with ELIAS in 2024 at its next meeting in the autumn.

Jenni Skinner, as the new Chair, closed the AGM with a few words. She acknowledged the hard work involved in hosting a successful conference and the importance going forward of getting the balance right for SCOLMA activities – a proposed seminar series, workshops and conferences. She hopes to build on SCOLMA’s online presence, and to increase membership as part of the wider national and international community of Africanist librarians and archvisits.

Sarah Rhodes, SCOLMA Secretary – 8 August 2023