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
