Glocal Collection.
Lancaster Black History Group: Slavery Family Trees Conference Lancaster University Library has sup- ported the work of LBH from the outset, working with the group to organise a community conference in autumn 2021, with over two-hundred community partici- pants, enabling school students, university students, faith groups and refugee groups to share their research findings. The conference took place in the newly opened events space in the library, however, with the UK following strict Covid-19 restric- tions, in-person places in the events space had to be restricted to allow social-dis- tancing, and so the library’s first hybrid conference went ahead, with the advan- tage of making the talks accessible online so guests did not need to be in Lancaster to participate.
Glocal Collection
The collaboration with LBH and sup- port for community research through the Lancaster Family Trees Project inspired library colleagues to curate the first ‘Glocal’ collection (global stories with local links) with members of LBH, a physical library collection housed and funded by the library, which was offi- cially launched at the conference. The idea behind the Glocal Collection is that it is both local and global in scope, providing local people, schools, and community groups with the opportunity to loan books and other texts to find out more about Lancashire’s connections to Atlantic slavery and crucially to discover
30 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
more about the histories of the places across the globe that Lancaster became connected to through its ties to the wider ‘slavery business.’
With this collection, LBH and the Uni- versity also acknowledged the history of the land on which the Lancaster Univer- sity Bailrigg campus was built. The land was purchased and enclosed in the early 19th century by a man called Joshua Hinde (1722-1812). Part of a Lancastrian slave-trading and plantation owning dynasty, Joshua sold cargoes of enslaved people landed by English slave ships in the West-Indies and was the manager on a sugar plantation in Grenada before he retired back to Lancaster and used some of his ill-gotten wealth to turn Bailrigg into a private agricultural estate. While the University has no direct connection with the Hinde family, the history of the land on which the campus is built is emblemat- ic of the city of Lancaster’s connections to Transatlantic Slavery.
Over 60 primary schools and several secondary schools are currently working with LBH and other organisations in the region to introduce local histories of slavery into the school curriculum, and the university library and the Glocal Collection continue to play a pivotal role in supporting community access to academic research on this topic. In 2023 the university funded a new PhD scholarship to further develop the accessibility of the Glocal Collection, and the important Sattherwaite Letter Books digital collection4 the wider local community.
, to schools and
Community membership Restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that for much of 2020 and 2021 access to the library was limited to Lancaster University staff and students. While multiple paid external membership schemes were in place, they had to be put on pause, with no access to the building or print resources for community members. During this period, the development of a position statement on the ‘Principles of Open Research5
by the Library, coupled
with the curation of the Glocal Collection started conversations around offering free access to the library building and print collections to members of the community. Senior university colleagues supported the idea of a Community Card, which would align with both the Library Vision and the University Strategy6
, placing community
engagement as a core activity. Community Card membership would allow members to borrow six print books, loanable for six weeks which could be renewed if not requested by a university member. Access to library electronic resources7
is not possible due to licence
restrictions, however, a LibGuide (Spring- Share product) that advises of good quality Open Access resources that can be accessed freely is available via the library website.
What’s in a building?
It may be useful to look at how our library building, and more notably the most recent extension, have made some of our community engagement possible. While
April-May 2023
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