LSE Library has launched the ‘Boni Sones and Associates Archive of Women’s Parliamentary Radio and Parliamentary Radio broadcasts’ – the first born-digital collection to be catalogued under LSE’s innovative Digital Library programme.
Containing almost 4,000 items, the archive is one of the largest digital collections acquired by the Library to date, and has given the Library’s team of archivists the opportunity to pilot ground-breaking cataloguing and access arrangements, placing the Library at the forefront of digital archive practice.
Ellie Robinson, Digital Archivist at LSE and cataloguer of this collection, said: “This archive has given me a wonderful opportunity to be at the vanguard of digital archives cataloguing, a discipline still very much in its infancy. Cataloguing this rich and valuable archive has been a challenging and rewarding experience, and I am delighted that LSE’s Digital Library is now able to offer it to a wider audience.”
The archive contains audio interviews with a number of key female politicians, such as Theresa May, Harriet Harman, Eleanor Laing, Hazel Blears, Mo Mowlam, Shirley Williams and Tessa Jowell, as well as administrative items such as Parliamentary Radio board papers and official correspondence.
Boni Sones OBE and a small team of journalists she produced conducted around 350 interviews with mainly women MPs from all parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Independents) in Westminster from March 2007 to March 2014. Together they have captured some of the most important moments in modern British political history for women and families, all with the stated aim of being "the Woman's Hour of Westminster”.
Jackie Ashley chaired the web-based channels and Deborah McGurran and Linda Fairbrother added their journalistic experience to the productions. Gisela Stuart MP, Caroline Spelman MP, Barbara Keeley MP, Eleanor Laing MP, Penny Mordaunt MP, Jo Swinson MP and Baroness Susan Kramer worked across party together to ensure the work women MPs are doing in Westminster is more fairly portrayed in the media. It has been an exciting and historic period for them and their influential broadcasts.
Items from the collection are available to view in LSE Library’s Women’s Library Reading Room|, and accessed through a dedicated section of LSE’s Digital Library to born-digital archives. As part of the planned continuous improvement for the archive, the Library will use feedback from its users to inform and develop future digital projects.
Copyright in the Boni Sones & Associates Archive belongs to Boni Sones OBE during her lifetime, after which it has been gifted to LSE Library.
For further information or press enquiries related to the archive, please contact Peter Carrol on p.carrol@lse.ac.uk|.
The online catalogue can be seen here|.
The digital library can be seen here|.