National Life Story Collection: Fawcett Collection

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 106 8NLS
Held at	: Women's Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.lse.ac.uk/Library/Collections/Collection-highlights/The-Womens-Library ›
Full title	: National Life Story Collection: Fawcett Collection
Date(s)	: 1990-1992
Level of description	: fonds
Extent	: 2 A boxes
Name of creator(s)	: British Library Sound Archive | National Life Story Trust

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The National Life Story Collection (1987-) was established in 1987 to 'record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of present-day society as possible'. It operates as an independent charitable trust within the Oral History Section of the British Library Sound Archive and undertakes oral history fieldwork. It has initiated a series of interviewing programmes funded from sponsorship, charitable and individual donations and voluntary effort. In the early 1990s a project supported by The Fawcett Society was undertaken to interview 'pioneering career women, each of whom made their mark in traditionally male-dominated areas, such as politics, law and medicine.' Members of the Friends of the Fawcett Library, now The Women's Library, conducted the interviews.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

The archive consists of reading copies of tapes, summaries and transcriptions of fourteen individual interviews. The National Life Stories (formerly National Life Story Collection (NLSC)) was established at the British Library in 1987 to 'record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of present-day society as possible'. This small collection focuses on the lives of pioneering career women, each of whom made their mark in traditionally male-dominated areas such as politics, the law and medicine. The project was supported by the Women's Library and the Friends of The Women's Library (formerly known as the Fawcett Society Library).

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

This collection is available for consultation, although readers are advised to contact The Women's Library in advance of their first visit. In most cases interviewees have signed a clearance note allowing the tapes to form 'a permanent public reference resource for use in research, publication, education, lectures and broadcasting'. However, there are restrictions on access to some individual interviews.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Finding aids:

Fawcett Library Catalogue. Summaries and catalogue details relating to the interviews are also available on the British Library Sound Archive catalogue at www.cadensa.bl.uk.

Collection level description available on-line on the Women's Library website

Archival Information

Archival history:

A collection of recordings, funded by the Fawcett Society and the Friends of the Fawcett Library.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Transferred to The Women's Library by the National Sound Archive, 1999-2000.

Allied Materials

Related material:

The Women's Library holds additional oral history material, in Strand 8, most notably Oral Evidence on the Suffragette and Suffragist Movements (8SUF )

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Finding aid created by export from CALM v7.2.14 Archives Hub EAD2002. Edited for AIM25 by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions:
In compliance with ISAD (G): General International Standard Archival Description - 2nd Edition (1999); UNESCO Thesaurus, December 2001; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
07/03/2008