NAM Newsletter 15 (2011)

On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Gozo Civic Council on 9 July 2011, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, Prime Minister of Malta, received two important donations for the NAG-the National Archives Gozo Section. It was the largest donation ever to the NAG in its 22 years of existence.

The first is the Guljana Masini. This donation was made by Franco and Manola Masini and their two daughters. The Guljana Masini consists of 88 manuscript volumes of various sizes.

It was acquired by Dr Francesco Masini LL.D. (1894-1962), in Gozo in the 1950s from the heirs of the late Pietro Attard (1836-1916), known as tal-'/spc/fwr' who had inherited it from his father Notary Felice Attard (1802-1874), the original compiler. It was completed by the said Pietro Attard and possibly continued after his death by an unknown person or persons since the records proceed up to the 1930s.

of the fascinating sectors under the portfolio of the Ministry '`--:: Education, Youth and Employment is that of the national ar-

The National Archives is publishing this newsletter at a time when it is facing big challenges, in particular when it comes to records

chives. It is a highly specialized area which needs to be safeguarded

management in government.

and promoted as it is the cornerstone of the country's national mem-

chives are also focusing on the conservation of records on tradi-

ory.

tional media and planning the setting up of a conservation labora-

The initiatives and legal provisions taken during the last two

Management at the National Ar-

decades have strengthened our national archives infrastructure. This

tory. Gradually, they are managing to build a community of pro-

however, is an ongoing process.

fessional archivists who can lead the sector in the challenging

This year saw a number of developments in the libraries and archives

times we are facing. The memory of our Nation can only be safe-

sector. First of all there was the enactment of the new Libraries Act.

guarded if we invest in the holdings themselves and in the human resources who custody these records with such love and dedica-

Apart from the general reform this will bring to the functioning of the libraries sector, it also sets up the Malta Libraries Council on which

tion.

the national archivist is an ex-off/'cr'o member.

I take this opportunity to thank the Director and staff of the na-

Another big step forward was the upgrading of the former Division of

tional archives for their hard work and professional service.

Library, Archive and Information studies at the University of Malta to a

Ministry is working hard to foster collaboration between the vari-

My

Department forming part of the newly set up Faculty of Media and

ous entities responsible for Malta's cultural heritage. This is the

Knowledge Sdence (MaKS).

way forward in order to make best use of our rich heritage and

It is now possible for students inter-

ested in pursuing a career in archives and records management to read for a degree rather than a diploma as was the case during the

human resources.

last six years.

orhe writing up of this short message in the annual newsletter makes me stop and think on the achievements of the year in question and this often makes me appreciate the collective effort of the professional team we managed to build. When I reported for my first day of work at the national archives on 2 January 19891 was impressed by the mammoth task at a place of work that at that time employed only one person - the officer in charge Joseph Caruana. By that time he had already done the extraordinary task of managing the archives alone for 17 years. Not only did he bound and sorted thousands of records but

cise is being carried out at the National Archives. The data which is already emerging will condition the priority list which the Con-

servator will work upon once the laboratory is fully functional.

It was also the year during which the records management unit started functioning and we carried the first inspections on record keeping in public offices.

This unit now has its own transport

facilities, and this will make us more proactive in this exercise.

International participation has increased with a number of mem-

he started the first cataloguing following self-taught painstaking train-

bers of staff travelling abroad for training or professional visits.

ing.

And he never found it difficult to go out of his way and provide

The National Archives has become member of the Document Life

photocopying services to patrons even without having a photocopying machine. He used to carry the volumes to the National Library and do

Management Forum (DLM), lt was also the last year of the AP-

copying there.

plied to participate in the follow up EU funded project APEX and the application was successful.

Nowadays, thanks also to the spirit of determination

instilled in us by Joseph Caruana we have expanded in premises, facilities, human resources, and expertise.

Enet project which was most successful. We have already ap-

These are just the salient points of the achievements we regis-

During the past eight months we have planned, designed, issued all

tered this year. Detailed descriptions will be given in the Annual

tenders, and carried out all infrastructural works in connection with the

Conservation laboratory we will open in a few months' time. The plan

Report. Once again I take this opportunity to thank the staff for their hard work, the group of dedicated volunteers, the friends of

is to merge together the magical ambience of the old kitchen of the

the National Archives, the Ministry for the support, the President

hospital with the state of the art equipment needed for the conserva-

and members of the National Archives Council, and the general

tion work. In the meantime, the Conservator was working on a condi-

public for their trust in us as guardians of the collective memory of the Maltese nation.

tion survey of all our holdings. This is the first time that such an exer-

uJ

u//.ana is the

name commonly

liven to a collection of data of the

acts of civil status, that is births,

marriages, and deaths. The source for the information of this collection is

parish records. It has been customary for acts connected with religious

milestones of persons professing the Catholic Religion to be recorded by

parish priests. This was made mandatory for the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth

century. Records in Gozo began after 1551, the year that Gozo was overrun

by Turks, the whole population taken into slavery, and every manuscript was either burnt or taken to the Ottoman capital.

single

The 6u//.ana is invaluable to the social history of Gozo as it records

island. A full catalogue of the Gt7//.ana is available online at the

National Archives website: www.nationalarchives.gov.mt

On the same occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister, Patricia,

Roberta, and Astrid, daughters of the late Victor Vella-Muskat (1935-

2009), presented another interesting collection of documents to the National Archives Gozo. Victor Vella-Muskat was the last Secretary/ Treasurer of the Gozo Civic Council (1961-1973) and over the years

he

collected

a

number of

interesting

documents

and

other

memorabilia related to the Council. The collection includes a set of

posters printed prior to the first Council election held on 4 June 1961. A number of documents from the collection were used in the Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition.

The National Archives would like to convey its sincere thanks to

Franco, Manola, and Francesca; as well as to Patricia, Roberta, and Astrid for their generosity towards the Archives, a generosity that

have greatly enhanced the written heritage of Malta and Gozo.

Photos: Mr Franco Masini presenting a volume of the 6u//.ana to the Prime

all births, marriages, and deaths after 1551. In some cases, the data

Minister. Astrid Grech, daughter of Victor Vella-Muskat, presenting a token

predates this year as it was gathered from sources outside the

file related to the Gozo Civic Council to the Prime Minister.

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elected by general suffrage on 4 June 1961. It first met on 4 July and was officially inaugurated on 10 July 1961.

An exhibition at the NAG -the National Archives Gozo Section revived this entire story. The first section of the exhibition consisted

of 40 documents related to the foundation and the working of the Committee and the Council. The second complimented the story by

¢hepollticalconfusionthatreignedinMaltainthel950srelegated

a profuse selection of over one hundred photos of the protagonists

the problems and needs of Gozo to the background. People with a sense of civic pride and awareness felt that the time was ripe to give

as well as the old and new emblems of all the districts of Gozo with

their parish churches -the basis of the fourteen electoral districts in

the Gozitans a voice. The idea of forming a local body elected by the

which Gozo was divided.

people of Gozo that had been in incubation for years suddenly came to the forefront.

The exhibition was opened by Dr Lawrence Gonzi, Prime Minister of

The first meeting of the provisional Gozo Civic Committee -made

the Civic Council. Giovanna Debono, Minister for Gozo; Charles

Malta, on 9 July, eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of

up of Dr Anton Tabone (1898-1972), Dr Guzeppi Cauchi (1916-

Farrugia, National Archivist; Anton Tabone, Chairperson Fiftieth

1991 ), Rikkardu Buhagiar (1894-1983), and Gorg xerri (1919-1995)

Anniversary Celebrations; Dr Samuel Azzopardi, President Gozo

-was held on 30 October 1958. The Committee was conceived with

Regional Council; the Gozo mayors; and a sizable audience were

two distinct purposes: first, it was to shoulder the task of bringing the complaints of the people in a forceful and intelligent way to the no-

also present. Dr Chris Said, Parliamentary Secretary, whose office sponsored the exhibition, was unavoidably absent. The exhibition

tice of the central government, whoever was in power in Valletta;

catalogue was sponsored by HSBC-Gozo through Paul Curmi, Area

secondly, it was to exert as much pressure as possible on the Government to do something for Gozo. A fully-fledged meeting with a

showed his appreciation at the hard work being put irt by the Na-

Manager-Gozo.

The

Prime

Minister praised the initiative

and

representative from each of the fourteen villages of Gozo was held

tional Archives of Malta and its Gozo section to safeguard the writ-

on 23 November 1958. By the middle of the following year, a district

ten heritage of this small nation, The exhibition ran up to Saturday,

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Qffidel [ap[eseENte]twe owl ife Gwlc CQmrfuLtee. on 1`4 Match lTQj6jt ,

cO JdiJj/. ±104 f, tand ji{jij i#fHled dy rifitfiifj/. for the cof4jich, ire MC issued a set a;i twejrty pestcads with the, coe]\-Qj[-arms Of t!he, lslend

the Government re-designated the Civic Committee as the Gozo

of Gozo, of the fourteen districts, of the three localities, of the island

Civic Council. At long last, on 14 April 1961, the Government en-

of Comino, and a composite card, with each card including their

acted `An Ordinance' to make provision for Local Government in

motto in Latin, in Maltese, and in English. The cards were partly

Gozo and for purposes connected therewith. The Gozo Civic Council

sponsored by the fourteen Local Councils of Gozo and are available

was born as a statutory local government.

from the Gozo section of the National Archives.

A new Council was

3

a neranging of the and main tasks of of thearchival reader's services unit is the ardescribing holdings according to professional standards, and the creation of finding aids for research-

ers using the Reading Room and/or the website.

This task is complimented by the various digitization projects. At

the moment two collections are in the process of digitization.

These

are:

1)

the

Custom

Records which

include

arrival/

departures of individuals, which project is financed by The Genea-

logical Society of Utah; 2) and the Magna Curl.a records financed by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. The Archives ensure that the archival principles of authenticity, reliability, and integrity

are followed. Digital material is stored in a different variety of me-

dia such as CDs, DVDs, hard drives in specific file formats. We

are in the process to migrate the digital material to a new storage

S:nocnes:a;tatÂĽrar#th':haeveNba%nnar:C#th::eassoaf

server using a standard software making the records available to

Malta and was given the responsibility of set-

the international fora and within the public reading rooms on PCs.

ting up a paper conservation laboratory. This

This is in line with the emerging national and international stan-

being a new venture, work had to start from

dards, to support preservation of our National heritage. Develop-

scratch.

ing these requirements also consists in developing metadata.

been identified for this purpose and my first

Recently several access databases have been updated in to facilitate the work of researchers. These include the: 1) Ministry of

Tourism, 1951-1975, ca.6000 entries -This database was created by eight tourism students as part of their practical work -. 2)

Despatches to Secretary of State, 1861-1922, ca, 9000 entries;

and Despatches from Secretary of State, 1861-1887, ca.4500 entries: updated by Mr. Mario Camilleri and the Architect Michael

Ellul. 3) OPM,1950-1954, ca. 3200 entries: updated by several

students during their practicum. 4) Maltese Army Records,17941910, ca.11670 entries: comprising files from different regiments.

Two rooms on the ground floor had

task, in collaboration with the National Archivist

and the Administrator, was to plan the whole

set up of the laboratory.

Quotations for the

purchase of furniture and equipment were made and the first batch of equipment has already arrived from England. In the meantime

the tender for a Leaf Casting machine has been issued. This will be a great asset to the laboratory as it will translate into a larger out-

put of conservation work.

Researchers are both producers and consumers of research, and research methods across topics are very different, so working

At the moment I am working on a Condition

identifying their needs could be challenging. It is essential for the

chives.

National Archives to strive and find out those needs in order to

because although there is a lot of material of different forms not much is known of the

allocate resources effectively.

Survey of the holdings extant at the said arI felt that this survey is necessary

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amount and type of damage existent in them.

To achieve this I am performing a random

sampling of each fends by taking an item from each unit of shelves and listing the visible

damage in a template which was prepared for this purpose. Finally this data is inputted in an

MS Excel Workbook which in turn calculates

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the percentage of damage in that particular

this unit is to focus on inspections of records within

for}ds. In this way a database of the amount

and type of damage present in the collections

government entities and the evaluation of records to be accessioned by the National Archives. The

is being built. This will help me to make an

RMU was immediately involved in formulating a

assessment of the preservation needs of each

retention

collection and so identify and prioritise the

documents in the Public Sector/Service. This was

material for conservation work.

done in collaboration with the Office of the Prime

schedule

for

all

human

resources

Minister and the Data Protection Commissioner.

During 2011 a number of onsite inspections have

been performed in various government entities such as Enemalta, the Malta Offshore Bunkering Ltd and the Public Registry. By collaborating with

these entities we have indentified the records which are no longer needed for the running of the relative

organization

and

through

a

careful

appraisal we selected which of these records are to be transfered to National Archives. All this work is

done for the scope of the National Archives Act which

ensures

the

preservation

of

historical

material, and also enables us to dispose of non-

relavant records, saving these entities storage space and additional costs. This year over 200,000

passport applications that date between 1979 to 1998 and over 130 volumes of indexes for passport applications from the 1950s -1970s were transfered to the National Archives from the Public

Registry and Passport Office.

The RMU was also responsible for the accession of 183 volumes from the Ministry of Health. These

volumes

contain

patients'

records

created

in

various Maltese hospitals during the 19th and 20th

century. Also a selection of over 5000 files from the

once

operational

Wireless

and

Telegraph

Department has also been performed and in the near future these files will be accessioned by the National Archives.

Photos: (left) lvan EIlul sorting passport applications at

the Hal Far repository. Perimeter photos: Students during placements and visits.

The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library digitization project at the

Archive at the Legal Documentation Section opened its doors to

Banca Giuratale, Mdina marks its fourth anniversary. Since Octo-

welcome hundreds of Maltese and foreign visitors who stopover at the Banca G/'urafa/e, Those interested in Maltese legal and

ber 2007, the studio has digitized 650 volumes of the Magna CuH.a

Caste//ani'a Acfa Orr.gi.na/e, dating between 1545 and 1707. There are 1411 volumes in the Acfa Or7.gi.na/i.a series which is the most

social history had the opportunity to visit the strong rooms where thousands of legal records are archived and preserved for poster-

frequently-consulted section of the archives of the Magna Cun'a

ity. The festival in its third year was organized by the Mdina Local

Caste//ani.a, covering the period between 1543 and 1798. As of August 2011, 633 volumes consisting of 635,172 digital images

Council and the Malta Tourism Authority. The festival attracts

have been photographed. Metadata of the first 390 volumes can

general meeting which took place at the Banca G/.urafa/e on May

be found on the HMML internet site http://www.hmml.org/centers/

6, 2011.

maltal0/mcc.html. Some of the most attractive documents will be

'Sakemm fne/.n mhux wi.sq' was a storytelling evening held at the

part of the APEnet (Archives Portal Europe) and Europeana, a multi-lingual online collection of millions of digitized items from

European museums, libraries, archives and multi-media collec-

tions.

A document from the Acfa Ori.gi'na/i.a of the Magni'a Cun.a

Caste//ani'a which produces a bill of the medical expenses incurred

by M'Anna Cremona in 1740 (MCC, AO 859, ff.381-2) can be stud-

ied online via e-corpus platform on

http://www.e-corpus.org/eng/

notices/10596-Contordi-medicamenti-di-M-Anna-Cremona.html.

As part of the Medieval Mdina festival held on the weekend of May 7 and 8, 2011, the photographic attraction of the National Portrait

1. Visit to the National Archive

by H.E the Spanish Ambassador H.E. Felipe de la Morena

Casado 2. Opening speech by Mr.

Charies

Farrugia

at the

National Forum on Archives 9 February 2011. 3. Audience at

the National Forum on Archives (from right, Minister for Education Hon. Dolores Cristina, Mgr.

J Cassar, Mr. N D'Anastas, Mr.

John Cremona. 4. Reconstruction works at the National Archives during November 2011.

also the Friends of the National Archives to hold their annual

Legal Documentation Section at the Banca Giuratale in Mdina on April, 23, 2011. In the course of this event, Glen Calleja who in

the past was active both in the disciplines of contemporary thea-

tre and literature, weaved a session with references to autobiographical stories of new life and death, traditional stories and literary sources from all over the wohd, which can be found in Maltese or in English in his book eeeeeee.J published by Pubb/i.kefurl. AWL in March 2011.

CITRA Bureau Meeting -Simancas, Spain (10-11 February 2011) /photo 6/ On 10 and 11 February 2011, Joseph Bezzina, the Assistant National Archivist, represented

the National Archivist in a Bureau Meeting of CITRA -the Conference /nfemafi.ona/e de /a

Tab/e Ronde des Anchi.ves, held at the National Archives of Simancas, Spain.

The meeting was under the chairmanship of Martin Berendse, lcA President, and National Archivist of the Netherlands. The participants proceeded with an evaluation of the CITRA-

Oslo and prepared the programme for CITRA-Toledo to be held in November 2011.

APEnet General Assembly meeting in Brussels, Belgium (10th March 2011) /photo 7/ Assistant Archivist Joseph Amodio and Administrator Etienne Ferrito attended the third Gen-

eral Assembly meeting. During this meeting various progress reports were reviewed and the way ahead was discussed and a general strategy was devised.

EBNA/ FAG Meetings in Budapest, Hungary -(10-11 May 2011) /photo 3/ The meeting in Budapest was characterised by several presentations on the state of digitisation in Hungarian archives and also the attempts being made to render collections on-line.

MSEG Working Group on Digitisation Statistics -Luxembourg (27 June 2011) On 27 June 2011, Joseph Bezzina took part in the first meeting of the MSEG -Member States' Expert Group - Working Group on Digitisation Statistics. It was chaired by Javier

Hemandez:Ros, Head Of un.It lNFSO E3 Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learni.ng, European Commission.

Eighth Meeting of Eurapeana MSEG -Member States' Expert Group (28 June 2011) On 28 June 2011, the Assistant National Archivist represented Malta in the Eighth Meeting of

Eurapear}a MSEG -Member States' Expert Group -specifically, the Etiropeana Finance and Governance Working Group, held at the Euroforum Building, Luxembourg. Europeana is the common access point to the collections of European libraries, archives, and museums from all around Europe. The National Archives is coordinating Europeana in Malta.

APEnet Workshop in Stockholm, Sweden ( 28-30th June 2011 ) /photo 5/ Assistant Archivist Noel D'Anastas and Inspector of Records lvan EIIul attended these inten-

sive workshops. These included presentations by Europeana, and workshops regarding EAC, FAD and CPF by Daniel Pitti and Delving.

EBNA/ EAG Meetings in Krakow, Poland -(7-8 October 2011) /photo 4/ National Archivist Charles Farrugia attended the EBNA and EAG meetings held under the

Polish presidency in Krakow, Poland.

During the meetings it was a agreed that a working

group be set up to refine the report on archives so that this be presented to the Commission.

CITRA conference jn Toledo Spain -(25-27 October 2011) /photos 7 & 2/ National Archivist Charles Farrugia represented Malta in a number of conferences in Toledo,

Spain.

Amongst these there was the CITRA conference, the CITRA Bureau, an lcARUS

seminar, the Annual General Meeting of lcA, and the Executive Bureau and Annual General Meeting of the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers (ACARM).

During the last year the National Archives received

the support of a number of volunteers. Photos on the left show Mr. Michael Bonnici restoring the old

kitchen oven at the National Archives in Rabat and Mr`Steve Borg, Dr Gerald Bugeja and Mr. Martin

Hampton sorting books for the upcoming book

bazaar. Jessica Fenech working on the Cabrei database.