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2. How can the
Mundus Gateway help researchers? 4. The
missionary movement and its documentation 5. Missionary
collections in the UK 6. How was the
Mundus Gateway compiled? 7. What does it
include/not include? 8. How can I
obtain further information and access the collections?
The Mundus project is a three-year project, funded by the Research Support Libraries Programme, to
improve and facilitate access to missionary collections throughout the
United Kingdom. The project runs from 1999 to 2002 and major partners are:
2. How can the Mundus Gateway help
researchers?
The Mundus Gateway makes it easier for researchers from a wide range of
disciplinary backgrounds to locate collections of missionary materials
held within the UK that are relevant to their research. The Mundus
database contains descriptions of more than 400 collections accumulated in
Britain by individuals and societies engaged in the overseas missionary
movement between the 18th and 20th centuries. The collections of archives,
printed works, visual materials and artefacts are held in over 40
institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Each description contains basic information about each collection:
name, reference code, covering dates and extent of the material. An
administrative or biographical history explains the background of the
individual or organization who created the collection, while the scope and
content field summarizes its content. Other information provided includes
details of finding aids (with direct links to electronic finding aids
where these exist), the language of the material, information about
related materials, access conditions and copyright. In addition,
up-to-date information is given about the location of the materials with a
direct link to the holding institution where this is possible. The Mundus Gateway offers a wide range of searching tools including
freetext searches, name, place and subject searches, and searches using
clickable maps. Click here
for further information about Mundus searching. The missionary impulse is an aspect of religious zeal. To the fervent
believer nothing is impossible: "the field is the world" (Matthew xiii 38)
is an unambiguous statement and "go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel" (Mark xvi 15) is a straightforward instruction. The word
Mundus harks back to the first great missionary world for which St
Jerome translated the above lines: "ager autem est mundus" and "euntes in
mundum universum praedicate evangelium".
4. The missionary movement and its
documentation
From the 18th to the middle of the 20th centuries missionaries from the
United Kingdom went in ever-increasing numbers to all parts of the globe
seeking converts to Christianity. At its height, between 1880 and 1920,
some 60 societies were actively engaged in this work with many thousands
of missionaries going out to the mission field. Very large amounts of
missionary materials have in consequence been created, comprising
archives, personal papers, books and pamphlets, published annual reports,
missionary magazines, photographs, films, sound recordings and artefacts.
These materials document from an early date, in both written and visual
form, the encounter between Western missionaries and the peoples and
terrain of Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Americas, and are
being increasingly used and appreciated by scholars from a variety of
disciplines.
5. Missionary collections in the UK
Until the 1970s, missionary society archives and libraries were still
to be found in the offices of their parent organisations but since that
time many have been dispersed and can now be found in national, university
and other repositories in various parts of the country. Many personal
collections have also been deposited in libraries and record offices.
Missionary training institutes have accumulated both printed and
unpublished materials. Artefacts from former missionary society museum
collections are to be found in a number of museums together with
associated documentation. Vast numbers of photographs, including glass
plate negatives and lantern slides, taken of or by missionaries, exist in
both private and public collections. 6. How was the Mundus Gateway compiled?
The Mundus Gateway was compiled by project staff (Project Director,
Rosemary Seton, and Project Officer, Caroline Brick) at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with technical assistance from staff
at the University of London Computer Centre. The starting point of the
work was A preliminary guide to the archives of British missionary
societies compiled in 1992 by Rosemary Seton and Emily Naish. A wider
survey, to include collections of private papers and printed books, was
carried out in 2000 and 2001 and work began on the construction of the
database in the autumn and winter of 2001 to 2002. Data entry of the
collection-level descriptions commenced in March and was completed by
October 2002. It is important to acknowledge the very willing assistance
given by staff at the various institutions contacted and also by project
staff of other networking projects, particularly AIM25 and the UK Higher Education Archives Hub.
The collection-level descriptions are constructed to a standard known
as ISAD(G),
which is the agreed international standard for archival description. For
collection-level descriptions of non-archival collections suitable
additional fields have been created, based on the RSLP collection
description model. Rules
of the National Council on Archives
have been followed in the indexing of personal names, corporate and place
names. Other authorities consulted were the Getty
Thesaurus of Geographic Names and the Times atlas of the world.
Subject indexing has been based on the UNESCO Thesaurus with additional
terms devised by SOAS Archives Staff for the indexing of missionary
collections. For further information see Paragraph 9 below. 7. What does it include/not include?
The collections described in the Mundus database relate to overseas
missionary work chiefly during the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th
centuries. Overseas missionary work commenced after 1970 has not been
included, nor has home based mission work, such as town and city missions.
Researchers interested in such missions are advised to contact record
offices and libraries in the respective localities. The National Archives' ARCHON Directory
provides a good starting-point. While every effort has been made to include information about Catholic
missionary work, most of the organizations and individuals included in the
database belong to the Protestant tradition. The archives of Roman
Catholic missionary societies are, for the most part, located in their
motherhouses on the European continent though some information about UK
provincial archives is provided, as are details of British-based Catholic
missionary societies. Good collections of printed materials relating to
the work of Catholic missions are held by, among others, the British Library and the Library of the School
of Oriental and African Studies. The Mundus Gateway maps and summarises the content of missionary
collections in the UK but does not provide detailed finding aids or
on-line catalogues. For further details on finding aids, refer to
paragraph 8 below. Digital images of documents are not presently included
in the Mundus database though a selection of photographic and other visual
images is displayed in the Mundus Gallery. 8. How can I obtain further information and access
the collections?
To consult detailed finding aids and on-line catalogues to the
collections described in the Mundus Gateway use the link provided in the
finding aids field in the description. To contact the institution holding
materials in which you are interested use the "Site details" button on the
Browse pages. You must contact the institution yourself. Mundus cannot
make arrangements for you to access the materials or send further
information about them. For information about missionary materials held in overseas countries
use the Links pages. During the course of indexing missionary collections at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) it became clear that while the UNESCO Thesaurus, which was being
used increasingly by British archivists as an indexing tool, was perfectly
adequate for broader cultural terms it was in need of development for
specific religious and missionary terms. The SOAS Archives team has
therefore drawn up a list
of terms to be used in the cataloguing of missionary collections,
based as far as possible on the UNESCO Thesaurus, but supplying other
terms, either drawn from other thesauri or supplied by the team after
internal and external discussion. Contact: mundus@soas.ac.uk.
ABOUT MUNDUS
1. What is the Mundus
Project?
1. What is the Mundus Project?
During the course of
the project 90 previously unlisted collections of papers (Edinburgh and
Birmingham) and some 40,000 photographs (London and Oxford) were
catalogued. On-line catalogues were created for major archival collections
such as the British and Foreign Bible Society (Cambridge) and the Church
Missionary Society (Birmingham) and more than 15,000 printed books
relating to mission studies (Birmingham and London). Measures were also
taken to improve the physical storage of fragile materials and to carry
out conservation work on badly affected documents. The culmination of the
project has been the creation of a web-based guide (the Mundus Gateway) to
more than 400 collections of missionary materials in over 40 institutions
in the United Kingdom. This webguide has been created and developed in the
University of London where it will continue to be maintained.