The second phase of the 4.5 year ‘Making the Oxfam archive accessible’ project that started in January 2013 has now been completed. A fifth catalogue, describing records of Oxfam’s appeals and fundraising activities, is now available on the Bodleian Library’s website.  In addition, a second, expanded edition of the programme policy and management catalogue has been published. The second edition of the catalogue of files relating to grants made by Oxfam (‘project files’) will appear soon.

Materials newly released reflect the evolution of Oxfam’s approach to fundraising, including its often controversial use of advertising. They also include papers of the Policy Director and staff relating to Oxfam’s role in advocacy on behalf of poor people, and records of the Gender and Development Unit and its successors, revealing the path towards mainstreaming gender in the programme.

Along with the programme, campaigns and communications materials previously released, these  substantial additions mean that researchers now have available to them an extremely wide and rich resource for study. The third phase of the project will make available in mid-2017 catalogues of materials relating to governance and corporate management, and development education and Fair Trade activities. The archive continues to be extremely popular with academic visitors in our Reading Rooms.

Please visit the Bodleian Library blog:

http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/

Our funder, the Wellcome Trust, is currently offering Research Bursaries for small and medium-scale projects by experienced researchers, based on archive collections they support. For further information please see:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Humanities-and-social-science/funding-schemes/research-resources-awards/research-bursaries/index.htm

The deadline for this round of research bursaries is 3 October 2016.