Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan

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Overview

During 2011-2012, Adam Matthew Digital Collections is releasing as digital collections selected contents from the British National Archives documenting three periods in the modern history of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan:

Independence, partition and the Nehru Era, 1947-1964
South Asian conflicts and independence for Bangladesh, 1965-1971
Afghanistan and the Cold War, Emergency Rule in India, and resumption of civilian rule in Pakistan, 1972-1980

Provider:

Adam Matthew Digital

Posted:

Aug 12, 2011 4:49pm

Updated:

Sep 12, 2013 3:22pm

Source

CRL reviews are based on independent research. Information is researched by CRL staff and other specialists at CRL libraries. See CRL Review for additional source notes.

Details

Collection Content

Subject Areas:

Social Sciences

Resource Types:

Archival materials

Reference books

Major Languages:

English

- Denotes data sourced directly from publisher

Content Details:


	Independence, partition and the Nehru Era, 1947-1964 (first module)	South Asian conflicts and independence for Bangladesh, 1965-1971 (second module)	Afghanistan and the Cold War, Emergency Rule in India, and resumption of civilian rule in Pakistan, 1972-1980 (third module)
Geographic coverage	India, Pakistan, Nepal, South Asia	India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Asia	India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia
Content types	Archives: correspondence, reports	Archives: correspondence, reports	Archives: correspondence, reports
Source formats	Paper copies	Paper copies	Paper copies
Total titles	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total pages	c. 750,000 pp.	c. 750,000 pp.	c. 750,000 pp.
Digital collection launch date	released in winter 2011	released in summer 2011	expected Spring 2012
Collection ongoing	N	N	N

Specifications

Metadata:


MARC records available	Y
Creator of MARC records	Access Co
Structural metadata exposed anywhere?	N
Subject authorities used	Library of Congress
Name authorities used	Library of Congress

Technical Platform:


Browser compatibility	IE7+ Firefox, Safari
Authentication options	IP (username and password for trials)
Archiving solution – master files	Portico
Archiving solution – derivative files	Available on hard drive upon request
Availability in web discovery tools	N
Open URL target	Y for secondary sources referenced
Federated searching, z39.50	N
Local host option	Y
Usage statistics	Y

Interface Tools:


Full text displayed	Y
Page images	Y
Color images	Y 100%
Search full text	Y
Advanced search (fielded)	Y
Search within results	N
Limit results by dates and/or document types	Y
Display highlighted search terms	Y
Display snippet -- search term in context	N
Relevance sorting	Y by default
Save searches	Y
Download PDF	Y
Download HTML	N
Print page	Y via PDF
Print full document	Y via PDF
Export citations	Y
Annotation tools	N
Cross-product searching	Y
ILL	See Point II of license agreement for fair use provision
Restrictions on use	Academic/Fair use only

Terms and Provider Details

Terms:


Terms	Options
Subscription option	N
Purchase option	Y
Multiple year payments option	N
Hosting charges	Y (5% of purchase price every five years [first five year period free])
List of purchasers available	N
Sample license available	Y
MARC records purchase fee	N
Price tier basis	N/A

Provider:

Adam Matthew Digital

Website:

http://www.amdigital.co.uk/

Main Address:

Pelham House, Pelhams Court

London Road

Marlborough

SN8 2AG

United Kingdom

CRL Review

Collection Content:

This material is part of the Adam Matthew Archives Direct suite of digital collections from the British National Archives. The collections are scanned in color from the original documents.

As with the digitized Foreign Office Files China collection, the publishers indicate that selected archival series have been included in their entirety. This collection draws upon four classes of files:

DO 133 – High Commission and consular files, India – complete (files 1-232)

DO 134 – High Commission and consular files, Pakistan – complete (files 1-50)

FCO 37 – FO South Asia Dept records – complete up to and including the year 1980 (this series is still accruing)

FO 371 – selected files (i.e. those on the South Asian states) up to 1966, when this class ends (this series contains general correspondence of the FO’s political departments, and so has worldwide coverage)

Delivery:

Metadata

For the Archives Direct collections, individual document descriptions are enhanced by index terms for significant places, names, and topics, as well as reference to the National Archives document number. Bibliographic records note the archival series sources and reference available finding aids.

Technical platform & interface

This collection employs the Archives Direct platform and interface tools. A potential advantage of the Archives Direct portal is that it not only supports cross collection searches, but also displays results from all digitized collections whether or not the local institution subscribes. Results are grayed out for those archival collections not accessible locally. Within each individual collection, document browse lists display data very clearly and can be sorted by document number, title, or date. The document display is a standard PDF interface. Navigation prompts between documents and back to document descriptions are not obvious at first observation.

Terms:

Each of the three modules, released from winter 2011 through spring 2012, will be approximately the same size and will be priced at a similar level. Following the acquisition of Adam Matthew Digital and Adam Matthew Education by SAGE in early October, 2012, Adam Matthew issued a statement indicating that all existing contracts will remain between Adam Matthew and its partners, not transferred to SAGE. They have also posted details clarifying the status of licensing arrangements for the retention of digital materials and ongoing access to collections. Questions regarding Adam Matthew products, including licensing questions, will continue to be directed to the Adam Matthew team.

Reviewers:

Center for Research Libraries

Virginia Kerr, Digital Program Manager

Sources

Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher; data collected by CRL staff and specialists at CRL libraries; and examination of the digital collection when possible. Other sources are noted where cited. CRL continues to gather additional information on this resource and to solicit critical assessment.

CRL Offers & Status

Status	Current	Description
CRL Flagged	no	Potential interest to CRL community
Offer Pending	no	Currently a candidate for CRL offer
Active Offer	no	Currently offered for purchase or new subscription
Trial Access	no	Available for trial
Renewal Offer	no	Currently offered for renewal
Expired Offer	yes	Past offers
Inactive / Declined	no	No longer under consideration by CRL
Reviewed by CRL	yes	Evaluation available by CRL and community
Special Access	no	Member-only access available for a limited time

The complete offer and activity details for this resource are only available to CRL members.

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