PaxCat Project

PaxCat is bringing the Commonweal Archives to life! Collected by Commonweal Library and added to Special Collections in 2004, these collections offer a vast and incredible resource for the study of peaceful protest. However they were in need of sorting, cataloguing and better storage so that they could safely be made available to researchers.

PaxCat 1

The first phase ran from May 2009-May 2010 and was supported by the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme. The Project Archivist Helen Roberts catalogued many wonderful resources, enabling us to make them available to the public for the first time. Alison Cullingford, Special Collections Librarian, managed the Project.

Helen's reflections and discoveries were shared in the PaxCat Blog.

The full catalogues can be seen on the Archives Hub and in Word format on the pages for individual collections.

The PaxCat Project Gallery on Flickr showcases 36 of the most appealing and interesting images from these archives.

Beyond PaxCat

The initial project catalogued the mostly frequently requested archives and gave us structures to help us plan future work. We have since mapped and appraised the rest of the collection and are working to catalogue the remaining archives, pamphlets and ephemera.