The International Bee Research Association (IBRA), originally the Bee Research Association, was founded in 1949 and has provided information on bee science and bee keeping ever since. In 1986, IBRA moved its headquarters to North Road, Cardiff, and in 2006 and 2007 a large number of items found their way to the National Library: archive material relating to the establishment and management of the organisation; a library of books and theses from all over the world; a substantial number of glass negatives and magic lantern slides; and an invaluable collection of over 60,000 off-prints of articles on bee keeping, the medicinal and antiseptic properties of honey, etc.
There were also four boxes of videos, cassettes and films, which were transferred to the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales. Among these four boxes was what initially looked like a reel of audio tape, but on closer inspection turned out to contain the first computer records at IBRA. A label dated 24 July 1984 indicates that the tape came from the then Director of IBRA, Dr Margaret Adey, along with the letters USCS and a batch number. Might these letters indicate something like ‘University of Swansea Computer Science’? Any help will be gratefully received.
Whether or not the data contained on the tape can be retrieved remains to be seen – 27 years is a long time in computing – but its emergence highlights the need for archivists to be aware that not all digital records have been created over the past decade or so. One day, we might have to deal with something of even greater vintage – punch cards, anyone?