Papers of the Anti-Locust Research Centre, c 1850-2002, principally comprising: locust report forms, narrative reports, survey reports, control campaign reports; cables, letters, transcripts; organisation and committee papers; bulletins, abstracts, memoirs; indexes, registers, catalogues; field note books and records; synoptic meteorological and hydrological data and reports; photographs and slides; films and microfilms.
Key components of the archive are: the report forms, cable messages and supporting correspondence detailing records of locusts and locust activity, spanning over 100 years of sightings; the long runs of meteorological data used in conjunction with locust reports that enable forecasts of future locust activity to be made; the large collection of maps (estimated at 18,000 items) recording locust sightings and distributions, and meteorological data such as temperature, rainfall and humidity. The same locust event is often described in several different documents, and information taken from several reports combined with meteorological and habitat data is required to build up a complete picture of the original observation. The large collection of photographs and slides (an estimated combined total of 15,000 items) provides a valuable pictorial record of locust research and control, and of the people involved and places visited. The archive holds information on locust records spanning nearly 3,500 years. The earlier dates are from analyses of historical documents that contain records of locust plagues.
