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Saving Archives Through Digitisation: Reflections on Endangered Archives Programme Projects in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Jody Butterworth
Jody Butterworth*
Affiliation:
Endangered Archives Programme, The British Library
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Extract

When I began researching for my talk, I started by consulting the published volume celebrating SCOLMA's 50th anniversary that came out of the 2012 conference on African studies in the digital age: disconnect? I turned to the index at the back of the book to see how many times the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) was mentioned. There were three entries. The first included the programme amongst a list of projects that have supported or funded both large-scale and smaller digitisation initiatives in the region. The second mention was slightly more critical in tone, saying that the programme should provide more technical and logistical assistance, and the last reference was a brief sentence about a Gambian historian who had consulted the digitised Muslim court rolls from one of our projects when writing his doctoral thesis.

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References

Notes

1 http://scolma.org/forthcoming-scolma-book-african-studies-in-the-digital-age-disconnects/

2 Figures correct as of September 2017.

3 Digitisation of manuscripts at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, East Jerusalem https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP521

4 Preservation of historical periodical collections (1900-1950) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, East Jerusalem https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP119.

5 Preserving the archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP121

6 From dust to digital: ten years of the Endangered Archives Programme https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/283.

7 Syliphone projects: https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP187, https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP327, https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP608.

8 Syliphone on BL Sounds https://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditionalmusic/Syliphone-record-label-collection.

9 Photographic preservation of the manuscript collection in the monastic church of Ewostatewos at Dabra Sarabi https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP340, Digitisation of the endangered monastic archive at May Wayni https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP526, Digitisation of the monastic archives of Marawe Krestos and Dabra Abbay https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP704.

10 Since giving this talk, Transkribus has made developments in non-Western scripts and is currently working on Arabic handwriting.

11 Archiving a Cameroonian photographic studio https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP054.

12 Before the war, after the war: preserving history in Sierra Leone (EAP284) https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP284.

13 Preserving nineteenth-century records in the Sierra Leone Public Archives https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP782

14 Nineteenth century documents of the Sierra Leone Public Archives https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP443

15 Digital preservation of Wolof Ajami manuscripts of Senegal https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP334

16 Bamum script and archives project: saving Africa's written heritage https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP051

17 Safeguarding Nzema history: documents on Nzema land in Ghanaian national and local archives https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP569

18 Remote capture: digitising documentary heritage in challenging locations https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/747.