17 July 2014
New online collections – July 2014 – EAP now has over two million images!
Last month five collections have gone up online EAP001, EAP038, EAP051, EAP117 and EAP458. These collections come from Iran, Cameroon, Indonesia and finally two from India. I am happy to say that with these new additions our online collections have grown to over two million images!
EAP001 was, as its number suggests, our first ever project. It was a pilot project which was interested in photography in Iran at the turn of the 19th century. It located photographic material from the 19th and early 20th century which was being kept in precarious conditions or in family collections. The project copied a sample of items and located many more for future possible digitisation projects.
EAP001/1/1 - Image 6
EAP038 surveyed and digitised pre-1947 Telugu printed materials in India. It located books and periodicals published during the 19th and first half of the 20th century which had been written in the Telugu language in South India. The first stirrings of cultural and religious renaissance were felt in the Telugu speaking districts of Madras Presidency under the British rule. Expressions of social and cultural interaction between the East and the West can be seen in Telugu print culture. From the revival of medical knowledge to various forms of literary genres such as classical Prabandha, Ithihasa and Puranic tradition and Panchangas [from 1860s] and Satakas and also western forms like novels, short stories, poems and drama.
EAP038/1/18 - Image 107
EAP051 aimed to preserve records which are written in Bamum script. This is an indigenous African writing system, from the Cameroon Grassfields. The project digitised collections of the Bamum Palace Archive, It also acquired relevant material in danger throughout the Bamum Kingdom and beyond, this material was digitised and deposited at the Bamum Palace Archives.
One book chronicles the arrival of the first German military officer and trader. Other books are devoted to the founding of the kingdom, to a new Bamum religion (fusing Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs), to other topics such as traditional medicine. One family’s collection included early Bamum script on banana leaves. Another collection is particularly important, containing thousands of documents on family and kingdom history, transcripts of speeches given by the Bamum King in the early twentieth century, commentaries on Islam and magic, and many beautiful maps of the Bamum Kingdom with place names and geographic features identified in the indigenous Bamum script.
EAP051/1/1/11/5 – Image 8
EAP117 digitised rare ancient manuscripts and artefacts from the 14th to the 20th century in Kerinca on the highlands of the Sumatra in Indonesia. The project digitised 65 private collections that contain information about an area of which little knowledge exists. The records held in private collections are often open to physical danger or degradation; this project helped ensure that the information contained in these rare documents is preserved and made available to a wide audience.
EAP117/3/1/20 Image 4
The final project, EAP458, digitised records containing information about the Tamil region in India.
The documents are scattered in the homes of Tamil villagers. This material will open a new avenue of analysis at the level of micro-history of rural India, a field for which there is a lack of research material. The project liaised with record holders to survey and digitise their materials, aiding both in the preservation and dissemination of these important documents.
EAP458/17/2/24 Image 2
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
12 May 2014
New online collections - May 2014
This month we have four new collections online, these are EAP261, EAP427, EAP535 and EAP593. Two of the collections hail from African countries, Nigeria and Malawi. The other two collections are from India and Mexico.
EAP427 is a pilot project which looked to preserve Native Administration records from Malawi, formerly Nyasaland. These records date from 1891 to 1964 and were generated by the Native Authorities (traditional chiefs).
The records represent a rich history of Malawi from the colonial period up to the transition to self-rule. Prior to independence, the Colonial Government introduced the Native Authorities to Nyasaland as a way of involving the local people in the governance processes through their own traditional institutions. The introduction of Native Authorities meant that native chiefs became part of Government administration. As such, in the course of undertaking government business, the chiefs created, received and maintained a lot of administrative records.
Prior to British colonialism, Malawi was a predominantly oral society. The establishment of the native authorities marked a transition to literacy as the traditional leaders were required to conduct official business in writing. The records are a lasting legacy of the impact of colonialism on the people of Malawi and for this reason this project helped to ensure their preservation.
The project targeted 32 different districts to survey. It digitised a sample of records from four of the districts; these are now available to view online.
EAP427/1/8 part 2 of 2 Image 190
EAP535 is a major project which digitised precolonial documents from Northern Nigeria. The project focused on materials held by the National Archives Kaduna, which was established as the major repository for Northern Nigeria in 1957.
The records consist of three main collections. The first is a collection of Arabic manuscripts dating from the early 18th century to the 1930s. They include local chronicles, private correspondence, legal documents and religious literature.
EAP535/1/1/4/23 – Image 13
The second, ‘The Secretariat Northern Province Collection’, consists of letters to various colonial administrators, official assessment reports, ethnographic reports, and numerous annual numerical files dealing with diverse subjects like agriculture, religion and slavery. This material dates from 1900 to 1959.
EAP535/2/5/6/10 – Image 39
The final, the ‘Provincial Offices Collection’ consists of circular letters to various colonial administrators, official assessment reports, ethnographic reports, and numerous annual numerical files dealing with diverse subjects like agriculture, religion and slavery. The materials copied in this project deal with the period between 1900 and 1953.
EAP535/2/5/6/10 – Image 39
These materials are of high importance as they document the social, economic and political history of the Sokoto Caliphate (the largest 19th century Islamic empire in West Africa) as well as the early years of British colonial rule in Northern Nigeria, when many features of Caliphate economy and society were researched by colonial officials. The documents are also of value to historians of Africa in general, because such resources deal with labour, culture, intellectual history and inter-group relations in the African pre-colonial era.
The project successfully created 62,177 digital images. These are now available to view online.
EAP261 digitised a wide collection of rare and unique material related to Bengali drama. The material was held by a private collector, Dr Devajit Bandyopadhyay. The collection covers the 19th and early 20th centuries, and includes texts of formal 'modern' drama, texts of jatra or traditional Bengali folk theatre, books of songs from plays, and secondary material of that period.
Apart from the documentary value, the collection offers unique opportunities for historical and thematic study. Bengal saw the first major rise of Western-type drama in India. The Western influence derived largely from Shakespeare and other Renaissance drama, and had suggestive resemblances with traditional folk theatre. The entire process can be traced through this archive, combining jatra with Western-type drama.
249 titles were digitised, some of them multi-volume, making a total of 385 volumes and over one hundred thousand images.
EAP261/1/1/114 Image 39
EAP593 looked to survey material relating to Mexico’s indigenous population. It focused its search on the town of Tenejapa. The project aimed to preserve archives which show the culture and traditions of these communities, which are changing rapidly due to the modernisation of the area. These include photographs, negatives and personal documents. The project digitised a sample of these collections which are now available to view online.
EAP593/1/1 – Image 1
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
07 April 2014
New online collections - April 2014 - Part 1
This month has been a bumper one with nine collections going up online, adding over three hundred and fifty thousand images. To avoid an overload of projects April’s blog has been split into two parts. This blog is part one and describes the first five projects which are available; these are EAP207, EAP234, EAP284, EAP314 and EAP401. Two of these collections are South American, coming from Argentina and Peru. Another two come from Africa, originating from Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. The final collection comes from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
EAP207 digitised various collections of items stored at Museo de La Plata; these had been identified in a previous pilot project, EAP095. Museo de La Plata was established in Argentina in 1888. It was the first institution of its kind in South America, resulting from the donation of several anthropological and archaeological collections gathered during the 1870s. These collections provide a picture of pre-industrial societies across a wide area of South America during the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
The albums Boggiani, Bonaparte (Old and New World), and the Bolivian Collection represent objects used by ethnologists as visual data of indigenous peoples. The Moreno Album contains images from F. P. Moreno's collections at the Anthropology and Ethnography Museum of Buenos Aires, founded in 1878. This album along with the Calchaquí Album was presented at the Paris World Exhibition of 1878 and both contain very rare images.
EAP207/2/1 – Image 1
The second project EAP234 identified and catalogued colonial documents (1535-1929) held at the Lima Metropolitan Welfare Society, Peru. The archive holds documents about benefactors, foundations, brotherhoods, chaplaincies, rural and urban properties, slaves, wills, payments letters and accounts records which provide information on the daily operations of many charitable institutions. These documents are especially valuable as sources of economic, social, religious, art and medicinal history. As well as listing and organizing the material the project also produced a digital sample of the records, this is now available to view on our website.
EAP234/1/2/14/1 – Image 2
EAP284 is a pilot project which surveyed the records held at the Sierra Leone Public Archives. Sierra Leone was settled in 1787 by the 'black poor', who were mostly former slaves from London.1 Sierra Leone received successive waves of immigration, African American ex-slaves who had fled to Nova Scotia, Jamaican Maroons who had been removed from Jamaica and initially settled in Nova Scotia, but after facing cold winters and racism came to Freetown. There were also thousands of people who had been liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy after 1815 and settled in Freetown. As well as these there were migrants from the hinterland, including Muslims from the north and north east, and local ethnic groups - Mende, Temne, Vai, Sherbro. Sierra Leone became home to a unique polyglot Atlantic community. The records provide an insight into slavery, abolition, race, meanings of freedom and political sovereignty throughout the region.
The project was successful in surveying these archives and supplied a digital sample of some of the records; this is now available on our website.
EAP284/2/1 – Image 9
EAP401 was based in Ethiopia and looked at digitising records relating to Ethiopia’s Islamic Heritage. Islam was introduced to Ethiopia nearly 1500 years ago. The project undertook a survey to identify the most endangered Islamic manuscripts and archives in functioning and abandoned mosques, as well as looking at private holdings in North Shewa (Goze, Husiso), South Wello (Gedo Toleha, and Dodota) and Gacheni.
The project identified six abandoned mosques in the towns of Cheno, Dera and in South Wallo, 21 manuscripts were listed. Some manuscripts in poor conditions were relocated to the Gaceni District Culture and Tourism Bureau. Ten manuscripts were digitised and these are now available on our website.
EAP401/1/3 - Image 94
EAP314 located handwritten documents of village judicial assemblies, or traditional courts of customary law, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Though these assemblies never acquired legal sanctity the practice of recording the nature of the dispute and the judgment handed down by village elders became a standard procedure in this region of India. The records will enable researchers to acquire new insight into Tamil rural social life.
The project identified 45 individuals holding documents related to Tamil customary law and rural social history. The collections of 10 individuals were digitised, comprising 619 paper documents, 24 notebooks and 9 copperplates, these are now available to view on our website.
EAP314/10/2 – Image 19
Check back next week to see the final four projects!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
1. Pham, John-Peter (2005). Child soldiers, adult interests: the global dimensions of the Sierra Leonean tragedy. Nova Publishers. pp. 4–8. ISBN 978-1-59454-671-6.
03 February 2014
New online collections - February 2014
EAP now has over one million images available online!
We have four new online collections this month which has taken the total number of images available in our collections over the one million mark; EAP201, EAP279, EAP295, EAP529. These collections come from India, Lesotho in Southern Africa, Grenada and Mongolia.
EAP201 surveyed and digitised collections of Hakku Patras in Andhra Pradesh, one of the 28 states of India. Hakku Patras are documents which grant folk performers and artisans the right to carry out certain activities in specific villages and areas. These performers are prohibited from performing in a region not assigned to them. Within their region they carry out folk performances and perform religious rituals, for providing these services they are paid renumerations (katnam).
EAP201/1/5/8 Image 1
The project found the details for many Hakku Patras held by nomadic and non-nomadic performing communities. The documents are inscribed on copper plates or written paper. The contents of Hakku Patras contain the name of the village, performing community, date of the sanctioning of the grant and the form of the performance.
EAP279 digitised the Matsieng Royal Archives, Lesotho. The Royal Family of Lesotho has been based there continuously since the founding of Matsieng, which has been a 'royal hub' of the Basotho kingship and chieftainship. The documents cover material dating from the early 19th century. The archives include records of historical, political, legal and economic significance.
EAP279/1/2/34 Image 159
The project digitised two main collections of documents. The first are Bewis (Bewys) records dating from 1942-1973, these records are certificates of ownership which were issued by chiefs to animal owners as a proof that they are the rightful owners of their animals. When acquiring or disposing of an animal the person had to apply for bewis from his chief. Even when a person was selling wool, mohair, skin or hides he had to have a bewis. The chief on his part had to satisfy himself that the animal had not been stolen. Bewis were issued for cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats as proof of ownership. It was mandatory for owners of animals to have bewis.
The second series of documents relates to the chieftaincy. These records include correspondence between the office of the paramount chief and the principal and ward chiefs, correspondence between the paramount chief and the resident commissioner, complaints between the chiefs and complaints between chiefs and the public.
EAP295 digitised the unique historical archives of Grenada. The material provides a micro-vision of how Grenada was transformed in the late eighteenth century by imperial conflicts, the expansion of plantation slavery and revolutionary politics. The two main sources of records are from Government House and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court records reveal the multi-racial alliances and conflicts that marked slave society while the Government House correspondence shows the local negotiations and conflicts that shaped the prolonged transition to a free society during the mid-nineteenth century.
During Hurricane Ivan in 2004 the Grenada Public library lost part of its roof and the Government House correspondence became displaced and out of order. The project had to reorder this material chronologically before digitising it.
The material at the Supreme Court Registry was far better preserved than at Government House as it was relatively unaffected by Hurricane Ivan. Loose-leaf documents previously identified as connected to the eighteenth century French Deeds formed the initial focus of in situ digitisation in the Supreme Court Registry. Digitisation also covered some of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registers.
EAP295/1/1/1 Image 3
EAP529 set out to digitise the 19-20th century collection of Buddhist Manuscripts from Dambadarjaa monastery in Mongolia. The communist purges from 1937-1938 saw the destruction of many monasteries in Mongolia. The Dambadarjaa monastery, one of the first three monasteries in Mongolia which was built between 1761 and 1765, was reduced to two temples and two shrines from an original total of 25 buildings.
Today, what remains of the monastery is subject to structural aging and is in a critical condition since no repair works have been undertaken since the 1930s. One of the temples holds around 1,500 Buddhist manuscripts and ritual items used in the religious service for the public. All the manuscripts are subject to damage by mice, temperature fluctuations and fire.
The project focused on 200 of the most old and fragile Buddhist Manuscripts dating from 1860-1920s. All 200 manuscripts were repackaged in fire-proof and acid-free containers, while 51 of the manuscripts were selected for digitisation and can now be viewed online.
EAP529/1/1 Image 3
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
04 November 2013
New online collections – November 2013
This month we have had another six projects go up online, containing over 100,000 images. These projects were EAP054, EAP264, EAP265, EAP503, EAP531 and EAP548.
EAP054 digitised items from Jacques Tousselle’s Cameroonian photographic studio. He was a photographer who worked in Mbouda, West Cameroon. His main business was photographing individual portraits created for identity cards, though he also took family portraits and other scenes. The black and white photograph industry of Cameroon effectively came to an end after 1998 with the introduction of new identity cards. These were issued with instant photographs, removing the largest custom of rural photographers. The project digitised some 20,000 negatives and preserved them for future research. The archive shows some fascinating images and represents a record of life in this area from the 1970s to the 1980s.
EAP054/1/21 – Image 60
EAP548 is a pilot project which digitised narrative and ritual texts, paintings and other performance related material belonging to the Buchen of Pin Valley, India.
The Buchen are performers of specialist rituals, travelling actors and disciples of the 14th-15th century ‘crazy saint’ Thangtong Gyalpo. They reside in the culturally Tibetan Pin Valley in Spiti, North India. Buchen households possess individual ‘archives’, collections of written story texts, texts of exorcism/healing rituals, thangkas and other ritual paraphernalia. This project surveyed all active and dormant Buchen households and produced a report of their archival holdings. It also surveyed performance related objects such as masks, costumes, statues and musical instruments. A sample of digital images of these items is now available to view on the EAP website.
EAP548/1/2/2 – Image 1
EAP531 is another pilot project which surveyed manuscripts of the Cham people in Vietnam. The Champa kingdom was eliminated by the Viet in 1720, though their culture remains in the surviving large communities of Cham people in Vietnam. The project surveyed some of these communities along with archives and museums to discover remaining Cham manuscripts. These contain rich information about Cham customs, religious practices, literature and daily activities. Manuscripts still in existence are mainly from 50 to 150 years old. A selection of manuscripts were sent by the project and can be viewed online.
EAP531/1/2 - Image 133
EAP265 surveyed and digitised Tifinagh rock inscriptions in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains, in south western Libya. Tifinagh is a Tuareg word indicating the traditional writing still in use throughout the Sahara desert. The inscriptions are a remarkable record related to the history, both ancient and modern, of the Acacus Mountains. According to research carried out in other North African regions (i.e. Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Algeria), the age of those scripts range from the second century BC up to recent times. In contrast to what has been done elsewhere the Libyan rock scripts of the Tadrart Acacus had never been the object of systematic investigation. As a result of this project, one of the largest Tifinagh collections available so far has been recorded, creating over a thousand digital images which are now available to view on our website.
EAP265/1/51 – Image 1
EAP503 digitised notarial records from the city of Riohacha, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the peninsula of La Guajira. These records document the region’s rich commercial and social history. They contain land and property documents, commercial records pertaining to the commercial exchanges among the Spanish, foreigners, and indigenous Guajiros, records relating to the slave trade, such as selling and purchasing of slaves as well as manumission documents (when slave owners freed their slaves). There are also wills and testaments of the most important families of the region, showing the social and political alliances existing at that time. The project also digitised ecclesiastical and notarial records in Lorica, Colombia.
EAP503/3/1/6 – Image 8
EAP264 digitised the glass plate collections of the Archives for Cinema, Photography and Sound Recording in Mongolia. Over 10,000 glass plate negatives were digitised. These negatives cover an impressively wide range of topics and contain some captivating images.
The collection has images relating to the military, public health, rural life, archaeology, prominent individuals, people who were politically repressed during the 1930s, historical documents, construction works, industrial development, Mongolia's contribution to the victory of WWII, culture, religion and politics. As the original items are fragile the digitisation allows these materials to be accessed without further damaging the glass plate negatives.
This project was recently featured in our previous blog post by Jody comparing 1930’s Mongolia with the present day, you can read this blog to find out more about this fascinating collection.
EAP264/1/8/11 – Image 57
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
14 January 2013
A visit to the British Library
When I mention to friends that I have a new job and explain to them about the Endangered Archives Programme, their initial reaction is one of pure envy as they envisage me jet-setting around the world. This of course is not the case; I just sit glued to my desk contacting the various grant-holders by email.
So when Mr Ganesan emailed to say he was passing through London and wanted to drop off the hard drive for EAP372, it was a wonderful opportunity to hear first hand of the work being carried out at the Roja Muthiah Research Library and in particular the EAP project of digitising early periodicals and newspapers of Tamilnadu and Pondichery.
Here are a few images from the archive:
This is the cover page to the 1948 publication ‘Ashoka’.
An advertisement that can be found inside
I particularly enjoyed coming across this page from ‘Ciraji’ published in 1949. I just love all the small characters around the border.
07 September 2012
August Accessions
During August we received the final Survey Report from EAP469 Last traces of a destroyed community: surveying the Hungarian Jewish congretational archives and digital copies of periodicals from EAP191 Strategies for archiving the endangered publications of French India (1800-1923).
EAP469 was a pilot project that set out to visit and survey the records of Hungarian Jewish congregations. The project team visited 20 congregations and found many valuable and fragile records. These included birth, death and marriage registers; minutes of meetings of various community bodies; financial, cash and tax registers; lists of community members; Holocaust -related material; and registered documents of the community's administration. The Survey Report will be made available on the EAP webpages.
EAP191 was a major project aimed at digitally preserving the serials published in French India that are held by the libray of the French Institute of Pondicherry. The project has successfully copied five rare series and some miscellaneous volumes of four periodicals published in Pondicherry, under the French colonial administration, between 1823 and 1954.
Among the five main periodicals copied, two are the gazette of the French colonial government. These publications contain administrative and judicial records, including important laws, government ordinances, administrative appointments, circulars and announcements. They serve as an archive of colonial memory, providing a record of different colonial practices. A third publication is the subject index of the gazette. A fourth series relates to historical studies while a fifth is a popular magazine for the young. Among the miscellaneous volumes are: a monthly containing pedagogical material, a religious monthly, the government's official yearbook and proceedings of meetings of the General Council of French India.
14 December 2011
November Accessions
A little later than usual, but we have not forgotten our monthly 'Accessions' post. During November the Programme received material from three projects:
The EAP128 project digitised Thai LGBT publications and arranged for the original materials to be transferred to a local archive where they will be safely housed and made available for research. Further details about this project can be found in the October Accession post, or by clicking on the link above.
This project is creating surrogate copies of written personal memoirs, diaries and other family archives as well as oral histories of inhabitants of the South and South-East Ukraine originally taped during 1994-2006.
EAP372: Preserving early periodicals and newspapers of Tamilnadu and Pondichery
EAP372 is copying endangered newspaper and periodical titles from South India.
Lynda
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