This blog features the final three new projects available online this month. These are EAP164, EAP566 and EAP684.

EAP164 digitised collections which document pre-industrial society on the Ukrainian Steppe. During the last 10 years the Zaporizhzhia Learned Society of Ya. Novytskyi (attached to Zaporizhzhia National University) has been working on the discovery of documents representing the different ethnic and religious social groups that existed on the Steppe. These include former Zaporozhian Cossacks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, Armenians and Germans. EAP164 digitised the material which the society discovered on its various surveys.

The digitised images that are now online include personal memoirs, diaries and letters as well as official records and photographs.

EAP164/1/15/2: Archives of Ljax. Book 2 – Image 1

EAP566 digitised Urdu periodicals from India and Pakistan. These periodicals have enormous significance for the understanding of Urdu culture and history of colonial India. Urdu was the dominant language of interchange in India throughout most of the nineteenth century. Since printing in India was cheap, anyone with an opinion might and often did publish a statement of their views. Often such publications were of limited editions, frequently a few hundred copies, and were not collected by many libraries. Yet these publications provide us today with a broad spectrum of writings by colonial Indians on all major and many minor issues of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such writings are invaluable to historians of social, cultural, literary, and intellectual change.

The project carefully selected some of the most important Urdu periodicals which were in danger of being lost forever. These periodicals were successfully digitised and are now available to view online.

EAP566/1/1/10/6: Maulvi (Volume 30, Issue 6) [1940] – Image 2

The final project this month is EAP684; this surveyed the collections of the National Archives of Burundi to provide information on the documents which are in a fragile physical condition. A small sample of material was digitised and this is now available to view online.

EAP684/1/4/1: Agriculture, Fishing, fish farming [1949-1950] – 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.

Documents, manuscripts, photographs and sound recordings that capture much of the world’s memory are preserved in vulnerable collections around the globe. If they perish, part of history is irrevocably lost. In the past, efforts to preserve these collections and make them available for scholarly interpretation often meant removing them to the safety of western libraries. Though well intentioned, these actions frequently had unintended consequences. Preserved and available to scholars, the materials became inaccessible to the communities whose history they captured. This had a twofold effect: it impaired the communities’ ability to write their own history and at the same time, by detaching documents from original context, led to the loss of an important layer of historical information.

EAP039 Buddhist manuscripts from the library of the remote Gangtey monastery in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan © Dr Karma Phuntsho

The Endangered Archives Programme uses digitisation to preserve records and to make them freely accessible to all, without removing original materials from their custodians. Whenever possible the projects help the keepers to secure the survival of the original documents. Because the materials are often too fragile to be handled on a regular basis, the digital surrogates frequently provide the only point of access not only for scholars worldwide, but also for local readers. By making digital records available to all, the programme ensures that the history they capture is open to wide audiences, multiple perspectives and diverse interpretations.

EAP334 Locating and digitising manuscripts in Wolof Ajami script, written by members of the Muridiyya Sufi order founded in Senegal in 1883 © Dr Fallou Ngom

The “From Dust to Digital” volume, which marks the 10^th anniversary of the Endangered Archives Programme, showcases the historical importance and research potential of the digitised collections. The open access online version of the book is designed to ensure that not only the primary sources, but also the research they have inspired, are freely available to all. The book brings together 19 articles from the 244 projects that the programme has supported since its inception. We asked the authors to focus on the digitised collections, but gave them complete freedom in choosing specific questions they wanted to explore. The intention was to ensure that the volume illustrates a wide range of research that the EAP collections make possible.

The chapters discuss inscriptions in Libya; manuscripts in India, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mali; archival records in Bulgaria, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, Senegal, Palestine; photographic collections in Argentina, India, Russia and Cameroon; and sound recordings from Guinea, Iran and the Russian Federation. The articles tackle the fundamental problems of transcribing and translating – sometimes for the very first time – languages that have nearly fallen silent. They investigate historical transmission of texts and explore the processes underlying collection formation. They bring to light unknown events and cast new light on historical phenomena. They provide vivid insights into local and even personal histories. 

EAP526 The priests of May Wäyni monastery with their manuscripts, Ethiopia © Professor Michael Gervers

Many of the contributions stress the importance of the original context for our understanding of the materials. The physical location of inscriptions within a landscape; the ceremonies preceding a reading of a manuscript; the place that a manuscript or a photograph holds within a larger collection, are all important for our interpretation of these documents. Without them we can only see a part of the story.

Most of the sources discussed here were not previously subjects of scholarly attention. We hope that this publication will open new debates and inspire scholars to explore the archives preserved by the Endangered Archives Programme. We also hope that open access to both the primary sources and to the articles in the “From Dust to Digital” volume will encourage future authors to make their research freely available to all.

  Roly Keating, Chief Executive of the British Library, with Ambassador of the Lao Embassy, H.E. Mr. Sayakane Sisouvong and the 3rd Secretary, Mr Moungkhoun Chansavath at the book launch held at the Library on the 17th February 2015.

Gabriela Ramos and Evelyne Mesclier browsing through the publication.

Dr Maja Kominko

Cultural Grants Manager at Arcadia and the editor for the publication “From Dust to Digital”

This month we have had seven new projects go online with over five hundred thousand images. These are EAP164, EAP171, EAP387, EAP505, EAP566, EAP638 and EAP684 and include rural records from the Ukrainian Steppe, parish records from Brazil, endangered Urdu periodicals and the archives from a publishing company in Argentina. This blog will focus on four projects EAP171, EAP387, EAP505 and EAP638. Another blog will feature the final three projects in a couple of weeks.

EAP638 follows on from the work of EAP375, digitising material from the Haynes publishing company archive in Argentina. The company was created by Albert M. Haynes, a British citizen who went to Argentina originally to work for the Buenos Aires Western Railway. After his retirement he founded the Haynes Publishing Company in 1904, it remained active until its closure in 1968.

The project digitised the most significant articles on specific subjects published by Haynes and other newspapers. As they offer an extended coverage of events from all the main newspapers of the region they present a fantastic resource for researchers. The material contains marvels such as photographs, painted illustrations, memoirs, statistical data, personal letters, and even film. The image below is a photograph of the acclaimed Argentine lyrical soprano Isabel Marengo.

EAP638/1/1/198: Isabel Marengo – Image 3

EAP387 digitised 93 manuscripts of Fulfude jihad poetry. The bulk consists of 43 poems by Usman dan Fodio and 26 poems by his daughter Nana Asma'u.

In Northern Nigeria the tradition of reciting religiously inspired poetry is supported by the existence of written copies of these poems. These manuscripts are sometimes hundreds of years old and they have been handed down as precious treasures from generation to generation. The poems in this particular collection are all written in Fulfulde, and in Ajami, the Arabic alphabet adapted for African languages. Below is a page from the poem Shi'irut Tawbati about forgiveness and repentance.

EAP387/1/4/4: Shi'irut tawbati [19th Century ] – Image 1

EAP505 digitised parish records from Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. These include baptism, marriage and death registers from the parishes of Nossa Senhora de Apresentacao, Angicos, Canguaretama, Goianinha and Santana do Matos. These records can help to build a demographic history of those regions. The Catholic Church Records are incredibly useful as a large amount of the Brazilian population was a member of the church. There was no civil registration until after 1850 so baptismal records became the longest and most uniform serial data available for understanding the history of the population in Brazil. Once baptised the person and their descendants became eligible for the sacraments of marriage and Christian burial, thus generating additional records of their lives.

EAP505/4/1/2: Baptism Register. No. 2. Goianinha [1860-1864] – Image 7

The last project, EAP171 was a pilot project which surveyed 18th - 20th Century documents from Nepal. The project digitised a small selection of the material; this is available to view now.

EAP171/1/3: Record of sale of tax exempt land – 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.

Happy New Year from the Endangered Archives Programme. As we welcome in the New Year we are also celebrating reaching over 4 million images available in our online collections. The three new projects online this month have moved us over this milestone.  These are EAP532, EAP584 and EAP676. They come from Nigeria, India and Nepal.

The first project is EAP532, it preserved and digitised two collections of records from the Benue valley in Central Nigeria. The first of these collections is the transcribed oral and written records in the private collection of the late renowned scholar of Central Nigeria, Charles Creswell Jacobs. The second is the Methodist Mission’s ecclesiastical records in Otukpo.

The CC Jacobs collection is significant in several respects, apart from being the largest individual archival collections on the Central Nigerian region and its peoples, it is also the most systematic and detailed. It contains copies of some files that are currently missing from the National Archives, Kaduna, which deal with the customs and cultures of the largely non-Muslim communities of Central Nigeria.

The Otukpo Mission’s collection contains individual and institutional narratives on late nineteenth and early twentieth century anti-slavery efforts of Christian groups to combat the relics of slavery and convert people to Christianity. They also contain commentaries on colonisation and colonial society in Idomaland that are unencumbered by the strictures of colonial bureaucracy. Missionary records are invaluable materials for reconstructing colonial histories beyond the formulaic style of standard colonial archives.

The project created a digital archive of documents from these two collections. Approximately 100,000 digital images of documents were created.

EAP532/1/2/21: The Locust Infestations [November 28, 1934] – Image 1

EAP584.  digitised palm leaf manuscripts from Kerala, India. It carries on the work done by the pilot project EAP208. 

950 palm leaf manuscripts have been digitised in this project, creating approximately 200,000 images. Kerala is a region rich in traditional knowledge and these manuscripts include material from diverse disciplines such as history, the sciences, mathematics, architecture, philosophy and scripture. Most of the manuscripts are around 300-400 years old though some are around 600-700 years old.

A major portion of the manuscripts were held by private collectors in repositories that were old and dust-ridden. They were under threat due to a lack of knowledge for preservation. Until recently, consigning manuscripts into the sea or river on auspicious days was considered the best practice to preserve them, to avoid the sin of witnessing their decay. Workshops on preventive conservation were held for owners, so that they may better safeguard them for the future.

EAP584/1/182: Dharmaśāstraṃ [17th century] – Image 74

EAP676 carried out a survey of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts owned by Vajrayana Viharas (Buddhist Temples) and Newar Buddhist families in Lalitpur, Nepal.

Due to the significance of the Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts of Nepal being the only original sources of Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhist scholars and monks around the world have collected and studied them. Most efforts to date have been focused on researching institutional holdings. However, the prevailing manuscript culture led individual Buddhists to store and preserve them in Viharas and individual Buddhist families. No official information is available on such holdings. Consequently, the manuscripts are gradually decaying. This project surveyed Viharas and individual collections, and provided detailed information about their collections. Important and vulnerable texts were digitised and preserved for future use. This created around 10,000 images of manuscripts which are now available to view online.

EAP676/2/25: Maṇḍapa Vāstu Cakra – 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.

Kenya Jamhuri Day, 12 December 2014

The Riyadha Mosque in Lamu, Kenya, is home to a collection of Islamic manuscripts that documents and preserves the teaching traditions of the Lamu archipelago from c.1850 to 1950. In the EAP online collection, under the unassuming name of EAP466/1/18, can be found a 241-page compilation of prayers, litanies and invocations. It is prefaced by an inscription, framed by an ochre and black geometrical pattern, which reads, somewhat ominously: “This book, what is in it, is in it. Whomsoever does not know what is in it, may the dog pee in his mouth.”

EAP466/1/18

When they were copied some time in the mid-19th century, these texts had been handed down through generations, and were well known in the wider Swahili world - indeed in the Islamic world as a whole. In the volume, we find for example the Mawlid Barzanji, authored in the 18th century, and widely recited in East Africa to this day. It narrates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, including the “heavenly handmaidens” who according to popular tradition attended his mother Amina. Knowledge of this type of text constituted what it meant to be a member of coastal Muslim community in 19th-century Lamu, through a “core curriculum” that regulated individual and collective practice of Islam. In short, knowing these texts made you part of mainstream culture. Failure to acquire this knowledge could mean social exclusion – or, more often, non-inclusion if you were an outsider to Lamu society. The consequences, as indicated by the inscription, could be dire.

A first assumption here is to interpret this threat as an eccentric liberty taken by the copyist, perhaps a poke at a madrasa (Islamic school) teacher who may have used these exact words during class. However, unusual though it may be, a similar worded warning can be found in at least one other manuscript from the Swahili coast, again cautioning against unwanted attention from dogs. The message is clear: Know you culture, your religion – and your identity – or else face exclusion.

As the volume stands today in the Riyadha library, it is owned by the mosque but forms part of the heritage of Lamu Muslim society, and that of the wider Swahili world. It is also part of the national heritage of Kenya. As Kenya celebrates its 50th Jamhuri (Republic) Day, it is sadly not in an atmosphere of tranquillity. The Westgate attacks in Nairobi in 2013 brought the world’s attention to Jihadist-style terrorism within Kenya’s border, but also to the looting by the security personnel in the wake of the killings. However, the mistrust between the coastal population and the authorities has simmered for years, and caused rifts between sections of the costal Swahilis. Religious leaders have been assassinated, attempts at cultural and religious dialogue have stalled under the threat of violence. Couple this with large-scale foreign and domestic investment, land-grabbing, corruption, the continuing turmoil in Somalia and the expansion of al-Shabbab on the coast, Kenya is facing challenges that threatens its stability and – ultimately – even its unity.

As has been shown in recent studies, access to, and use of heritage (including scientific research), is often unequally distributed and represented in the national narratives when new nations are formed. Jamhuri day is a nationwide day of celebration of Kenya’s freedom, but also of its diversity, its multiple and parallel pasts. As coastal Kenya struggles to express its perceived marginalisation, it can look to its own rich past, and to the various ways in which it incorporated new populations into Swahili society. From this vantage point, the coast may find new ways to represent itself in the national narrative of Kenya in the coming 50 years. The message from a 19th-century copyist can still be relevant. 

Click on the link if you would like to read more about the manuscript collection at Riyadha Mosque 

Dr. Anne K. Bang, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway

Grant holder EAP466

 

 

For the final month of 2014 we have had four collections go up online: EAP160, EAP220, EAP449 and EAP571. These collections come from Bolivia, Ukraine, Mali and Nicaragua.

EAP160 digitised records relating to the indigenous population of Bolivia during the 19th century. The records they preserved are called padrones; these documents are testimonies of an old tributary system associated with land tenure. Bolivia has the largest indigenous population in Latin America. Most of the indigenous population has lived since the Colonial period in the high plateau, known as the Altiplano boliviano, at 4,000 meters above sea level.

After Bolivia's independence and throughout the 19th century, only a small amount of Bolivians lived in the urban area. The bulk of the population was concentrated in the department of La Paz, specifically the rural area.

The indigenous population that lived in the communities and in the haciendas (large private estates) continued paying, as in the Colonial period, a state tax known as the indigenal contribution, amounting to as much as 40% of the state total income. For tax purposes, the government registered all the indigenous population in the communities and haciendas, the information was collected in the registers called padrones.

These registers are still an important legal source for present day land tenure consolidation. Many indigenous communities and individuals use these records as proof of their community membership and land tenure.

This project successfully created 92,000 digital images from 441 books containing the padrones.

EAP160/1/1/2/2 Image 2 - Matricula General Que Manifiesta El Total De Familias Indigenas Contribuyentes En El Año 1848 [1848]

EAP220 was a pilot project that searched for and catalogued all archival material from the archaeological studies carried out at the ancient Russ hillfort Rajki in Ukraine. These surveys took place between 1929-1935 during the archaeological expeditions led by T.N. Movchanovskiy. The project surveyed records held in the archive repository of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, where these materials were stored in various collections. The project also searched for documents in Rajki village, as well as in a range of other archival institutions in Kiev, Berdychiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa and Zhytomyr. A survey was produced which lists all the discovered archival documents and states the repositories where they are held. Digital samples of the collections were created.

EAP220/1/7 Image 1 - Photographic Negatives on Glass [1929-1935]

EAP449 digitised the archives of two professional photographers from Mali, Abdourahmane Sakaly and Mamadou Cissé. They were among the earliest professional African photographers in Mali. The collections contain rare historical documentation of traditional Mali life (rural, ethnic-based customs, ceremonies, and artefacts) and show the processes of urban development. Dating from the 1940s-1960s the photographs show an era of great change in Mali’s history. Employed by colonial and national governments, as well as operating private studio enterprises, each collection houses unique archives including personal and family portraits, military activities, visits of foreign dignitaries and images of the coup d’état that toppled the regime of the nation’s first president Modibo Keïta.

These images are significant for the social history and cultural heritage of Mali, as well as the artistic legacy of these locally, and internationally, celebrated photographers. They are important for scholarship on colonial and post-colonial histories in western Africa, and studies of local art and culture.

EAP449/1/10 – Image 16 - Mamadou Cissé's Photographs numbers 901-1,000

The final project that went online this month is EAP571. It digitised newspapers from Nicaragua dating from the first half of the 20th century.

This collection of newspapers represents a primary resource for research and analysis of this turbulent period for national and regional history in Nicaragua. They contain details of the conflicts and political debates of the period, as well as cultural and economic transformations, coffee production and the nation state building process. These newspapers are unique sources to study the US military intervention and the dispute with Great Britain over the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast. This collection stands as a unique source for studying the first half of the twentieth century in Nicaragua.

The project successfully digitised 5,874 newspaper issues, totalling 31,505 TIFF images.

EAP571/5/1 Pt1- Image 5 - El Liberal

I hope you have a Happy Christmas and will come back next month to see what else has been added to our collections.

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This blog covers the remaining four new projects which are now available to view online, these are EAP285, EAP618, EAP110 and EAP211.  

EAP285 is a major project that carried on the work which the EAP067 pilot project had begun. The pilot project had surveyed collections of materials which relate to the Gypsy/Roma communities in Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, many different materials dating from the beginning of the twentieth century can be found which reflect the life of nomadic and settled communities of Gypsies in the pre-industrial period in their first attempts for empowerment and their struggle for equality.

The project completed the collection and digitisation of material located in Bulgaria by the pilot project.

Photographs were collected from the 1940s through to the 1980s reflecting the life of Roma in Sofia Roma quarters. The Members of Roma students organisation collected from different places photographs and documents, most interesting among them is a certificate of gratitude to a Roma, who died as a soldier in the (Bulkan Wars) 1912-1913. The members of the Roma students organisation also introduced the project team to an old lady from the Gypsy quarter of Montana, who donated her family’s unique collection of oral histories, which included a description of the creation and history of the Roma quarter in the town of Montana, everyday life, customs and holidays of Roma living there as well as some short folklore genres (proverbs and humorous narratives). Nikola Ivanov, a Roma from a group of nomadic Gypsies, donated to the project his collection of old Romani fairy-tales and ballads.

One of the achievements of the project was the digitisation of Dimitar Golemanov’s collection, which included letters, written songs and fairy tales. Dimiter Golemanov was a famous Roma activist and intellectual during the time of the communist regime and these materials reflected his poetical and musical work as well as his international contacts with Roma intellectuals and activists. Documents were also found on the pioneering linguistic work of one of the most important Bulgarian Roma Romani studies scholars, Donald Kenrick. Very interesting material was collected from old nomadic Gypsies from the Kardarasha group, who remembered the time of active nomadism.

EAP285/2/21 – Image 1

EAP618 digitised 5,564 photographs and negatives of ethnographic and historical objects, reflecting pre-industrial Bulgarian history and culture. The scholarly archive of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum is the oldest collection of Bulgarian pre-industrial and early modern traditional culture. This rich and unique ethnographic archive consists of several collections of written documents as well as some fascinating photograph collections which illustrate elements of traditional spiritual culture: ritual masks, agricultural and horticultural activities, calendar customs, folk costumes and traditional architecture.

EAP618/3/2 Pt2– Image 306

EAP110 is a continuation of the EAP005 pilot project, which looked at the records held at the National Archives of Tuvalu. Tuvalu consists of nine islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean and achieved independence from Great Britain in 1978. Vital documentation of the cultural and political heritage of Tuvalu is held in an intermittently air-conditioned room. The archives are endangered through the risk of being washed away in a cyclone-prone area. There is a regular danger of archives being saturated and damaged by tidal surges, especially during the cyclone season. Some material such as Births, Deaths and Marriage registers, Lands records, records of its local colonial administration and newspapers are in particularly poor condition through heavy usage.

The pilot project surveyed the Tuvalu National Archives holdings, assessing the extent of work required to prepare important series for preservation. In addition it also discovered the existence of manuscripts, genealogies, photographs and other records of Tuvaluan society in private hands.

EAP110 carried out the digitisation of this material, producing over 70,000 images comprising of over 1,276 documents. These are now available to view online.

EAP110/1/16/1 Pt 2 - Image 206

EAP211 digitised Cirebon manuscripts. Cirebon was one of the important Islamic Sultanates in Java, together with Demak and Banten, and had been a centre for Islamic learning and the dissemination of Islamic teachings in West Java. Cirebon was also considered to be one of the cultural centres in the Indonesian archipelago, which can be seen in its manuscripts.

These Cirebon manuscripts contribute towards the understanding of Islamic intellectual and cultural heritages, and will help to reconstruct how Islam spread in West Java in the period of the 15th century to the first half of the 20th century. According to the latest survey, Cirebon manuscripts are mostly damaged because of inappropriate treatment and natural causes. Others were neglected due to a lack of knowledge about the storage and handling of manuscripts.

Up to now, these manuscripts have not been explored and studied by either local or foreign scholars and there is no published catalogue of them. They include Qur'an and religious manuscripts, the story of puppet shadow (wayang), genealogy of Cirebon sultans, traditional healings, literatures, Cirebon traditional chronicles, Javanese Islamic mysticism written as poetry (Suluk), divining manuals, and manuscripts of talismans. The majority of them are in a fragile condition. This project covered the whole area of the former Cirebon Sultanate (including Kasepuhan, Kanoman, Kacirebonan, and Kaprabon), Pengguron and Sanggar,

The project succeeded in digitising 176 manuscripts creating 17,361 images. These are now available to view online.

 

EAP211/1/1/38 – Image 50

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.

This month we have had eight new collections go up online, with over five hundred thousand new images now available to view on our website. This blog will focus on four of the new projects, EAP148, EAP128, EAP180 and EAP183. Part 2 will be published next week and will cover the remaining four projects EAP285, EAP618, EAP110 and EAP211. 

The first collection is EAP148, this project carried out an inventory of archival holdings in Jamaica. This targeted libraries and archives which contain valuable historical collections that focus on the lives of enslaved Africans and free blacks in Jamaica during the period 1655-1800. The documents are important to scholars studying the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, and supplement the extensive records that are held in Britain on the forced migration of Africans to Jamaica.

The project compiled inventories of original documentation published before 1800, which are in the possession of four institutions, the Jamaica Archives, Roman Catholic Chancery’s Archive, University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Mona and the National Library of Jamaica (NLJ). At the Jamaica Archives, the Manumission of Slaves, volumes 5 through 12 were digitised, which cover the period 1747-1778. At UWI the team compiled an inventory of approximately 150 items and 10 primary sources were digitised, these documents cover the historical period 1493-1800. At the Chancery, Several burial, baptismal and marriage records were digitised. At the NLJ, the team compiled an inventory of approximately 90 items and 12 primary sources were digitised. 

EAP148/1/10 – Image 40

EAP128 digitised publications related to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities in Thailand. Bangkok is home to some of Asia's earliest and largest GLBT communities.

Since the 1970s, Thailand's GLBT communities have produced large quantities of Thai language publications including multi-issue periodicals and magazines and community organisation newsletters. This large volume of material, totalling several thousand items, documents the history of one of the world's most important non-Western homosexual/transgender cultures and is a largely untouched research resource. These materials are in danger of being destroyed and disappearing completely. Since no Thai or western library or archive has collected these materials, the only remaining copies are in the hands of private collectors.

A total of 648 issues of Thai gay, lesbian and transgender community organisations and commercial magazines from 32 different series were collected and digitised. These are now available to view online.

EAP128/1/14/1 – Image 1

EAP180 digitised one of the largest collections of early printed books and periodicals in the Republic of Armenia, located in the Fundamental Scientific Library (FSL).

After the establishment of the communist regime in Armenia in 1920 and the ideological cleansings of 1937, substantial numbers of manuscripts and books were destroyed and the remaining material was confined to the archives. A huge number of Armenian periodicals published during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were placed in closed archives, as they represented views which the Soviet regime did not want circulated. The FSL was selected by the authorities to house this material and a very limited number of researchers had access to these materials. Since 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet regime and the emergence of Armenia as an independent republic, all spheres of Armenian society have experienced a tremendous and fundamental change. This category of material previously closed is now open to all users. Periodical literature is a vital and unique source of information for the study of the history of the Armenian diaspora, literature, culture, institutions, church life and politics. The condition of the material is in danger because of its storage conditions and the quality of the paper they were printed on. The fluctuation of temperatures and level of humidity in the stacks during the autumn and spring seasons remains uncontrolled. This has caused the physical condition of the materials to deteriorate and many of the rare books have been lost already. 

This project digitised over 4200 volumes and has ensured that the information contained in these volumes will be preserved for research.

If you would like to know more about this project and gain insight into the digitisation procedures of an EAP project you can read an article by the project leaders Alan Hopkinson and Tigran Zargaryan, “Peculiarities of digitising materials from the collections of the National Academy of Sciences, Armenia”.

EAP180/1/1/116 Image 149

EAP183 preserved early print literature on the history of Tamilnadu. The aim of the project was to preserve and provide access to a very important segment of cultural material that reflects the history of Tamilnadu. The project preserved over 150,000 images on microfilm reels and then digitised them for better access. The materials were identified through library surveys and were borrowed and shipped to the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) for microfilming and digitisation. The subject material is important for scholars to reconstruct the history of Tamilnadu, covering areas such as the Self-Respect Movement, Dravidian movement, Bhakti movement and other social and cultural histories of the 19th and early 20th century Tamilnadu.

EAP183/1/1/261 – Image 11

Check back next week to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.