It's become a regular thing for me to post updates on the material we receive each month. This is a good opportunity for me to advertise new EAP accessions, with images that illustrate the type of records being copied. I hope readers of this blog find this interesting. Unfortunately, there were no new accessions during November.

Already December is proving to be a more active month. Several older projects are winding up and newer projects getting into their stride. We've already received over 200 DVDs from 3 different sources. But, you'll have to wait for next month's 'Accessions' post for details.

Lynda

This week the EAP team welcomes another member. Our new Cataloguer, Alex Hailey, will be cataloguing records we've received over the past few years from several different projects. While he's here, Alex will also submit posts to this blog, providing updates on catalogues and sharing interesting items he finds.

Last month we received material from two projects. Towards the end of October we received another consignment of discs from the United National Independence Party of Zambia. Included were correspondence papers from Regional Headquarters and minutes of government and provincial committee meetings, plus correspondence concerning elections. This project is nearly completed and we expect to receive more material in November.

We also received microfilm from the project Preserving early print literature on the history of Tamilnadu.

This project aims to produce both microfilm and digital copies of 19th and 20th century books and periodicals and to make them available to researchers. The material is currently housed in different library and private collections. The items being copied relate to the Dravidian and politicals movements. They also cover the histories of Vaishnaviam, Saivism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. The images here have been produced from the microfilm by the project.

It's November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. In Britain, on this day, we commemorate the gun powder plot of 1605 which failed to blow up James I's parliament. The lives of many politicians and other people were saved. I often think, though, that in the act of destroying parliament the explosion would also have destroyed a large number of government papers and archives.

It's worth reflecting that, by thwarting the conspirators, the authorities simultaneously rescued some of Britain's important and irreplaceable political documentary heritage. This made me wonder how many political archives are the subject of EAP surveying or copying activities. As it turns out, quite a few. And they are:

Tuvalu National Archives preservatoin pilot project and Tuvalu National Archives major project

First Yap State Constitutional Convention audio tapes conversion project

Rescuing Liberian history: a pilot study to preserve and enable access to Liberia's Presidential and National Archives and Rescuing Liberian history: preserving the personal papers of William V S Tubman, Liberia's longest serving President and Rescuing Liberian history - preserving the photographs of William VS Tubman, Liberia's longest serving President

Pilot project to seek, identify, contact and report on collections of the endangered archives of the states of Maranhao and Para in the Amazon region of Brazil and Endangered African diaspora collections of the State of Para in the Amazon region of Brazil

Rescuing Eastern Nigerian history: preserving the holdings of Enugu and Calabar regional archives

Digitising the photo documents of Georgia's central state audio-visual archive

Pilot project to identify endangered African diaspora collections at the major archives of the province of Matanzas, Cuba and Digitisation of endangered African diaspora collections at the major archives of the province of Matanzas, Cuba

A survey of the endangered court records of Nevis, West Indies

Preserving the archives of the National Independence Party of Zambia

Inventory of archival holdings in Jamaica

Digitisation of Bolivian indigenous communities' records on ayllu structure, tax and land tenure

Creating a digital archive of Afro-Colombian history and culture: black ecclesiastical, governmental and private records from the Choco, Colombia

Preservation of endangered historical records in the Public Records and Archives Administration (PRAAD) in Tamale, Northern Ghana

History of Bolama, the first capital of Portuguese Guinea (1879-1941), as reflected in the Guinean National Historical Archives

Digitising the endangered archives of Grenada

The titles alone display the variety and reach of these collections. They comprise and document African diaspora and slavery records, the struggle for political independence or separation from colonial powers, land use and taxation of indigenous populations, the early histories of new states, the correspondence of local and national governments, the relationship between church and state and the papers of long serving political leaders and their parties.

Some of these projects have been the subject of past blog entries. One early project focused on photographs held by Georgia's central state audio-visual archive. This was a pilot project and the team aimed to survey the existing photographs. In this they were successful. Although no major copying was done, some sample images were made:

Although it's exciting to receive material copied from all over the world, to be honest I sometimes wish I could visit all of the EAP projects first hand. That's why it's such a pleasure when members of the projects come to the Library and visit us instead. It puts a human face to all those correspondence emails and progress reports. Recently Cathy and I met members of two EAP projects.

Last month we were visited by Dr Fakhriati M. Thahir. Dr Thahir successfully completed a pilot project and is now working on a major project to digitise private collections of Acehnese manuscripts located in Pidie and Aceh Besar Regencies in Indonesia. The manuscripts being copied are held by private collectors and dealers. They contain stories and histories relating to the Acehnese lifestyle, the kingdom of Aceh and the war against colonialism. They also contain material relating to Islamic knowledge and Islamic mysticism (Sufism).

Here is a picture of Dr Thahir and myself at the British Library (I'm on the right):

 

Earlier this week Cathy and I caught up with Dr Tigran Zargaryan from the Fundamental Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences, in Armenia. Dr Zargaryan's project is copying rare books, periodicals and newspapers dating back to the 16th century. The results of this project are being made available through the Fundamental Scientific Library's attractive and easy to use website. Some of the rare books may already be accessed via this site.

This year the EAP Blog is participating in Blog Action Day. The organisers of the Day hope to encourage a global discussion on issues that are important to everyone. The theme for 2009 is 'climate change'. This is relevant to us as climate conditions, including temperature and humidity, have a real impact on the preservation and continued access of all archival material held anywhere in the world.

The climate both inside and outside a records store will influence the life of archives. A safe place will be secure, with suitable boxes and shelves and with controlled temperature and humidity. These things can be more easily regulated and managed than conditions outside the building. The climate of a particular region will, for example, influence rodent populations and mould growth. It will also dictate the likelihood of floods or bush fires.

Some EAP projects, such as the ten projects copying records in Indonesia, are working in hot, humid climates. Mould thrives in such conditions. Other projects, such as the 3 projects working in the Ukraine, will be less worried about mould. Everyone will be contending with ubiquitous environmental factors such as insects, possible water and fire damage, dust and dirt, sunlight, etc.

As climate patterns change so too will the environmental factors acting upon a particular archival collection. There are optimum temperature and humidity levels for the storage of different material types. While it's not always possible to achieve these, it's generally agreed that a stable environment is best. Wild fluctuations should be averted if possible.

And I couldn't really finish this post without mentioning the EAP project copying records from the Tuvalu National Archives. A noted reason for the endangerment of this material is the rising sea levels. The picture below shows just how slim the land mass of Tuvalu is.

Last month the EAP received material from the following projects:

Tuvalu National Archives major project

Pages of Azerbaijan sound heritage

Digital archive of north Indian classical music

Preserving the archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia

This provides an interesting mix of government and political records, traditional oral music and classical music. Audio material is always nice to receive as it's very accessible. All I have to do is put on my headphones and click on a track. Some of the written material can be less easy to access because of the variety of languages and scripts the materials display.

That's why I was very pleased to be able to read through some of the papers copied from the United National Independence Party (UNIP) of Zambia. Being official papers from Zambia, these are in English so I was able to indulge my natural curiosity and examine some of the files. These records contain Province Reports, Circulars, Party Provincial Administration papers and general Correspondence.

It was in one of this later file-type dated 1976 that I found a draft copy of a 'secret declaration'. Here it is:

 

 
The draft declaration goes through a consultation and re-writing process, all documented in the file. The UNIP collection also contains minutes of the National Council meetings and the National Conventions, speeches, research reports and correspondence with regional party headquarters. The project also copied papers belonging to the African National Congress, dating from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.

I would like to draw attention to some of the non-textual material copied by EAP projects. We've received several collections of music, video and oral history material, images of artefacts and, not surprisingly, many copies of photographs.

Our music collections are vaired and exciting. They include music from Iran, Africa, India and Micronesia. We recently received material from a project to collect and digitise old music in pre-literate Micronesian society. This is very different to the classical music and gramophone records from India or the indigenous recordings from the Syliphone Studio in Africa, also being copied.

Here I would like to mention the approx. 847 hours of programmes featuring Persian music that were copied as part of the project The Golha radio programmes (Flowers of Persian Song and Poetry). The programmes include music, literary commentary and poetry. They were "exemplars of excellence in the sphere of music and refined examples of literary expression, making use of a repertoire of over 250 classical and modern Persian poets, setting literary and musical standards that are still looked up to with admiration in Iran today". More information on the programmes and current research activity can be found on the Golha website, which will be added to to include details of the music, transcripts of the poetry and information on the people involved.

The importance of these programmes is immense. Broadcast between 1956 and 1979, they featured renowned critics, broadcasters, composers and performers. They helped redefine attitudes towards music and musicians within Iran. In addition, the music itself, in my opinion, is wonderful.

The programmes can be accessed via the British Library Reading Rooms (please email the Endangered Archives Programme Curator beforehand). Or you can buy CDs from the SOAS bookshop.