Endangered Archive Programme

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The Endangered Archives Programme. (EAP) was established for the purpose of preserving cultural heritage in places where there are limited resources to do so. Each year the programme awards grants to researchers to identify and preserve culturally important archives by digitizing them in situ. The original archival material does not leave the country of origin and applicants are encouraged to incorporate professional development and training within their proposals. The programme focuses on written, audio and photographic material created before the mid-twentieth century.

EAP is supported by the Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. It is administered by the British Library.

History

EAP was set up in 2004 with a grant of £10 million from the Arcadia Fund and was initially based within the Asia, Pacifica and Africa Collections (APAC) of the British Library and had two full-time members of staff, with the directorship being the responsibility of the head of APAC. In 2011, EAP moved to the newly formed Digital Scholarship section of the British Library. Previous directors include Graham Shaw, Susan Whitfield, Aly Conteh and Adam Farquhar. The programme is chaired by the principal advisor to Arcadia; Barry Supple (2004 – 2007) and Anthea Case (since 2008). In 2018, a further grant from Arcadia ensured a second phase of the programme with Sam van Schaik as Head of Programme As of 2019, the Programme has supported over 350 projects in 90 countries. Applications to EAP for funding are assessed by an international panel of advisors.

EAP Panel Membership

• 2004-2008 (4 years) Gabriela Ramos (University of Cambridge)
• 2004-2008 (4 years) Anne Thurston (International Council on Archives)
• 2004-2009 (5 years) Lorraine Gesick (University of Nebraska - Omaha)
• 2004-2009 (5 years) Lenka Matusikova (Czech State Archives)
• 2004-2011 (7 years) Jeevan Deol (SOAS, London)
• 2005-2011 (6 years) Abdelaziz Abid (UNESCO)
• 2008-2015 (7 years) Linda Newson (Institute of Latin American Studies, London)
• 2008-2014 (6 years) Paul Lihoma (National Archives of Malawi)
• 2009-2015 (6 years) Ann Kumar (Australian National University)
• 2009-2013 (4 years) Branka Prpa
• 2011-2016 (5 years) Nada Itani (Beirut Dar Al-Hayat Information Centre)
• 2011- 2016 (5 years) Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA)
• 2011-2018 (8 years) Marion Wallace (British Library)
• 2013-2019 (6 years) Simon Franklin (University of Cambridge)

Current members

• 2014- Nathan Mnjama (University of Botswana)
• 2015- Caterina Pizzigoni (Columbia University)
• 2015- Oman Fathurahman (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta)
• 2016- Rajeev Kinra (Northwestern University)
• 2016- Laila Hussein-Moustafa (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
• 2018- Luisa Elena Mengoni (British Library)
• 2019- Sergei Bogatyrev (University College, London)

Online Collections Currently there are over 7 million images and 25,000 sound recordings accessible on the EAP website. Some notable collections include over 8,300 manuscripts from Djenné, Mali, 8,000 sound recordings from the Syliphone recording label, Guinea, Jugantar and Amrita Bazar Patrika newspapers from India, rare photographs from Mongolia, Barbados Mercury Gazette, 1783-1839 and the archive of the Ukrainian poet T.H. Shevchenko.

Resources All material produced through the Endangered Archives Programme is open access. To mark the tenth anniversary of the programme, Maja Kominko edited From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme published through Open Book Publishers. It contains a collection of 19 articles written by previous project holders, the topics cover: inscriptions, manuscripts, documentary archives, photographs and sound archives. In 2018, also with Open Book Publishers, EAP produced Remote Capture: Digitising Documentary Heritage in Challenging Locations, a practical guide for undertaking a scholarly digitization project.

Notable items in the EAP database

The following are some of the notable items in the EAP database.

Institution and pressmark	Title	Description
EAP269, EAP488, EAP690, EAP879	Preliminary survey of Arabic manuscripts in Djenné, Mali, with a view to a major project of preservation, digitisation and cataloguing	The city of Djenné has existed since the end of the 8th century. It embraced Islam from the 12th century onwards and became an important centre of trade and Islamic learning, alongside its ‘twin city’ of Timbuktu, which shares many aspects of its history. As an important city of learning and commerce for over a thousand years, it has a very large deposit of Arabic manuscripts.
EAP187, EAP327, EAP608	archive of sound recordings released on the Syliphone label	Syliphone was the first state-funded African recording label of the postcolonial era, and the company released 82 long play records and 75 singles.
EAP262	two major and endangered newspapers: Jugantar and Amrita Bazar Patrika	Issues of two leading newspapers, Jugantara patrika (Calcutta, Bengali, daily: 1937 - 1980) and Amrita bazar patrika (Jessor/Calcutta, bi-lingual / English, bi-weekly / daily: (1872 - 1890; 1892 - 1905; 1911; 1919) - two of the most important newspapers from colonial and post-colonial Bengal.
EAP264	Preservation through digitisation of rare photographic negatives from Mongolia	The Archives for Cinema, Photography and Sound Recording in Mongolia houses over 160,000 photo negatives, including 10,552 glass plate negatives.
EAP1086	Preserving and digitising the historic newspaper, The Barbados Mercury Gazette	Barbados Mercury and Bridgetown Gazette, a newspaper printed bi-weekly in Barbados from 1783 to 1839.
EAP657	Saving the original lifetime archive of the well-known Ukrainian poet, artist and thinker, T.H. Shevchenko	A collection of archival materials related to Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (9 March 1814–10 March 1861) – the famous Ukrainian writer and painter, whose literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature, as well as Ukrainian language.

External links

• Endangered Archives Programme Website
• From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme
• Remote Capture: Digitising Documentary Heritage in Challenging Locations
• Syliphone - an early African recording label (EAP187)
• Crace, John. “Preservation hoarders: An unpromising-looking archive is doing much to save precious material for future generations” The Guardian 5 September 2006
• Starkey, Jerome. "Mali’s Ancient lore of love and magic that al-Qaeda would like to destroy" in The Times (UK), 1 December 2012
• Sarin, Sophie “The arts desk in Mali: Creation, Conservation and Restoration” The arts desk 17 February 2013
• Sulcas, Rosyln “British Library Expanding Its Endangered Archives Online” 17 February 2015 The New York Times
• Meier, Allison “Four Million Images from the World’s Endangered Archives” Hyperallergic 23 February 2015
• Kershaw, Sarah “The race to save ancient Islamic manuscripts from terrorists who want them destroyed” The Washington Post 21 January 2016
• Meier, Allison “Rescuing an Obscure Photographic Archive of Early 20th-Century Argentina” Hyperallergic 6 January 2016
• Campbell, Courtney “From invisible to digital: digitising endangered historical documents in Brazil” Open Democracy 19 May 2016
• Leech, Nick “British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme sheds new light on the history of Africa and Islam” The National, 20 October 2018
• Balagobalan, Poongulaly “How Sri Lankans are Preserving History, One Manuscript at a Time” Global Press Journal 12 July 2019

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