Other Organisations

This page lists other sources of information and alternative sources of funding for those planning and carrying out archive digitisation projects.

Other Arcadia-funded programmes

Arcadia awards a large number of cultural grants to museums, archives and universities that focus on documenting endangered heritage, including manuscripts and archives, archaeological sites and artefacts, and cultural and religious traditions at risk of being lost. They also help develop new technologies for heritage documentation and historical research. They enable free, online, open access to all these materials. The following Arcadia-funded programmes work closely with EAP:

• Modern Endangered Archives Program
  ​Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) is a grant programme that enables organisations holding at-risk materials as well as faculty, researchers, and cultural heritage specialists to digitise analogue materials or to collect and make accessible existing digital assets. All the digital files will be publicly accessible via a UCLA Library-hosted website. Content scope includes rare and unique materials from the 20th century to the present of historical, cultural, and social significance from regions with limited resources for archival preservation. The call for preliminary proposals has closed for 2018/19. MEAP follows on from the International Digital Ephemera Project
• Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
  The goal of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) is to preserve endangered languages globally. To this end the programme supports the documentation and preservation of endangered languages through granting, training and outreach activities. The funds allow grantees to undertake fieldwork to record speakers of endangered languages on audio and video, compiling a documentary collection of an endangered language or genre. These documentary collections are then archived and preserved and are made freely available through the digital online Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) which is based at the library of SOAS University of London. Many of these collections contain the only recordings of last speakers of an endangered language, recordings of languages which have already fallen silent or which will fall silent in the next few years.
• Endangered Material Knowledge Programme
  Based at the British Museum in London, the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) is a major programme to help preserve the knowledge of endangered material practices for future generations. The programme will document what we might term the 'made world' and how people use, build and repair the natural resources around them to create their distinctive societies, homes and spaces. It will offer grants to researchers globally to undertake detailed field work to record disappearing or endangered practices

Other organisations and programmes doing similar work

• Cultural Emergency and Response programme (CER). For archives that are acutely threatened by a natural or man-made disaster and needs immediate action to safeguard it, the Prince Claus Fund, through its Cultural Emergency Response (CER) programme, and the Whiting Foundation together offer small grants for first-aid measures to protect documentary heritage under direct threat. The documentary heritage does not necessarily have to date from the pre-industrial period, but applicants must demonstrate clear significance to an identified group of people.
• For archives held within the UK, the National Archives has recently launched the Records at Risk Fund. More about eligibility and how to apply can be found on the TNA website.
• UNESCO - Memory of the World Register
• Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa
• Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
• IFLA Risk Register for Documentary Cultural Heritage

Further resources

Digitisation

• The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library website has several useful downloadable manuals for digitisation projects.
• IFLA Guidelines for Planning the Digitisation of Rare Book and Manuscript Collections (in English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Turkish).
• IASA Guidelines for preserving and digitising sound and audiovisual archives.

Cataloguing

The following websites are an essential reference for the members of the EAP project team responsible for cataloguing and providing the metadata for the digitised content:

• The Library of Congress transliteration tables for non-Roman scripts
• Library of Congress Subject Headings
• See also the language and script codes in use at the British Library.

Protection of Cultural Heritage

ALIPH (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas) has compiled a reference repository of e-learning resources available from the web. These include online courses (MOOCs), tutorials, webinars, lectures and more.