Endangered Archives

Related Web Links

Below is just a small illustrative selection of web-sites concerning the threat to archives world-wide and some of the projects and initiatives already underway to preserve them. It is by no means an exhaustive list, and we will be pleased to hear of any additional sites that you would like to see added here.

General

• UNESCO Memory of the World / Mémoire du Monde project.
• Hans Van der Hoeven (for the International Federation of Library Associations) and Joan van Albada (for the International Council on Archives): Lost memory — libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century.
• Jan Lyall: A survey of current library preservation activities.
• Cultural Survival: Promoting the Rights, Voices, and Visions of Indigenous Peoples (includes a very useful Cultural Survival links section).
• World Oral Literature Project, University of Cambridge - documents and makes accessible endangered oral literatures

Africa

• The Timbuktu Manuscripts Project (Libraries of Timbuktu for the Preservation & Promotion of African Literary Heritage).
• Timbuktu Heritage Institute.
• Timbuktu Educational Foundation.

Europe

• The National Manuscripts Conservation Trust (NMCT) offers grants to owners and custodians in the United Kingdom to help preserve the UK's written heritage. The awards are administered by The National Archives in the UK.
• Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe offers grants to support academic Jewish studies and Jewish heritage in Europe.
• Monasterium

Latin America

• Harvard University's Program for Latin American Libraries and Archives (PLALA) offers small grants to Latin American archives and libraries that need special funding in order to improve the conditions under which their collections are kept or to expand access to their research holdings.

Near and Middle East

• Jean-Marie Arnoult: Assessment of Iraqi cultural heritage: libraries and archives.
• Mary-Jane Deeb, Michael Alibin & Alan Haley: Report on the National Library and the House of Manuscripts (The Library of Congress and the U.S. Department of State Mission to Baghdad).
• The Middle East Librarians Association Committee on Iraqi Libraries.
• The Juma al-Majid Cultural and Heritage Centre in Dubai
• Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, established in 1988 in the UK, aims to document and preserve Islamic written heritage

Oceania

• Pacific Manuscripts Bureau

South Asia

• The Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project (a joint initiative of the Department of Archaeology of His Majesty’s Government of Nepal and the German Research Council/University of Hamburg 1970-2002).
• The Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (launched 2002).
• Khurshid National Library in Muzaffarabad destroyed by Pakistan earthquake, October 2005. Report from the American Library Association. Further information on the library (Word document) 147KB.
• 'Burning Memories: Documentary on Jaffna Library'. A 49-minute documentary featuring the story of the Jaffna Library, burnt down in 1981 during the ongoing Sri Lankan civil war.
• The National Mission for Manuscripts, launched by the Government of India in 2003
• Digital Himalaya at the University of Cambridge - a project to develop digital collection, storage and distribution strategies for multimedia anthropological information from the Himalayan region

Southeast Asia

• Rujaya Abhakorn: Towards a collective memory of Mainland Southeast Asia: field preservation of traditional manuscripts in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.
• Fragile palm leaves: for the Preservation of Buddhist literature (a project based in Bangkok and started in 1994).