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. 

  • ​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 (ELDP) preserves 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.
  • Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) is a major programme to help preserve the knowledge of endangered material practices for future generations. Based at the British Museum, the programme documents 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 offers grants to researchers globally to undertake detailed field work to record disappearing or endangered practices
  • Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP) is a cultural grants programme dediated to the documentation of endangered wooden architecture. The programme is hosted by Oxford Brookes University and delivered in collaboration with CyArk. EWAP was established in 2021 with funding from Arcadia, a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge.
  • DREAMSEA, the Digital Repository of Endangered and Affected Manuscripts in Southeast Asia is a Programme that strives to preserve the content of manuscripts in the entire region of Southeast Asia, and to make this content fully and openly accessible online. The Programme is carried out by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta.

Other organisations and programmes doing similar work

  • Cultural Emergency Response (CER) offers grants for first-aid measures to protect documentary heritage under direct threat. Applications for Cultural Emergency Response grants may be submitted at any time by cultural practitioners who live and work in eligible countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe.
  • Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) advances manuscript research and scholarly inquiry by digitally preserving, providing access to, and interpreting manuscript collections around the world. HMML places a special priority on manuscripts in regions endangered by war, political instability, or other threats.
  • ALIPH has been created to act in favour of cultural heritage in conflict areas via an aid programme which enables it to be flexible and to react quickly.
  • UNESCO Memory of the World Register lists documentary heritage which has been recommended by the International Advisory Committee, and endorsed by the Executive Board, as corresponding to the selection criteria regarding world significance and outstanding universal value.

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:

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.