The Endangered
Archives Programme
Newsletter

The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) at the British Library funds the digitisation of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. Our quarterly newsletter will feature news and features about some of the projects we fund and make available for research.

In brief

Welcome to another EAP newsletter! We are very pleased to be able to announce our newest EAP projects from Round 16, which include applicants from the postponed 2020 call. We have awarded grants to 33 new projects working across the world, including the first EAP Area Grant project, based in Laos. This year two thirds of these new projects were from applicants and host institutions based in the same country as the archives, a growing and positive trend with EAP projects in recent years. And for those interested in funding from EAP, our call for applications for the new Round 17 is now open – the deadline for submission of preliminary applications is 15 November 2021. All details of the application procedures and documentation are available now on the EAP website.

News

Agents of Enslavement crowdsourcing project

EAP Cataloguer Graham Jevon was awarded the British Library’s 2021 Coleridge Fellowship to conduct a research project using two collections of 19th century Barbadian newspapers digitised by EAP projects (EAP1086 and EAP1251). The aim of the Agents of Enslavement project is to examine the ways in which colonial newspapers facilitated and challenged the practice of slavery, and to create a database of enslaved people hidden within these newspapers. The project is using crowdsourcing to extract data from these adverts, and nearly 2,000 registered contributors to the crowdsourcing site have identified more than 25,000 advertisements relating to slavery. As part of this work, the newspapers have been OCRd and made freely available on the British Newspaper Archive alongside other British Library newspapers where the newspapers can now be searched by keywords.

Ten million images now online

Over the last year, we have been ingesting new digital collections from EAP projects, resulting in over a million new images online. This takes the total of digital images available on the EAP website to ten million, a major milestone for EAP and the projects we have funded over the years!

Project highlights

This is a selection of some of the projects that were awarded grants recently.

Issa Iskandar al Maa’luf manuscript collection, Lebanon

This major project will digitise the ‘Isa Iskandar al Ma’luf unique historical manuscript collection, dating from between the 18th and the 20th centuries. Stored in a much-neglected storage condition for around 60 years, the collection, which is suffering from chemical and physical deterioration, was bought by and is currently housed at the American University of Beirut.

Preservation of 16th-20th century manuscripts, Kerala

This project will digitise collections from two prominent families in Kerala with renowned traditions of knowledge. Collections will be digitised from Irinjadappilly Mana, the ancestral home of the legendary mathematician Sangamagrama Madhava, and Kunnathur Padinjaredath Mana, known for their knowledge in Vasthu Sastra and Tantra.

EAP1319 manuscript survey - Vat That Khao Temple, Vientiane

Survey of Lao Manuscripts in Vientiane and two neighbouring provinces

This project will survey manuscript holdings and manuscript cultures in the capital city of Vientiane, Laos, and in the two provinces of Vientiane and Bolikhamsay. The material is held in the repositories of 135 temples in the region, as well as the National Library of Laos and other as-yet unknown locations. Some of the manuscripts in these collections are from the mid-sixteenth century, and amongst the oldest in Laos.

EAP collections online

This is a small selection of the projects recently made available online to view. To keep informed about all of the latest newly available projects you can visit our blog and follow us on Twitter.

Photographic collection from DirghaMan and GaneshMan Chitrakar Art Foundation, Nepal

Lama Mani: the texts and narrative thangkas of India’s exiled Tibetan storytellers

Records from the archives of Tristan da Cunha

Pre-Soviet bound documents and manuscripts from Tajikistan

Ottoman Turkish language periodicals from Bulgaria

Beyond the Revolution: 19th century Haitian newspapers

If you have used collections available on the EAP website for research, and/or have found any interesting or significant records that have a story to tell, we'd love to hear from you. You can email or tweet us on the links below.

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