In addition to the material discussed here, during May we also received accessions from the following projects:

EAP33 Collecting and preserving parish archives in an Andean diocese

Project EAP333 aims to rescue, organise and protect parish documents of historical interest presently dispersed across 19 localities of the Huacho diocese in Peru. The first phase of the project involved surveying parishes within the diocese to assess the location, number and content of surviving documentary materials; inventories were then made, before the materials were transferred to the diocese archives in Huacho. The project is currently digitising the material in situ, and when finished will disseminate copies to the parishes and to the British Library.

The parish records are hugely important to the local population and scholars alike, and include Baptism, Marriage and Burial registers, confraternity records, pastoral visitation reports and other papers, which when taken as a whole document a range of economic, social and religious activities.

 

EAP401 Safeguarding the Ethiopian Islamic Heritage

This project will conduct a survey of the endangered Islamic manuscripts kept by mosques and private collectors in North Shewa (Goze, Husiso), South Wello (Gedo Toleha, Dodota) and Gacheni. The project will also provide basic manuscript conservation training for locals who are involved in handling public manuscripts, and hold awareness raising meetings with elders, community leaders and individual scholars. In addition, a sample of the material will be digitised, and copies will be made available to readers in the British Library.

 

Today is International Archives Day! It also marks the anniversary of the International Council on Archives (ICA), which was established by UNESCO on 9 June 1948. You can read some more about the reasons for establishling the celebration on the ICA webpages.

If you would like to share your news and stories about an archival institution or collection, why not head over to Twitter and use the hashtag #archivesday2011. If you've got a question for an archivist, use the tag #AskArchivists.

Last month EAP received material from 8 projects, taking us over the 60 terabyte storage mark. Projects EAP180 and EAP254 continued to send material, as discussed in our March and April accession posts. We also received material from:

EAP190 Digitising archival material pertaining to 'Young India' label gramophone records

This project digitised gramophone records, record catalogues and publicity material produced by the National Gramophone Record Manufacturing Company Ltd., Bombay (the 'Young India' label). Following the company's closure in 1955, surplus stock was sold, and gradually the records and associated paraphernalia dispersed. The project has located and digitised Young India material in the hands of collectors in Mumbai, Ahmadabad, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

 

The recorded collection dates from 1935-1955, and includes music from various regions in India, ballads, and recordings made by important public figures.

EAP211 Digitising Cirebon Manuscripts

EAP211 is digitising endangered manuscripts located across the whole of the former Cirebon Sultanate, including Kasepuhan, Kanoman, Kacirebonan and Kaprabon, and Pengguron and Sanggar. The collections consist of religious materials, Sultan genealogies, traditional literature and chronicles, texts on healing and divining practices, and talismans.

 
Manuscript of Petarekan, including texts concerning the Order of Shatariyah, and the Nature of the Heart

EAP219 Assessment and preservation of the old Vietnamese Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient archive in ancient ideographic Nom script

This major research project will digitise the endangered Nom archive at the Institute of Social Science Information (ISSI) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Nom is the ideographic national script of Vietnam, used since the country's independence from China in 939. However, since the general acceptance in the 1920s of the Latinised quoc ngu script, Nom has become endangered, read only by a dwindling number of scholars.

It is hoped that this project, combining inventory and digitisation and bringing a set of documents onto a web platform, will serve as a working model for future Nom archival work, facilitating further efforts to copy and preserve endangered materials.

 
 
Sutra of Five Hundred Avalokiteshvara Titles, Emperor Thanh Thai, Year of the Dog (mid summer 1898)

Alex