Launched in 2004, the British Library's Endangered Archives Program (EAP) supports the preservation and digitization of archives around the globe. As of this write-up, the EAP has "supported over 300 projects in 90 countries worldwide, resulting in over 6.5 million images and 25 thousand soundtracks being preserved." For visitors interested in learning more about the rich material that has been digitized through the EAP, the Endangered Archives blog highlights some of these collections. For instance, one recent post by EAP curator Jody Butterworth highlights correspondence about the Mabeoena Football Club, which was founded in 1932 in Lesotho. These letters are part of the Matsieng Royal Archives in Lesotho. In another recent post, Nasir Javaid of the Mushfiq Khwaja Trust for the Advancement of Knowledge and Culture in Karachi, Pakistan writes about the archive's collection of Urdu periodicals. As Javaid writes, " Urdu journals played a significant role in the development of Urdu literature, especially fiction, religion, history, poetry and culture of the South Asian region as a whole, particularly in Pakistan and India. If someone wants to write on the development of fiction or religious literature, they should refer back to these rare periodicals." Each blog post is accompanied by images of select archival material from the highlighted collection.
Comments