News of the Socialist Library and Archives (SOLAR) project // Nigerian Heritage Digitisation Programme

The French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA), using The Solidarity Fund for Innovative Projects (FSPI) awarded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is funding a project in Calabar entitled “Protecting Political activists archives to write another history of Nigeria”. This project, which is a component of the 'Nigerian Heritage Digitisation Programme', aims at digitising important and imperilled archival holdings of Nigeria’s radical and prodemocracy activists to increase accessibility to these materials as well as to preserve them for posterity.

This project is to be seen as a continuation of past programs such as the digitalisation of the Ola and Kehinde Oni funds, that are already accessible here and of the digitalisation of the Yusufu Bala Usman, that are soon to be available. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) oversees the project and has commenced the cataloguing and digitisation of the Socialist Library and Archives (SOLAR) which, located in Calabar, is a treasure rich of decades of personal, intellectual, and political documents belonging to living and deceased Nigerian radical and pro-democracy activists. Between October 11 - 13, a workshop and site visit sponsored by IFRA, was held in Calabar (Cross River State) to kickstart the project. Pictures of this event are reproduced below.

Tags: archives, digital humanities