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Endangered Archives Programme (EAP)

To establish a grants programme that funds projects to digitise neglected, vulnerable or inaccessible archives from across the world. The digitised materials are available for free online.

The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) facilitates the digitisation of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. Thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, we have provided grants to more than 400 projects in 90 countries worldwide, in over 100 languages and scripts.

Archive types digitised so far include rare printed sources, manuscripts, visual materials, audio recordings. This continually expanding online collection is available freely through the British Library website and local archival partners, for research, inspiration and enjoyment.

Summaries of individual projects funded by EAP can also be found on the Culture in Crisis portal. These summaries were created from EAP project proposals and final reports. They have been edited for consistency but retain the original language of the applicants and project leads.

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Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) Projects

Eap 1126

A Digital Library of the Lanten Textual Heritage - Phase II

The manuscripts of the Lanten in Laos enable shamans and priests to engage Daoist deities in the rituals to reproduce the Lanten socio-cosmological order. A distinctive qualit…

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Eap 1123

Recalling a Translocal Past: Digitising Thai-Mon palm-leaf manuscripts

The Mons are credited with bringing Buddhism and a written culture to mainland Southeast Asia. The Thai Mon manuscripts represent a gap in the intellectual history of Burma an…

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EAP Placeholder

Preserving endangered zoological archival material in the National Museums of Kenya

The zoological material at the National Museums of Kenya includes valuable scientific information that forms the basis of the current knowledge. However, due to heavy usage, t…

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Eap 1119

Salvaging the Historical Heritage of Land Registration Documents of the Archives of Land Registration Division and Lands Commission of Ghana

Ghana’s land records are used in the matters of land ownership and settlement. This project succeeded in creating a clear catalogue of the Land Record’s office, while digitisi…

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Eap 1114

Preserving Pious Print: digitising early Islamic print in the Maalim Muhammad Idris Collection, Zanzibar, Tanzania

The Maalim Idris Library is the most extensive holding of early Islamic printed material in Tanzania. The material is crucial to understand the social, cultural and religious …

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Eap 1106

Preservation of the unique heritage: manuscripts and books in private collections of Old Believers of Transbaikalia

The literature of Transbaikalia’s Old Believers defines the identity of the Russian population in a multicultural and polyconfessional region. The preservation of this materia…

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EAP Placeholder

Private records of the leading business families of Early Colonial Bengal

Bengal had a rich tradition of commodity production, trade and commerce in the pre-colonial and the early colonial period. The archival records of the families with such leadi…

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Eap 1100

Survey of archival material in small Jewish communities in rural areas in Argentina: south Buenos Aires province and La Pampa province

Between the 19th and 20th century, 200,000 Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean arrived in Argentina. Archives of small villages show how immigrants manag…

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Eap 1094

Endangered Libraries In Timbuktu

When the Jihadist occupation began in 2012, hundreds of thousands manuscripts were smuggled out of Timbuktu to Bamako. However, a small but important minority of the owners di…

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