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From the Archives: Re-discovering ‘A Year of Farming in Gojjam, Ethiopia’
In late August, when the African Studies Library is at its quietest, a man walked through the door, “Do you have any Amharic language learning books?” he asked. I sent him a few recommendations and that was that. But then I remembered a dusty secret that would lead to new collaboration and discovery a few…
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What is FCO 141 and why did The National Archives remove it from public domain?
July 11th, 2022: The National Archives (TNA) withdrew the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO – FCDO’s predecessor) 141 collection from public use for a health and safety assessment. In a press release it stated the action was “due to evidence of historical preservation treatment of these files indicating insecticide use.” Small labels were found inside…
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New Free Trial – British Online Archives (BOA)
The Electronic Collections Management Team (University of Cambridge) have arranged limited time access to a wide range of collections spanning a multitude of centuries in governmental documents, personal journals, and organisational records etc. All of which will be made available for use through the British Online Archives. From February 1st to February 28th the British…
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My time at the African Studies Library
Victoria Falls, Zambia My work at the African Library first began in late 2018 when I, along with a friend of mine, began volunteering at the library on a weekly basis. Jenni was quick to set us the task of organising the mammoth collection recently donated by Peter Sanders, a task that I was yet…
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Archiving apartheid: the process of preserving images for future use
Throughout my time at the African Studies Library I have been working on a source created and distributed by the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF), published to detail aspects of life in Southern Africa during apartheid. In the specific publication which I worked on, there were many photographs detailing various aspects…
Cambridge Centre of African Studies Library Blog 