Digitizing Public Archives

Sierra Leone

For this project, the consortium of individual experts of the West Africa Heritage Consultants and the director of Sierra Leone’s Public Archives, responded to some of the most pressing needs identified during a previously conducted needs assessment (2016 and 2019) at the Sierra Leone’s Public Archives. The collection comprises of records on the Sierra Leonne Company, the nation’s period of colonisation and the period after its emancipation. It also consists of a series of registers of Liberated Africans (c.1808-1848). The collection was in eminent need of protection due to a direct explosion of natural light, wind, humidity, dust, pollution, rusting shelves and inaccessibility because of the political instability. This project therefore focused on the rehabilitation of the storage rooms with basic storage supplies and equipment, the sanitization and new packaging of 1500 documents, digitization of selected collections and the training of 10 individuals (archive staff and final year Library and Archival studies students) on Preventative Conservation, Archives and Records Management, Current Cataloguing and Access Standards for Archives and Digitization.