Ms Nadine Hunt, York University, Canada
2007 award – pilot project
£11,023 for 8 months
The targeted libraries and archives contain valuable historical collections that focus on the lives of enslaved Africans and free blacks in Jamaica during the period 1655-1800. The documents are important to scholars studying the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, and supplement the extensive records that are held in Britain on the forced migration of Africans to Jamaica.
The materials are located in Kingston, specifically in the National Library of Jamaica and the Roman Catholic Chancery, as well as in the Elsa Goveia Reading Room at the University of the West Indies at Mona. Also targeted are the Jamaica Archives located in Spanish Town.
The physical condition of documents ranges from very poor to fair, with many documents crumbling and in danger of disappearing. The most urgent attention should be directed at the Chancery, which does not have a preservation department and is not a formal archive. There is concern within the Chancery at the decaying state of the documents and this initiative to digitise documents is welcomed.
At the Jamaica Archives, the National Library, and the UWI-Goveia Reading Room, there are extensive endangered materials to be digitised and an interest in doing so. The Archives has expressed interest in targeting collections on enslaved Africans before 1800 in conjunction with their annual marking of the abolition of the British Atlantic slave trade to Jamaica. At the National Library and Goveia Reading Room, the Library expressed interest in its m ap collection, the Nuttall Collection (Anglican Church) – 19th Century, newspapers. The Goveia Reading Room collection includes letters, personal journals, and various loose documents.
The intention is to work closely with the staff at the Jamaican repositories, so that individuals can be trained in the use of the technology while inventories are being done. Hence, this pilot project has several very important components:
1. Workshop for archival staff on digitisation as a means of preserving collections.
2. An evaluation of the present state of conservation and determining the materials most in need of preservation through digital means.
3. Compilation of an inventory of endangered materials.
