Project status:
Current
Lead organisation:
Partners:
The Book Bunk Trust is running this project in partnership with Studio NBO (podcast) and African Digital Heritage Foundation.
Grant award:
£99,000
Project summary:
The McMillan Memorial Library is the oldest library in Nairobi and the second oldest in Kenya. Its contents span Kenya’s colonial and post-colonial history and are of significant value to the country’s culture, heritage and identity.
Book Bunk Trust received funding from the Cultural Protection Fund in 2020. This was used to successfully digitise and protect physical archive collections at the McMillan Memorial Library to mitigate the harmful storage conditions worsened by the effects of climate change such as increased heat and moisture.
This project will continue the work to preserve and digitise additional endangered collections – including paper, glass film slides, photographs and film reels – some of which have already been damaged by increased heat and moisture. It will also increase public engagement by making the library more accessible.
Project activities are set to include:
- season three of Book Bunk’s podcast 'A Palace for the People';
- a continuation of the popular initiative 'Missing Bits' – a crowd sourcing campaign for audio material and images to fill gaps in the archive collection; and
- new initiatives to engage young people with the library.
