The British Library's Endangered Archives Programme offers a number of grants every year to individual researchers world-wide to locate vulnerable archival collections, to arrange their transfer wherever possible to a suitable local archival home, and to deliver digital copies into the international research domain via the British Library. The specific focus of this Programme is upon archives relating to the pre-industrial stages of a society's development, normally located in countries where resources and opportunities to preserve such material are limited. The digital collections received by the British Library are made available on the Programme’s website for all to access, with currently over 5 million images and more than 25,000 sound recordings available online. Pilot projects are particularly welcomed, to investigate the survival of archival collections on a particular subject, in a discrete region, or in a specific format, and the feasibility of their recovery. Since it was established twelve years ago, the Programme has so far funded over 300 projects in 80 countries worldwide, with grants totalling over £7 million. These grants are the primary means by which Arcadia contributes to the urgent task of identifying, preserving and making accessible such archival collections before they are lost to international scholarship forever.

Call for applications 2017

The 2017 call for applications is now open. The deadline for submitting completed application forms is the 4 November 2016. All applicants must initially submit a preliminary application form. After assessment of the preliminary applications has taken place, only those subsequently invited may submit a detailed application. Invitations to submit a detailed application will be sent by the end of December. Applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application by the end of May. For additional information about the Endangered Archives Programme and access to the application documentation, please visit http://eap.bl.uk/pages/grants.html  

Pictured above: Digital images of zong he ze ji shu, a book on picking auspicious dates for various purposes. Date: 19th century. Author / scribe: Unknown. Libo County Archives, Guizhou, China

 

Sources used: ICCROM and British Library