“Digital Resources for African Studies – Teaching & Research” – SCOLMA 2024 Online Seminar Series

Join us ONLINE for the second of five seminars in “African Studies in the Digital Age” – SCOLMA’s 2024 Seminar Series

About the Seminar: Digital Resources for African Studies – Teaching & Research

This session explores the creation and use of collections of digital sources for teaching and researching in African Studies. In 2014 SCOLMA published an important volume of reflections on the impact of digital technologies on African-focused collections, African Studies in the Digital Age: DisConnects? The authors reflected on a wide-range of online collections for African Studies, including newspapers, photographs, as well as archived documents, subscription model databases, and open access collections. Discussion addressed the relation of digital collections to national identity and institutions, technical considerations for different users, and the impact (or lack of impact) of digitising collections on scholarship. Ten years later, how have practices and priorities changed? What new technologies have shaped the ways in which material is presented and used? How has demand or expectations changed from researchers and students? What innovations and examples of best practice might shape future work?

This conversation, chaired by Dr. Elizabeth Haines, Records Specialist Empire & Commonwealth, The National Archives, UK, brings together a group who have variously created, used and advised on the construction of digital resources for African Studies: Dr. Perpetua S. Dadzie, Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Ghana; Elizabeth Robey from Africa Commons; Dr. Siyabonga Njica, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in African Studies, University of Cambridge; and Dr. George Njung, Assistant Professor of African History at Baylor University in Texas.

To receive the link, please register on our Eventbrite page.

About the Series

This FREE and ONLINE series of 5 seminars returns to the theme of a SCOLMA publication from 2014, ‘African Studies in the Digital Age’. Through a programme of discussion events we will be exploring some key ways in which this field has changed over that decade.

The season will address a variety of topics including digital repatriation projects, new modes of sharing, researching and teaching with digital collections, collecting born digital records, and the creative re-use and curation of digital heritage.

Each event in the season is intended to be structured as a conversation or round table, and the season will include collection holders, researchers, digital experts and artists from the UK, the African continent and beyond.

The focus, given our key audience, will in large part be on the practicalities and challenges of doing this kind of work. Our aim is to share knowledge, stimulate discussion on best practice, and identify key opportunities in the field.

Seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 13:00-13:55 GMT:

• January 31st
• February 14th
• February 28th
• March 13th
• April 17th

The topics, speakers, and registration information will be posted ahead of the respective seminar.

Support SCOLMA

UK Library & Archives Group on Africa (SCOLMA) is a registered charity (No. 325086). As a non-profit organisation, we would love your help in continuing our mission to provide the best possible service for academics, students and other researchers working in African studies. We publish a journal, Africa Bibliography, Research and Documentation, run a directory of African Studies libraries, organise conferences and seminars, and network with other librarians, archivists and researchers, in the UK, Europe, Africa and the US. We also act as an expert body providing specialist advice.

Please consider donating any amount you can when you get your free ticket.