SCOLMA Conference, 30 June 2025 – Registration now open!

Through the Generations: Youth, Ageing and African Studies Collections

What impact does Africa’s growing youth population have on the role of archives & libraries that document the continent’s past?

30th June 2025 at Weston Library, Lecture Theatre, University of Oxford

Registrations are now open!

Please see ticket options and how to book via the SCOLMA Eventbrite registration page.

We are pleased to welcome you to the 2025 SCOLMA Conference: Through the Generations: Youth, Ageing & African Studies Collections.

The conference will be in person on Monday June 30th 2025 in Oxord, UK.

Become a SCOLMA member today and get a discounted conference registration price.

• For SCOLMA membership information, please visit our membership webpage
• Please contact us at sales@scolma.org if you would like to register to be a member.
• Keep an eye on our SCOLMA LinkedIn page for more Chair and speaker spotlights!

Conference Overview

This year the annual conference of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa) focuses on the future.

It is well known that the African continent has the youngest population in the world, and is sometimes described as the ‘continent of the future’. What impact does this have on the role of archives and libraries that document the continent’s past?

This conference will explore the role of library and archive materials in African Studies in understanding generational change and in meeting the opportunities and challenges that it brings. How have generational change and the experiences of different generations been understood and recorded in the past? How do shifts in technological expectations shape how different generations expect to ‘access’ the past? How do digital technologies change the balances between written records and oral tradition and how can collecting practices adjust accordingly? How can archive or library materials be mobilised to be useful in schools and education for different age groups?

If you have any questions, concerns, or accessibility requirements, please visit our FAQ section or get in touch with us at enquiries@scolma.org. Refunds are not normally provided.

PROGRAMME

09.30-09.50 Registration

09.50–10.00 Welcome

10.00–10.40 Keynote

• “The youth hold the future of the past: creating an infrastructure for engagement between youth, libraries, archives and museums in the digital preservation of African knowledge”
  Dr Buhle Mbambo-Thata, University Librarian, National University of Lesotho

10.40–11.00 Break

11.00–12.15 Panel 1: ‘Engaging young people with African history’

CHAIR: Sana Ginwalla

• ‘Story Explorers: creating an exhibition for children and families using the British Library collections’
  Mariam de Haan, British Library, and Nicola Pomery, British Library
• ‘Teaching transatlantic slavery (Balliol project)
  Aishah Olubaji, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge and Naomi Tiley, Balliol College, University of Oxford
• ‘Justice2History: an overview of changing practice and agendas in teaching African history in UK schools’
  Abdul Mohamed & Robin Whitburn, University College London

12.15–13.00 Lunch break

13.00–13.45 SCOLMA AGM

14.00–15.30 Panel 2: ‘Digital technology: preservation across the generations’

CHAIR : Tirivashe Jele

• ‘Engaging Generations in African Archival Preservation and Access’
  Gareth Bish, Coherent Digital
• ‘From Oral Tradition to Digital Preservation: Transforming African Knowledge Systems for Future Generations’
  Kenneth Atuma, Manchester University
• ‘Village Girls x Zambia Belonging: All The Beautiful People Are Gone’
  Misha Maseka, Royal College of Art & Sana Ginwalla, Open Window University Zambia, Everyday Lusaka Gallery

15.00–15.30 Break

15.30–16.30 Panel 3: ‘Generations in the archives’

CHAIR: Misha Maseka

• ‘Reconstructing Generations of Enslaved People: Age and Sex in the Liberation Registers of Colonial Senegal, 1857–1903’
  Wallace Teska, Trinity College, University of Cambridge
• ‘Africa in the Library and Archives of the United Grand Lodge of England’
  Susan Snell, & Rob Hammond, Open University

16.30-17.15 Discussion (panel chairs): ‘Generational change, archives and libraries: priorities and next steps’

17.15 Conference close

This programme is subject to change.
Please note that all speakers will be giving their papers in person.

(Other enquiries can be sent to Sarah Rhodes, SCOLMA Secretary,
sarah.rhodes@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.)