- Title: Nigerian newspaper archivists lead ambitious goal to preserve history online
- Date: 6th October 2023
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROJECT LEAD AT ARCHIVING, FUÁD LAWAL, SAYING: ‘’It is those little things…because whenever we think of history, we tend to think about the big things, politics, leadership, but it is also the small things like how did we date in the ’70s and what were we eating? When did jollof rice become mainstream right? When did we start fighting over jollof rice
- Embargoed: 20th October 2023 07:55
- Keywords: ARCHIVE HISTORY NEWSPAPERS PAST PEOPLE
- Location: LAGOS AND KANO, NIGERIA
- City: LAGOS AND KANO, NIGERIA
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: Africa,Arts/Culture/Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA005663403102023RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: For a long time, Fuád Lawal had difficulties getting simple information about Nigeria’s history online, until a work trip in 2019 when he stumbled upon 1980s newspapers in the Usman Dan Fodio University Library in Sokoto, Nigeria.
Realizing the wealth of information not available online, he questioned the broader need for such accessibility.
‘’And so the question became like, if I have this need, how many more people have this need? And that is pretty much how we got started,’’ he said.
Lawal and his start-up team at ‘Archivi.ng’ embarked on a mission to digitize newspapers from a pilot period of 1960 to 2010. Within six weeks, they had located 97 percent of the papers.
However, the COVID-19 lockdowns and issues acquiring the appropriate scanning technology delayed the project until April 2023.
The former journalist explained that while snippets of Nigeria's history exist online, the project's aim is to capture not only significant events but also the daily lives of ordinary people.
"We want to document the little things...like dating in the 70s or when jollof rice became mainstream," Lawal explained. "These small details are also part of our history."
Archivi.ng is in the process of cataloguing print material from over 30 publishers across Nigeria. This involves obtaining permission to digitize archives, sorting and scanning the papers, and passing them through a quality control process before uploading them to the cloud.
"Documentation is crucial for preserving information, especially details that are not readily available on the internet," Grace Abraham, an archivist at Archivi.ng, told Reuters.
After scanning 50,000 pages and over 120,000 stories, Archivi.ng went live on Saturday, September 30, for its pilot phase.
"We've spent the last few months digitizing the archives and ensuring quality control. Now we're ready to share the first version of these archives with the public," Lawal said.
The project, funded by donations, has raised over $30,000 USD to date.
(Production: Seun Sanni, Angela Ukomadu) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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