Acknowledgements
© Butterworth, Pearson, Sutherland and Farquhar, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0138.09
The Endangered Archives Programme staff would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this publication and, in particular, Anthea Case and Maja Kominko at Arcadia for backing the initial idea. We are indebted to Matt Faber, who was extremely kind in sharing his knowledge on scanning equipment, to Anne Leaver who worked conscientiously on the illustrations, to Alastair Horne who was so meticulous when proofreading the final draft, and to Hugh Pearson for his contribution to the text and drawings in Digital Appendix 1. Meanwhile, the process notes set out in Digital Appendix 2 draw heavily on the work undertaken by Ben Jeffs during the EAP project on Anguilla. Thanks also go to the British Library managers Karl Harris and Sarah-Jane Hamlyn, who supported Elizabeth Hunter and Flavio Marzo’s involvement with the book. We would also like to express our gratitude to the external reviewers: Andreas Nef, David Small and Wayne Torborg, whose experience and comments have helped us enormously. We also are very grateful to Open Book Publishers, who have been approachable, helpful and patient as the book progressed.
To our minds, what has made this publication so special are the very honest experiences shared and the wonderful photographs of projects being carried out in the field. EAP would like to thank all of those who contributed: Amiq Ahyad; Hans Berger; Abhijit Bhattacharya; Courtney Campbell; Ananya Chakravarti; Yasmine Chemali; Graeme Counsel; Birgit Embaló; Michael Gervers; Poppy Gogoi; Zoé Headley; Kyle Jackson; Ben Jeffs; Martin Jürgens; Alexander Keese; David LaFevor; Joseph Lalzarliana; Fabrizio Magnani; Ismail Montana; Stephen Morey; Kenneth Morgan; Appasamy Murugaiyan; N. Murugesan; Fallou Ngom; Samuel Nobah; Thomas Desch Obi; Silvana Lucia Piga; Hao Phan; Karma Phuntsho; Tim Procter; João Reis; Nigel Sadler; Sophie Sarin; David Small; Fakhriati Thahir; Joel Thaulo; Konrad Tuchscherer; Fernando Valle; Jian Xu; Hastings Zidana; and all of those who are depicted in the photographs but have not been named, without whom EAP would not be such a success.
Figure 2. EAP704, En route to Marawe Krestos, Ethiopia. Photo © Michael Gervers, CC BY 4.0.
As a part of this project, a number of past and present EAP grant holders were contacted and asked to provide a narrative about their experiences. Geographically, they span Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, and embrace a wide variety of political and social circumstances. Collectively, they have been an invaluable resource during the writing of this book, offering general advice and a flavour of project experiences.
It was not possible to reproduce these responses in full and, in certain cases, it would have been inappropriate to do so. This was particularly the case for responses dealing with projects that are either still active or only recently finished, and those that talk candidly about local circumstances. Where possible, the selected quotations are attributed to their author and project, but a number have been anonymised and sometimes slightly rewritten, so as to maintain confidentiality.
Within this book, reference is made to certain equipment manufacturers and software brands. This has been necessary because otherwise, at points in the book, an adequate discussion would not have been possible. The issue is even more apparent within the digital appendices, which could not have been compiled without specific references to particular brands, models and software.
In some cases, above all for cameras, there is an accepted ‘industry standard’. In these cases we do make specific recommendations about what should be purchased for an EAP project (see Digital Appendix 4). However, elsewhere we discuss items for which there are several viable options. This is particularly true when it comes to software. In these instances no recommendation should be implied, even where a product is specifically mentioned.
This book is accompanied by a series of digital appendices. These provide detailed information about certain aspects of a digitisation project, as follows:
Digital Appendix 1. Practical Methods for Digitisation
Digital Appendix 2. Using Electronic Flash
Digital Appendix 3. Digitisation Process Notes
Digital Appendix 4. Costed Equipment List
These resources may be found at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0138.11
Figure 3. EAP700, Preserving the manuscripts of the Jaffna Bishop’s House, Sri Lanka. Photo © Appasamy Murugaiyan, CC BY 4.0.
