Open-access digital library launched

The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) on Tuesday launched the Sudan Open Archive, an open-access digital library for Sudan, containing documents that until now were largely unavailable in digital form. "It is a dynamic, expanding archive," said John Ryle, chair of RVI. "Our aim is to put in historical and contemporary materials of all kinds." The first phase of the archive involved the digitisation of around 500 documents drawn from the records of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the international relief effort that started in 1989. "A lot of the documents were just stuffed away in containers in Khartoum, Juba, Lokichokio and Nairobi," Ryle said. "The digital archive can bring together material from all over the place, which is exactly the problem in Sudan - documents are all over the place." The materials in the archive provide a record of emergency aid and offer an opportunity for Sudan and humanitarian agencies "to learn from the mistakes of the past," he said. "The archive is rescuing and making accessible the records of 20 years of OLS, which - in some cases - are the only written reports of Sudan during that time, because of the war." In June 2006, material on environmental issues and the records of local peace processes in north and south Sudan will be incorporated, followed by grammar and dictionaries of Sudanese languages, cultural materials, documents in Arabic and maps. Given the lack of libraries in Sudan, Ryle hoped the archive - which will also be available on CD-Rom and DVD - would provide Sudanese with a wider source of information about their history. Documents in the archive include ‘Operation Lifeline Sudan: A Review’ (1996); ‘An Introduction to the Food Economies of Southern Sudan’ (1998); ‘The Southern Sudan Vulnerability Study’ (1999 edition); ‘The Jonglei Field Officers Handbook’ (1998); and ‘Towards a Baseline: Best Estimates of Social Indicators for Southern Sudan’ (2004). Also included are the official, signed texts of more recent documents, such as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) and the report of the Abyei Boundaries Commission (2005, with maps). The Sudan Open Archive is available at: www.sudanarchive.net