Wednesday 10 February 2010

Call for papers: The Real Story?: Personal Papers, Life Histories and Africa

The Real Story? Personal Papers, Life Histories and Africa

SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa) Annual Conference

British Library Conference Centre, London, 8th June 2010

CALL FOR PAPERS

The conference will investigate the research potential of personal papers for African studies.

What can collections of private papers tell us about African history and biography, and how have they been used by historians? Who leaves private papers, who keeps them, and how should they be / are they being dealt with? What differences are there internationally in acquisitions and preservation policies? What are the tensions and relationships between private papers and public records? What difference is the digital revolution making?

We welcome papers from librarians, archivists, academics and other researchers looking at either single or multiple collections, held anywhere in the world. Colleagues from continental Europe attending the ELIAS (European Librarians in African Studies) meeting on 7th June 2010 are encouraged to offer papers.

Personal / private papers are defined as collections assembled, and usually authored in whole or in part, by a single person.

It is envisaged that selected papers from the conference will be published in SCOLMA’s journal, African Research and Documentation.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is 31 March 2010.

Please send your proposal (including name, affiliation, title and a one-page abstract) to:

Dr Marion Wallace, African Curator, British Library
Email: marion.wallace@bl.uk
Tel.: +44 20 7412 7829
Fax: +44 20 7412 7641

Please also contact Marion if you would like further information about the conference.

To pre-register for the conference, please contact

Lucy McCann, Archivist, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African Studies, Rhodes House, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RG
Email: lucy.mccann@bodley.ox.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1865 270908

SCOLMA website: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/scolma/

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