The University Library System is helping to digitize a rare East African archive

The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) is working with two Kenyan librarians this summer to digitize centuries-old records documenting slavery and emancipation in East Africa.

Damaris Wambugu and Daniel Waswala of St. Paul’s University are spending two months learning archival practices, digitization methodologies and library systems management from ULS’s Archives and Special Collections team. They will use those skills to preserve and disseminate St. Paul’s collection, which includes records documenting the lives of people enslaved in East Africa between 1500 and 1890 along with rare photographs, manuscripts and diaries of formerly enslaved people rebuilding their lives after emancipation.

Once digitized, the materials will be accessible through St. Paul’s library, opening the archive to researchers for the first time.

ULS is one of the few research libraries equipped to handle historical materials of this scale and age — few institutions can bring together the depth of expertise, specialized equipment and preservation spaces to prepare librarians to digitize and disseminate a collection of such historical significance. Waswala noted that touring Hillman Library and its resources fundamentally changed his understanding “of what a library could be.”