Among the items in the Liberia collection is a cloth manufactured in Indonesia and sold widely in West Africa on the occasion of the Organization of African Unity meeting in Liberia of 1979, depicting various presidents of states belonging to the OAU. |
IU Bloomington is also home to one of the largest repositories of Liberian research materials among U.S. universities. In the late 1980s, while she was the Director of the Archives of Traditional Music (Archives), Stone’s colleagues began sending their audio and videotapes of Liberian music performances and interviews to her as well as other research materials. In 1997, anthropologist Svend Holsoe of the University of Delaware donated his vast private collection of materials on Liberia to IUB. Together with another large collection of field notes, research materials, art and artifacts donated later by anthropologist Warren d’Azevedo of the University of Nevada–Reno, these form the core of a unique repository now known as the Liberian Collections Project (LCP), now housed at the Archives. Among the materials in the collection besides musical and film recordings are government documents, newspapers, ethnographic materials, missionary archives, photographs, and cultural artifacts. In addition, IUB’s Mathers Museum of World Cultures has an on-going exhibit, “Preserving Liberia: The IU Connection,” that can be seen until the end of December 2005. This exhibit was drawn from over 1,000 pieces of Liberian art and artifacts, including the d’Azevedo and Holsoe collections, held by the Mathers Museum and IU Art Museum,
This spring, LCP Coordinator Verlon Stone announced the awarding of two projects to be funded by the British Museum’s Endangered Archives Programme: a pilot study to preserve and provide access to Liberia’s Presidential Archives and National Archives and a project to preserve the personal papers of William V.S. Tubman, Liberia’s longest serving president (1944-1971). The Tubman Papers project received a supplementary grant from the Title VI Cooperative Archives Project and the Cooperative Africana Microform Project. Stone says that these projects grew out of an assessment trip that he and LCP Advisory Board member, Elwood Dunn of Sewanee–The University of the South, took to Liberia in August 2004 to assess the country’s document repositories after so many years of civil strife. In addition to the Archives, IUB’s partners on these projects are Indiana University Libraries’ IU Archives and E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory, as well as the Liberian Presidential Archives, Center for National Documents and Records/ National Archives–Liberia and the University of Liberia.
Dean Patrick O’Meara and President Al-Hassan Conteh sign the agreement of cooperation. |
In late April, IU’s links to Liberia were further strengthened by the signing of an a greement of friendship and cooperation with the University of Liberia. The signatories were Patrick O’Meara, dean for international programs signing on behalf of IU President Adam W. Herbert, and University of Liberia’s President, Dr. Al-Hassan Conteh. Accompanying the president was Ms. Sedia Massaquoi-Bangoura, senior program coordinator of the University of Liberia.
The linkage represents a new phase for t he Liberian university, which underwent extensive damage, looting, and faculty brain-drain due to the long-lasting civil war. With the advent of a negotiated peace for Liberia in 2003, Conteh and his administration have been working to resume the kind of academic programming and professional training essential for the reconstruction of the country. O’Meara says that the agreement will facilitate the exchange of teaching, research, personnel, and students, as well as books, and he looks forward to very productive relationship with the Liberian university.
—Roxana Ma Newman
Web Links:
For further information on IU’s Liberian materials:
For further information on the Endangered Archives Programme’s Liberian projects:
http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/researchprojects.html
