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Just before fighting broke out in Sudan last year, a project funded by the UCLA Library Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) documented nine collections exploring the history of women activists in the region. As military forces targeted libraries and archives, a common occurrence during civil war, reports indicate that at least one, and possibly more, of these collections have been destroyed.
Rachel Deblinger, director of MEAP, said the UCLA Library can play an important role when involved with crisis response at this global level. “The fact that the only remaining record of those materials is the documentation that we have shows the impact the Library can have on global collection heritage preservation,” she said.
“It also shows the importance of one aspect we focus on – offering pre-planning preparation that help communities document their cultural heritage in advance of potential crises, as once there is a war it’s often too late.”
MEAP was launched in 2018 with support from Arcadia,(opens in a new tab) a charitable fund that helps people to record cultural heritage, to conserve and restore nature, and to promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1.2 billion to organizations around the world. The UCLA Library initiative has since had a powerful impact in expanding the capacity for community-led digital preservation around the world, distributing $5 million in grants that have funded 137 projects in 57 countries.
Last year alone, 26 grants went to communities and archives from 21 countries, including archival materials in eastern Ukraine; films in Ghana; newspapers in India; and architectural plans in Morocco.
Record number of new applications
And when applications closed for the latest round of MEAP grants, the program received 201 applications, a remarkable 61 percent more than last year.
This huge growth is the result of a number of factors: more people have heard about projects that are currently underway, while Library staff continue their work to increase awareness of the available resources.
“The right-wing shift around the world and the numbers of wars that are happening also means there is just more cultural heritage at risk, so more people need funds,” said Deblinger.
“It’s also about global politics, as even in places like Latin America, where cultural heritage is a priority and there are big national archives, several governments have reduced funding for cultural heritage – and some of our partners feel renewed concern about safeguarding politically sensitive materials. ”
UCLA’s global reach and wealth of expertise means it is uniquely positioned to undertake the work of preserving global heritage.
“We have both the knowledge and the capacity to support this work and we know these stories really matter to how we understand our place in the world.”
She is also quick to point out the relevance of this work to UCLA, as it provides access to unique resources and allows more people in our community to see themselves in the Library’s collections.
“We really are a global city – students come from all around the world to UCLA, and our job as the Library is to make sure that the students, staff and faculty all see themselves reflected in the materials we have here,” she said.
MEAP collections in the classroom
The MEAP team prioritizes integrating MEAP into classrooms, introducing their collections to classes and encouraging faculty to have students interact with the materials. This provides students with experience working with primary source material as well as access to the different voices reflected in the MEAP collections, including perspectives purposefully left out of national archives and political discourse.
Deblinger gave the example of undergraduate student Julissa Mendoza Davila, who used a MEAP collection for her research paper The Nicaraguan Conflicts’ Effects on Children: The Need for Prioritizing War Children’s Testimonies. The paper, which was very highly regarded by the panel for the Library Undergraduate Prize, focused on Davila’s father’s childhood experience during a period of mass war crimes and systematic violence
Mendoza Davila said she received valuable help from Deblinger, who visited her Political Violence in the Modern World: Causes, Cases and Consequences class, and talked about the importance of primary sources and archives.
“This was extremely useful at the beginning of my project, as it inspired me to focus on those sources within my research,” she wrote in a statement about the ways she had used the Library for her paper.
“She taught us how to navigate the archive and its numerous collections and helped narrow my searches and find primary sources from Nicaragua!”
“To me, it was important to focus on personal testimonies…My idea was that numbers can give you a scope of what happened, but a testimony can open your eyes and allow someone to empathize truly.”
For Deblinger, experiences like that of Mendoza Davila highlight the importance of MEAP’s work. “The research that is happening at UCLA happens in conversation with the world, so we have to be at the forefront of collecting materials from around the world as well as those on our doorstep,” she said.
