Sudan’s open-access digital library launched

May 31, 2006 (NAIROBI) — 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: http://www.sudanarchive.net