AO: This article by Robert Gregory was linked to from the Syracuse Libraries website as providing more context for how Syracuse University came to hold the microfilm collection of/for the Kenya National Archives.
Abstract: "With the inauguration of an African studies program in 1962, Syracuse University began the development of a unique collection of records relating to the eastern side of Africa. The most important part of the collection, the core, is related to Kenya, but there are also valuable records on the other countries of eastern Africa, nine in all, extending from Ethiopia to South Africa. Most of the items in this collection are on microfilm—an extraordinary holding of nearly four thousand reels of official and private records—but there is also much of value in supplementary books, periodicals, and documents in their original form. The acquisition of this collection required an unusual degree of cooperation not only between the faculty and administration at Syracuse, but also between the University, on the one hand, and the government ministers, archival and university personnel, and communal leaders in Africa on the other. Coordination, also, was essential with certain organizations in the United States such as the African Studies Association, the Center for Research Libraries, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities."
Source
Gregory, Robert. 1984. “The Development of the Eastern Africa Collection at Syracuse University.” The Courier, October. https://surface.syr.edu/libassoc/191.
Robert Gregory, "Gregory, Robert. 1984. “The Development of the Eastern Africa Collection at Syracuse University.” The Courier, October. ", contributed by Angela Okune, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 8 August 2019, accessed 21 November 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/gregory-robert-1984-“-development-eastern-africa-collection-syracuse-university”-courier
Critical Commentary
AO: This article by Robert Gregory was linked to from the Syracuse Libraries website as providing more context for how Syracuse University came to hold the microfilm collection of/for the Kenya National Archives.
Abstract: "With the inauguration of an African studies program in 1962, Syracuse University began the development of a unique collection of records relating to the eastern side of Africa. The most important part of the collection, the core, is related to Kenya, but there are also valuable records on the other countries of eastern Africa, nine in all, extending from Ethiopia to South Africa. Most of the items in this collection are on microfilm—an extraordinary holding of nearly four thousand reels of official and private records—but there is also much of value in supplementary books, periodicals, and documents in their original form. The acquisition of this collection required an unusual degree of cooperation not only between the faculty and administration at Syracuse, but also between the University, on the one hand, and the government ministers, archival and university personnel, and communal leaders in Africa on the other. Coordination, also, was essential with certain organizations in the United States such as the African Studies Association, the Center for Research Libraries, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities."