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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Suzanne Freeman
Head Fine Arts Librarian
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
2800 Grove Avenue
Richmond, VA 23221-2466
PHONE: (804) 340-1498
FAX: (804) 340-1548
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Dougherty
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 10:13 AM
To: Suzanne Freeman
Subject: FW: Endangered books and manuscripts in Zambia
Suzanne: FYI.
Regards!
Mike Dougherty
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
2800 Grove Ave.
Richmond, Va.23221-2466
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum Security Network [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
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Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 6:06 AM
To: Museum Security Mailinglist
Cc: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Endangered books and manuscripts in Zambia
http://museum-security.org/ <http://museum-security.org/>
April 22, 2000
________________________________
From: Jan Paris <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> >
Subject: Endangered books and manuscripts in Zambia
IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions,
has asked that the following information be widely disseminated. I am
posting this to the DistList with the thought that it may come to the
attention of some agency or institution whose mission might encompass
support for situations like the one described below.
Sjoerd Koopman (Mr)
Coordinator of Professional Activities
IFLA
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
P.O.Box 95312
2509 CH The Hague
The Netherlands
+31 70 314 0884
Fax: +31 70 383 4827
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<URH:http://www.ifla.org/>
IFLA Headquarters
April 14, 2000
Prof. J. Desmond Clark, emeritus professor of paleoarchaeology at
the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the preeminent
paleoarchaeologist and Africanists in the world, has just shown me a copy of
a March 29, 2000 article from the Daily Telegraph (London) entitled: "Last
Record of African Explorers Faces Ruin." The article was written by Ishbel
Matheson in Livingstone, Zambia. It reads in part:
"A priceless collection of books and documents, detailing the
earliest days of European exploration in Africa, is under threat of
destruction. The Livingstone Museum in southern Zambia has hundreds of
valuable books, written by the first missionaries, adventurers and
prospectors in central Africa. But the building's leaking ceiling collapsed
in recent heavy rains, and many publications were damaged beyond repair.
Others need expensive conservation work to save them. Piles of ancient,
sodden volumes, with subjects as diverse as elephant-hunting and native
practices, have been left to dry in the tropical heat. Early newspapers,
with vivid descriptions of life in what was then British-ruled Northern
Rhodesia, can scarcely be opened, for fear of tearing fragile, brittle
pages.
"Flexon Mizinga, the keeper of history at the museum, said:
'It means the whole history is wiped out. When you lose this kind
of thing, there is no replacement. You can't get copies anywhere else.
These are the only copies we have. Valuable historical documents, which
escaped the flood, are slowly disintegrating because the museum has no money
for conservation. The original letters and journals of David Livingstone,
the Scottish missionary, are the pride of the collection. He was the first
European to discover the nearby Victoria Falls, and he is remembered
affectionately in the area as a Christian who campaigned to stop slavery.
His notebooks describing his second Zambezi [River] expedition in 1858 are
stored in the museum, with those of his companions, even though the
institution is ill equipped to preserve them.
"The journals of Sir John Kirk, a botanist, and Richard Thornton, a
geologist, which record their first impressions of the African landscape and
its commercial potential for the British Empire, are in battered cardboard
boxes. The acidity of the brown paper which wraps the notebooks is slowly
eating away the handwritten testimony of these Victorian explorers. In the
museum's clock tower, amid a jumble of books and newspapers, is the work of
Thomas Baines, an artist and a member of the Zambezi expedition. A
beautiful first edition of his famous Victoria Falls watercolours lies on a
tabletop, vulnerable to the fierce heat and high humidity of the southern
Zambia climate.
"Kinglsey Choongo, a museum curator, says, 'The documents will not
see the beginning of another century.' Family members of the early
explorers and settlers gave historical items to the museum because they
wanted their ancestors' contribution to this part of Africa remembered. It
seems, however, that in Livingstone and Zambia the history of the whites in
Africa is being erased from the national consciousness. Tim Holmes, an
author, lives in Zambia and has written a biography of Dr. Livingstone. He
believes the museum has been starved of funds because its collection is
perceived as a relic from the colonial past.'After independence came, what
Zambians wanted to know most of all, is their own history. The colonial
history was seen as an irrelevant burden. But trying to ignore colonialaism
is like trying to tell the history of Britain without the Romans.'It is the
former colonial countries who are now trying to help the museum out of its
immediate crisis. The European Union has pledged 250,000 pounds.
Conservationists fear that the money is too late because so much damage has
been done. Nor will it be enough for the extensive upgrade needed to
preserve the collections."
Dr. Clark was the director and primary curator of the Livingstone
Museum in its early manifestations from 1937 to his departure for Berkeley,
California in 1961. In 1951 he raised the funds needed for a major
expansion of the museum complex and library in Livingstone. A modest man,
Clark nevertheless has told me in recent oral history interviews I have
conducted with him for the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft
Library, UC Berkeley, that it was he who built the magnificent book and
manuscript collection for the museum's library.
He personally worked with the descendants of David Livingstone and
others to do so. Though now eighty-four years old, Clark can list
practically every rare book title, journal and manuscript collection which
is held in the Livingstone Museum library.
Curiously, however, Clark's great legacy to the world will be his
work as a paleoarchaeolgist in Africa. The paleolithic and neolithic
archaeological collections at the Museum are the result of his work over the
course of his years working in Central and East Africa. It was always
Clark's intention also to build the museum's collections and library for the
Zambian people. In the 1950s he instituted museum outreach educational
programs in a concerted effort to help the local peoples learn more about
their early history. Long before other museums instituted the practice,
Clark designed small, portable travelling exhibitions for this purpose.
Understandably it saddens him greatly to see that the museum and its
resources are falling into ruin.
I would hope that IFLA and its membership could rally support for
Flexon Mizinga, Kingsley Choongo and others in Livingstone who are waging
the uphill battle to preserve what remains of this priceless library
collection.
Thank you for spreading the word.
Yours sincerely,
Timothy Troy, Research Librarian
Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
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