Timeless Archives, Timely Connections: Preserving Endangered Documentary Heritage and Inspiring Collaboration

Timeless Archives, Timely Connections: Preserving Endangered Documentary Heritage and Inspiring Collaboration is a conference to be held on 31 October – 1 November 2024, organised by the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) and the British Library’s International Office. This will be a hybrid conference to be held at the British Library, London and online.  

The conference will mark the 20th anniversary of the Endangered Archives Programme and highlight its achievements. It will also explore common themes and topics crucial to safeguarding documentary heritage and cultural legacy.   

It will bring together many of the institutions, individuals and activists in documentary heritage preservation. There will be sessions on EAP, preservation strategies from key organizations and funding opportunities, and the sharing of case studies of cultural heritage protection against risks caused by climate change, conflict or war.  Hisham Matar, Jane Winters and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún will be presenting keynotes.

Attendees will also be able to engage with their peers on the most urgent and incipient challenges and opportunities in the field, including the comparative costs of protecting the physical archive versus digitization, new risks in the digital world, designing strategic approaches, and how to engage more diverse audiences with the protection of documentary heritage.