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 full programme of the conference is now available on https://eap.bl.uk/conference-2024.

The conference will include keynotes by Hisham Matar, Jane Winters and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún. Some of the speakers include Tom Holland, Buhle Mbambo-Thata (National University of Lesotho), Hana Sleiman (University of Edinburgh), Dian Kuswandini (UNESCO), Marianne Deraze (International Council on Archives), Romana Delaporte (Cultural Emergency Response), Michael Ballbach (Google Books), Stephanie Grant (British Council), Dagnija Baltiņa (National Library of Latvia), Nikolas Sarris (National Library of Greece), Arthur Dudney (Arcadia), Rachel Deblinger (Modern Endangered Archives Program) and more, who will be sharing their experience on the protection of documentary heritage.

Marking 20 years of the Endangered Archives Programme, the conference will highlight the Programme’s achievements and 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 organisations and funding opportunities, and the sharing of case studies of cultural heritage protection against risks caused by climate change, conflict or war.

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 digitisation, new risks in the digital world, designing strategic approaches, and how to engage more diverse audiences with the protection of documentary heritage.  Further speakers will be announced in early September.

Tickets and information: https://eap.bl.uk/conference-2024