archivi.ng, 2021
Finally, something concrete.
I’ve spent most of my working years at startups, where everyone is trying everything, but most importantly, making things happen fast.
When we started thinking about how to archive over five decades of newspapers, it was with this startup alacrity. We had a clear idea: locate old newspapers, prevent permanent loss by digitally archiving them, and make them accessible online.
There are, however, several questions we didn’t anticipate when wrote this down as a fancy idea, but three of them have been exceptionally hectic yet essential.
“Are you a legal entity?”
It looks obvious now, but I always felt that we’d show up at a library, speak to a Head Librarian like:
Us: Hello
Library: Hi
Us: We’re working on the project that’d preserve the work that librarians who’ve worked here have done for decades. We want to take all the old newspapers inside storage that are now falling apart and digitally archive them.
Librarians: Woow! Fantastic! Here’s all the access you need! And thoughts and prayers!
The language of reality is systems that are verifiable and repeatable. Therefore, the most verifiable way for one entity to engage with another is when both of them are registered entities. It’s one reason why the Corporate Affairs Commission exists.
Registering an organisation is stressful enough, but as a not-for-profit organisation Limited By Guarantee In Nigeria, you also need consent from the office of the Attorney General. Extreme sport.
It took over eight months, but we managed to get registered anyway, and now, we’re a legal entity in Nigeria. While we were waiting for approvals, we started registering in the U.S. by 501c – it took eight weeks or less. Registering abroad means that we could get some form of legitimacy while we waited for the CAC. It also made it easy to have conversations with American organisations.
Who made it happen: We had Maryam and Cynthia, who started the process on the Nigerian front. Then Ayodeji, a volunteer, introduced me to Stanley. He knocked on every door at the Ministry of Justice and ensured our application didn’t get stuck on any desks.
On the 501c front, we had Modupe, Fikayo and the rest of the Legaltrunk team, making sure we barely lifted a finger. Ayomide, another volunteer, played a crucial role in ensuring we get the full privileges of an American entity.
“How are you going to scan so many newspapers?”
In Limbo, I wrote about our experiment to scan a month’s worth of newspapers and how it isn’t scalable. We need a more efficient way to do it faster and at scale.
Our most important fixed asset to help us get started is an archiving suite – a large-format scanner, some processing power, and licencing for software. The price tag is ~₦19 million, and as I write this, we’ve made an 80% payment on our gear, and it should reach us in mid-February 2022, all things being equal.
This money was made possible by two kinds of people:
- People who make one-time contributions. They tend to write fatter cheques and help us reach ourfinancial goals faster.
- People who continue to make monthly, recurring commitments. Like a subscription. The long term future of this project will be possible because of these monthly commitments. They’re consistent, and it’s easier to plan the future around them.
Who made this happen: For experimenting, Al-Faruq, who first tested this approach with a DSLR, Tunde at Docuscan, who we got introduced to by a Tomiwa, a volunteer, and who provided us with a portable scanner to experiment. And Esther, for pulling all the stops and getting everyone aligned and on the job.
And for the money: Everything we’ve raised has come from less than 50 people. Imagine what we’d raise and do with 500 or 5,000.
The financial ops, and the thinking around financial ops is thanks to volunteers; Tosin, Ted, Eruke, and Dozie.
“Do you have the rights to show these newspapers?”
This year, I learned about the Berne Convention, an event from 1886 that formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law.
Every establishment we’ve spoken to about this project have asked this question around our right to show. To show these newspapers, we’ need consent from newspapers. Now, we knew this; we just didn’t think it’d take long.
Thanks to: Ruby for all the legal ops around intellectual property, while Fozadoza has also played a key role in sharpening my thinking around Nigeria’s IP laws.
How you can help: Introduce us to newspaper publishers. They need to have been in print before 2010 and have relative nationwide coverage. They can be active (like Punch, Guardian, Tribune, Nigerian Observer, National Concord, Daily Vanguard, etc.) or defunct (like Daily Sketch, West African Pilot, etc).
Next year,
By the end of Q1:
We’ll have our scanner.
We want to successfully close conversations with at least two publishers and reach an agreement that benefits us all.
If we can nail the second goal, we want to have scanned at least one month’s worth of newspapers and made them accessible to you.
For the rest of the year, we’ll be doubling down on our journey to archiving over 18,000 days of Nigerian newspapers. As intended.
In 2022, every time we encounter inevitable slowness, we’ll handle it with patience and focus more on what we can control. And every time we get the chance to move fast, we’ll hit step on the throttle with all the vim.
We’ve come this far because thousands of people like you have shown enthusiasm; hundreds have volunteered, and a few dozen people contributed either as one-offs or recurring contributions.
Imagine what we’d achieve with more.
P.S: Ope Adedeji, a volunteer, edited this update. If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re a volunteer we haven’t yet worked with. We haven’t reached out yet, because we haven’t figured out a way to work with you in a way that’s beneficial for your time and ours. If you think we’re missing something, email me or DM me, please.
If you’re not yet a volunteer, now’s the time.