The fruits of Google's $1.25 million (R8.6 million) contribution to the preserving and digitising of thousands of archival documents, photographs and videos of former president Nelson Mandela in a single, digital exhibition, can now be seen.
This, as the Nelson Mandela Digital Archive, a collaboration between the Google Cultural Institute and the Johannesburg-based Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory (NMCM) went live yesterday. The site is freely accessible to the public and includes Mandela's correspondence and diaries written during his 27 years of imprisonment, and notes he made while leading the negotiations that ended apartheid in SA.
The archive will also include the earliest-known photograph of Mandela, rare images of his cell on Robben Island in the 1970s, and never-seen drafts of his manuscripts for the sequel to his best-selling autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.
NMCM memory programme manager Verne Harris says it is “invigorating” to see the institution's combined efforts with search giant Google become a reality. “This digital initiative will make it possible for us to reach the full spectrum of our stakeholders, from the global elite to systemically disadvantaged South Africans.”
Luke Mckend, country manager for Google SA, says the archive currently includes over 1 900 unique images, documents and videos, which and will grow over time. “South Africans from all walks of life can now engage with important parts of our country's history. For example, reading handwritten pages of a letter smuggled from Robben Island in 1977, or seeing warrant documents that sent Mandela to jail first for five years and then for life.”
Other projects by the Google Cultural Institute to preserve cultural heritage and make it accessible worldwide include showcasing the Dead Sea Scrolls, presenting thousands of works of art online through the Art Project, and the digitisation of the Yad Vashem Holocaust materials.
To access the Nelson Mandela Digital Archive visit http://archive.nelsonmandela.org.
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