The latest issue of Comma is now available online for members of ICA!
Comma 2012:1 was a special issue dealing primarily with archives in anglophone Africa (along with Burundi and Burkina Faso); it thus gave no coverage to a significant part of the continent and the editorial board of Comma proposed, and agreed the necessity for, an issue dedicated to the countries of francophone Africa.
The scope of such an issue was potentially very wide: it was initially hoped to cover North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco) and the Archives Nationales d’Outremer in mainland France, but sadly, neither proved feasible. Again, while some individual countries were unable to provide an overview of activities, they are, in some cases, visible here in other ways: for example, an account of Belgian colonial archives cannot be written without reference to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The present issue again includes Burundi and Burkina Faso, but with different authorial perspectives from those in Comma 2012:1. To conclude the issue, we include a slightly different kind of article: an overview by an experienced consultant which provides a broad, para-statal perspective on some of the consequences of developments in electronic working and administration, and the major problems that these cause for archive managers in the region.
If you are a member, click here and log in to access the full journal.
If you are not member, you can either go to the Liverpool university Press website and purchase each article individually, or become a member of ICA to access the electronic version and receive the printed version.