Student interns reflect on their work for ALMEDA

By Max van Loenen and Malin Runefelt

During the spring of 2024, we collected metadata on African literary magazines published during the decolonization period of the 60s and 70s. ALMEDA creates data on and then links these ephemeral works. An important aspect of the collection process has been linking authors who wrote for these magazines to their other, formal, publications through their VIAF numbers, a service that links worldwide library authority files. By doing this, we will be able to trace a richer picture of this pivotal era of decolonization.

One example we worked on was a student magazine from the University of Dar es Salaam, called Darlite until 1970, when it changed its name to Umma. The magazine’s name-change signaled the decolonial thinking of the editor J.N. Birihanze, who expressed in its first number, how it is Umma’s “duty to effect the changes that will better the people’s lot”. Emphasizing the influential capacity and the responsibility of the magazine and its writers, Birihanze encourages its contributors to engage in their communities and provoke positive action.

The content of such magazines is saturated with direct and indirect commentary on the societal transformations that were underway during this time. We believe that cataloging metadata on such magazines enables greater visibility to the cultural significance of previously under-appreciated works.

During their internship at ALMEDA, Max and Malin catalogued thousands of individual works from Black Orpheus (Nigeria), Nexus/Busara (Kenya), Dhana (Kenya), Okyeame (Ghana), Odi (Malawi) and Umma/Darlite (Tanzania). They also produced a sizable data set on Swahili newspaper serializations, which is now available as a .csv file on our preliminary results page.