David Livingstone’s 1871 Field Diary

What is the project? The David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project is a preservation effort that shared the common goal of using spectral imaging technology and digital publishing to release a series of historical, faded and illegible texts written by the famous explorer, missionary and abolitionist, David Livingstone, during his time spent iindex_meetingn Central Africa. Previous to this collaborative effort, these texts had remained untouched and, therefore, never published mainly due to the fact of their fragility and near impossible legibility. However, by using cutting edge technology, researchers, scholars, and educational and archival institutions have completed their common goal of restoring Livingstone’s diary.

After an eighteen-month reservation, the project team was able to not only make Livingstone’s diary available to the public but by restoring the text, we are able to compare Livingstone’s diary to the 1874 book produced by Horace Waller, see critical and historical essays and notes and have an overall, detailed, project history of the studied time period.

Overall, this project gives full access to major historical events from a first hand account and allow for a glimpse into the history of the British Empire and the African history.

What challenges do you think the research team faced when approaching this project? Stranded in Central Africa during an expedition to find the source of the Nile for five months in 1871, David Livingstone spent time in a remote village called Nyangewe. However, Livingstone had run out of paper and began to fun out of his ink, being forced to improvise for both. Finding an old copy of a newspaper and using seeds from a local berry for ink, Livingstone continued to document his life in the village. Most famously, Livingstone documented a massacre on the local African population by Arab slave traders. In a single day, between 400 and 500 people died shattering not only the well being of Livingstone but also the history of Central Africa.

index_color-1Although this information is crucial to the history of the British Empire and Africa, the state of the documents were extremely vulnerable and nearly impossible to read. Because Livingstone had to improvise for his paper and ink, this made the restoration of the documents extremely hard. Not only was the text faded and the paper extremely fragile, but with the accounts that were written on the newspaper, the text became extremely illegible. This made it very hard for the research team to successfully and effectively restore the text.

What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of creating and making accessible such digital artifacts? Digital artifacts offer a glimpse into the past and the history of events, people and areas that we otherwise would not have information on. By restoring documents, accounts, maps, and various other historical credentials and creating a digital version, we are allowing for a more permanent version of said documents. Not only do research teams ensure the safety of these texts by creating a digital version, but they are also allowing for the public to have access to a part of history. Previously only scholars, historians and other select individuals had access to documents and there would be a long process in order to obtain these documents, or even just look at them in person. However, by introducing a digital version, virtually anyone can look and study these documents without fear of harm to the original copies.

Although in retrospect, digital versions offer more advantages than disadvantages, there are still issues that can arise. By making documents available to everyone, the research team is allowing for varying views, opinions and possible refutes to arise. The more people who have access to historical documents the more personal views and options will come about which can lead to issues in the present