MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online (www2.matrix.msu.edu), located at Michigan State University, builds a digital repository of information online for researchers, teachers and students to facilitate the exchange of ideas.
Digital librarian Catherine Foley is collaborating with MSU history professor David Robinson to create a database of photos and audio regarding his current research, examining Islamic cultures in West Africa.
Researchers will document their research and present Foley with photos or interviews to be integrated into MATRIX’s online library.
“What I think is very important about this project is that it not only makes those materials available, but also the primary source materials that (researchers have) found in the archives or they’ve gone and done interviews on,” Foley said.
“That’s not typical of projects. It’s not so much that they hoard it, it’s just they don’t have an outlet for broad public use of these materials.”
The majority of information available to scholars will be in the form of translations, annotations and transcriptions of documents and interviews of West African Muslims.
###