Aluka

For the Melbourne a cappella band, see Aluka (band). For the Chinese League of Legends player, see Aluka (video gamer).

Aluka was an online digital library focused on Africa-related material. It focused on globally connecting scholars by building a common platform for online collaboration and knowledge sharing. Aluka's intended audience was higher education and research communities.^[1]

Aluka (library)

Aluka logo
Type of site	Digital library
Owner	Ithaka Harbors
Created by	Aluka
URL	http://www.aluka.org
Commercial	Not-for-profit

Aluka was an initiative of Ithaka Harbors, a non-profit organization focused on incubating promising new projects that use technology for the benefit of higher education. It aims to grow successful projects into independent services or adjoined to larger, existing organizations for the academic community. In June 2008, the Ithaka and JSTOR Trustees approved a recommendation that the Aluka initiative be integrated into JSTOR.^[2]

Founded in 2003, Aluka was an initiative of Ithaka, a non-profit organization based in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey. The initial funding was provided by the Mellon Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation.

The first release of Aluka took place in early February 2007 with preview access to JSTOR subscribers. Aluka was made free to all academic and other not-for-profit institutions in Africa.

The name 'Aluka' is derived from a Zulu word meaning 'to weave'.^[3]

Aluka sought to attract other collections of scholarly interest from institutions and individuals worldwide. By bringing materials together, it created new opportunities for research and collaboration. Documents and materials that were previously hard or impossible to access were made globally available to researchers.

Content

The Aluka digital library was focused on three major areas:

• African Plants Initiative: Collection of African plants specimens and related material funded by the Mellon Foundation, which was migrated to JSTOR^[4]
• Cultural Heritage: 3D models, panorama tours, plans, sections, and elevation data derived from the 3D models and a collection of photographs documenting African heritage sites, which were created and provided by the Zamani Project.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]} This collection includes the Djingereyber mosque in Timbuktu,^[11] the great mosque of Djenne,^[12] the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela,^[13] Petra,^[14] the Swahili ruins on Kilwa Kisiwani^[15] and Sonog Mnara,^[16] the Lamu fort,^[17] the Shela mosque,^[18] Elmina Castle,^[19] Fort of São Sebastião,^[20] and many more. This content area also includes a large collection of African Rock Art.
• Struggles for Freedom: Documents, images, and other materials documenting the liberation struggles in Southern Africa, including those from Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.^[1]

See also

• List of academic databases and search engines
• Digital preservation

External links and Further reading

• Project briefing at the meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information
• Meeting of Africana Librarians Council at the Library of Congress
• Introduction to Aluka from the Association of Research Libraries
• Isaacman, A., Lalu, P., Nygren, T. 2005. Digitization, History, and the Making of a Postcolonial Archive of Southern African Liberation Struggles: The Aluka Project. in Africa Today v.52 no.2. doi:10.1353/at.2006.0009 hdl:10566/299
• Can Technology Save the Developing World in the Chronicle of Higher Education July 21, 2006.
• Building a Digital Library of Scholarly Resources from the Developing World: An Introduction to Aluka, Rajan, R., Ruther, H. in African Arts v.40 issue 2. doi:10.1162/afar.2007.40.2.1
• Documenting African Sites: The Aluka Project, Rajan, R., Ruther, H. in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians v.66 number 4. JSTOR 10.1525/jsah.2007.66.4.437 doi:10.1525/jsah.2007.66.4.437
• Project Digitizes Works from the Golden Age of Timbuktu in The New York Times May 20, 2008.
• The Rush to Save Timbuktu's Crumbling Manuscripts in the Der Spiegel August 1, 2008.

References

1. Isaacman, Allen F; Lalu, Premesh; Nygren, Thomas I (2005). "Digitization, History, and the Making of a Postcolonial Archive of Southern African Liberation Struggles: The Aluka Project". Africa Today. 52 (2): 55–77. doi:10.1353/at.2006.0009. ISSN 1527-1978.
2. "JSTOR and Ithaka Merge, Uniting Efforts to Serve the Scholarly Community". USC Libraries. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
3. "Aluka - Association of Southeastern Research Libraries". 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
4. Smith, Gideon F. (2004). "The African Plants Initiative: A Big Step for Continental Taxonomy". Taxon. 53 (4): 1023–1025. doi:10.2307/4135568. ISSN 0040-0262. JSTOR 4135568.
5. Rüther, Heinz; Rajan, Rahim S. (2007). "Documenting African Sites: The Aluka Project". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 66 (4): 437–443. doi:10.1525/jsah.2007.66.4.437. ISSN 0037-9808. JSTOR 10.1525/jsah.2007.66.4.437.
6. Rajan, Rahim S.; Rüther, Heinz (2007-05-30). "Building a Digital Library of Scholarly Resources from the Developing World: An Introduction to Aluka". African Arts. 40 (2): 1–7. doi:10.1162/afar.2007.40.2.1. ISSN 0001-9933. S2CID 57558501.
7. Ruther, Heinz. "AN AFRICAN HERITAGE DATABASE – THE VIRTUAL PRESERVATION OF AFRICA'S PAST" (PDF). International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-02-15.
8. "Home". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
9. Rüther, Heinz. "Challenges in Heritage Documentation with Terrestrial Laser Scanning" (PDF). Zamani project. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-09-25.
10. "Recent additions to the African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes Database – Opinions – Archival Platform". www.archivalplatform.org. Archived from the original on 2019-11-01. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
11. "Site - Djingereyber Mosque". zamaniproject.org. Archived from the original on 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
12. "Site - Djenne Mosque". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
13. "Site - Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
14. "Site - Petra". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
15. "Site - Kilwa Kisiwani - Swahili Ruins". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
16. "Site - Songo Mnara - Swahili Ruins". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-09-25.
17. "Site - Lamu Fort". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
18. "Site - Shela Mosque". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
19. "Site - Elmina Castle". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
20. "Documented Heritage Sites by Zamani". zamaniproject.org. Retrieved 2019-11-01.