Regarding Birzeit University’s Palestinian Archive Project (BZUPAP) - Events

We
in the Birzeit University Palestinian Archive Project (BZUPAP) wish to remind
our colleagues that the University now possesses its open archive of the
Palestinian people. Accessible to interested persons including researchers
around the world, at the following site: www.awraq.birzeit.edu,
it is in active use and contains a large number of materials, written and
audiovisual, relating to modern and contemporary life in Palestine. New
documents are being received, digitized, evaluated, classified and placed
online in an ongoing fashion. The website is user-friendly and enables you to
seek out the category that interests you. The project originated as a vast
field-based study, and began thanks to a research grant by Birzeit University.
Its success is due to the generosity and confidence of the leading Palestinian
non-governmental organizations as well as individuals in the country and
abroad. We have likewise digitized and posted many of the holdings of the
University’s Research and Documentation Center, thus saving them from ongoing deterioration.
By building this open archive, while respecting the principles of copyright and
confidentiality, and first obtaining written permission from donors who are
always acknowledged, Birzeit is working to prevent the kind of loss,
destruction or disappearance of invaluable documents having marked the past. We
are also helping to strengthen the multiple Palestinian narratives which are so
often dismissed or marginalized in the re-telling by international academics
and journalists.

Our
holdings are subject to ongoing evaluation by a board of three Birzeit
historians with long and diverse archival experience. We welcome correspondence
from interested persons aimed at improving or correcting the presentation of
the materials, keeping in mind that our interest does not extend to the
governmental sphere. We call on non-governmental organizations, families and
individuals to get in touch with us with new contributions – including personal
documents, texts, letters, maps, recordings, photos, and videos – to a growing
knowledge base. This can be done by email at the following address: [email protected], or by speaking to a
member of the archive team at the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International
Studies (2982939) where the project is currently housed.