This project continues the ongoing work, supported by CRL, of organizing and preparing the documents held in the IPEAFRO collection for microfilm and, in partnership with the National Library of Brazil, producing the microfilms. To date, IPEAFRO has delivered a total of 108 films (54 negative and 54 positive) to LAMP through the Library of Congress office at the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s National Archive digitized part of the collection, and IPEAFRO has made digitized documents available to the public on its website.
The collection is divided into five sections: Black Experimental Theater Section, Black Arts Museum Section, Abdias Nascimento Political Activity Section, Abdias Nascimento Biography and Intellectual Work Section, and IPEAFRO Section. Two major sections of this collection have been prepared and microfilmed: Black Experimental Theater (TEN) and Black Arts Museum (MAN); Part I of the Political Activity Section has also been microfilmed. IPEAFRO did the cleaning, identification, description and indexing of the documents. From this information, the National Library prepared the internal informational labels (targets) necessary for microfilming. IPEAFRO proofread and revised the targets. The National Library did the microfilming; the National Archive digitized reels 1-31; the National Library digitized reels 32-39. In this proposal, we seek support for work on Part II of the Political Activity Section, containing approximately 570 items with 1700 pages, and on the Biography and Intellectual Work Section, containing approximately 680 items with 5000 pages (these are estimated figures, based on preliminary sorting of documents).