... to its member states. The IDEP library in Dakar is the only custodian centre of the Institute’s documents. This concentration of single hard copies poses problems for use and access considering that all 54 African member countries need to be catered for. The integrity of the documents is at risk due to the inevitable wear of time and the regular handling of these 6,000 documents. Aware of these implications and of the future challenges of the IDEP, the Institute launched a consultation to dematerialize its archives in 2016. Following its launch in 2016, Arkhênum and its sister company Pro Archives Systemes, based in Senegal, proposed to carry out the services on the IDEP’s premises. The proposal was accepted by the Institute and the service began in mid-2017.

1. CASE STUDY
DIGITIZATION
Communicating the economic history of post-
independent Africa...
...to its member
States.
Headquarters of IDEP in Dakar, Senegal
Mr. Antonin Benoit Diouf
Chief of Library and Documentation
Services
Context
The African Institute of Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) is a Pan-African
institution. Created in 1962 by the United Nations General Assembly, with its headquarters
based in Dakar, Senegal.
Its primary mandate is to support and assist African countries to strengthen the
abilities of their management teams in order to ensure the integrity of their independence
and to promote Africa’s socio-economic development.
Storage facilities are located in the basements of their buildings, covering 1,100m
2
, and
contain more than 1,5 linear meters of archived documents on the subject of the economic
history of the post-independent Africa since 1963. More than 2,000 users (academics,
researchers...) physically attend the library every year.
Challenges
The IDEP library in Dakar is the only custodian centre of the Institute’s documents. This
concentration of single hard copies poses problems for use and access considering that all
54 African member countries need to be catered for.
The integrity of the documents is at risk due to the regular handling of these 6,000 documents.
Aware of these implications and of the future challenges of the IDEP, the Institute launched a
consultation to digitize its archives in 2016.
Following its launch in 2016, Arkhênum and its sister company PRO ARCHIVES SYSTEMES,
based in Senegal, proposed to carry out the services on the IDEP’s premises. The proposal
was accepted by the Institute and the service began in mid-2017.
But before starting the project, the IDEP had to identify the scope of the requirement. A
preparatory stage had already made it possible to identify quantitatively as well as qualitatively
the documents concerned by the future digitization campaign. This phase finally made it
possible to group the documents according to their origin and their place of publication. The
review of these documents also facilitated their preparation for digitization: dust removal,
physical inventory available in excel format, etc.

2. African Institute of Economic Development
and Planning (IDEP)
Street of the 18 June - PO. BOX: 3186 - CP 18524 – Dakar, Senegal
Tel: (221) 33 823 10 20 - Fax: (221) 33 822 29 64
Email: library@unidep.org
Website: https://www.uneca.org/fr/idep
INSTITUTION
KEY FIGURES
520 000
pages of publications of all the development plans of
African countries as well as memoirs of major African
development planners and political analysts.
BENEFITS OF THE APPROACH
A service performed in-situ
The IDEP wanted the digitization project to be a service
performed on-site so that it could continue to offer access
to the original documents to its visitors. This also helped to
create employment locally.
As part of the IDEP’s mission and
mandate, the Institute’s Library strives
to remain a center of excellence for
access to the knowledge needed to
achieve the development goals of the
African States. It is thus able to play
its full role as a key resource for the
achievement of the IDEP’s training and
research priorities.
An expanded version for research
The manual indexing of the documents was planned from
the beginining to provide a searchable digital version in an
optimal and intuitive way.
Headquarters:
7 rue Joseph Bonnet - 33100 Bordeaux - France
Tel: +33 5 57 02 10 65
Email: contact-num@arkhenum.fr
The digitization project was carried out in 2
successive stages
The digitization of the IDEP’s archives covering 520,000 pages of the various
publications was carried out in two stages. This decision was taken to allow
a benchmark in terms of productivity in the view of the very heterogeneous
nature of the documents to be processed. The first phase, which covered
260,000 pages was carried out from the end of June 2017 to December
2017, i.e. 6 months of service.
Arkhênum and PRO ARCHIVES SYSTEMES deployed 2 automatic scanners
and a patrimonial scanner, as well as a 6 person team that included the
preparation operators, the scanning operators, a person indexing the
documents and a Project Manager. The analysis of this first step made it
possible to define the optimum production model both qualitatively and
quantitatively that would be implemented for the second phase.
In accordance with the IDEP, the second phase that focused on the
digitization of 260,000 pages began in September 2018. The digitization
settings during the first phase were confirmed after analysing of the first lot
by the client. A 100% heritage production model was deployed for this
second phase, having been considered more appropriate in view of the
state of the documents.
This second stage saw the setting up of a smaller team with one person in
the preparation and two digitization operators working in shifts, of whom one
also had a role of the supervisor and controller.
The IDEP archives, brought to the future
In all, the entire digitization service will have represented less than 12 months
of work. The IDEP is as a result in a position to be able to offer digital versions
of its documents to the member states, whether through a website or
portable electronic media (DVD-ROMs, USB keys, etc.). The IDEP remains
custodian of the paper version, the unique source of reference.
This operation will have helped to clean up the library’s collections and
optimize storage space. As part of this project, the library will pilot the
destruction of documents declared out of use or available in multiple copies.
Storage space is optimized for future physical archiving of future IDEP
publications.
54
African states are members of the African Institute of
Economic Development and Planning