Documentation & Publication

Documentation serves as the backbone of our research outputs and ethnography projects at the Institute of African Studies. Without the documentation section, critical information of the Institute could have been totally lost during the Nigerian Civil War. John Onyishi states that the Institute’s collection had “grown from the initial hundreds of pieces to its present over four hundred specimens of antiquities” (Uche-Okeke, 1984, p. 44). The robust documentation processes and systems provide clarity on artefacts and ensure continuity by creating a segmented housing system of different artifacts and their usage, as well as serving as regular referencing points for all the collections of the Institute.
The Institute’s record shows that there were four hundred and four serially numbered art/cultural objects physically lodged in the Institute Museum as of January 1975, but these materials have very scanty or unhelpful information, which undermines access (Uche-okeke, 1984, p. 44). In 2009, E. J. Otagburuagu & J. T. Omenma (2009), in a monograph entitled Aspect of Igbo Heritage, in an effort to address the limited information on the existing artefacts, undertook a thorough classification of the artefacts into art and masquerade festival artefacts, religion artefacts, governance artefacts, technology artefacts, and household artefacts.
Our documentation is gradually transitioning from a paper-based system to an online-based one. To start with, The Ikenga: International Journal of the Institute of African Studies has all its volumes (1-27, including all their 4 issues4) now online: https://www.ikengajournal.com.ng/volumes. Such digitisation efforts make knowledge on Africa and African Diaspora easily available and accessible to the global scientific community. Additionally, historical records such as the cassettes, tapes, and collections of the 1982/3 1st Igbo Salvage Ethnography Project reports were preserved at the documentation units that provided invaluable insights for the planning and implementation of the ongoing 2nd Igbo Salvage Ethnography projects.
As part of our decolonising cultural heritages agenda, the Documentation Unit encourages reparations of artefacts and continues to accept and document repatriated ones from Europe and other continents. Mr Penny Howard, American that returned Igbo artefacts collected by his late father, Mr Howard, has this to say about the Institute’s documentation of returned Igbo artefacts:
Dear Professor Omenma and Professor Korieh,
I have shared your photos, letter and video with my mother, my brother and my father's family.
They are all immensely touched and grateful for the effort you have put in to,
bring the artefacts from the US to Nigeria, to display them and to document this, and to,
share with us. I am sure my father would be very pleased that these items he collected in ,
Biafra so long ago have now been able to become part of your collected cultural heritage,
Penny Howard, March 4, 2026, letter to the Institute). ,
Documentation is an important resource for all aspects of our work, and it serves as a place for everyone to access the same information and ensure a shared understanding that helps the Institute project what we are, what we have and what we do. This ranges from written words and visuals to videos and audio.