National English Literary Museum (NELM) – South Africa
The National English Literary Museum (NELM) collects, conserves and promotes written South African material and aims to serve all South African reading communities. It promotes the reading and appreciation of all forms of imaginative South African literature in English, including traditional African literature and reaches youth via school outreach programmes and literary, historical and environmental programmes and outdoor literature camps. The museum started in 1972 as a collection of documents and has grown, over the years, into a national resource funded principally by the South African government, with diverse archiving and interactive activities.
Communication Strategies
NELM collects and conserves printed material evidence pertaining to literature and publicises and popularises it by providing all sections of the reading public both locally and abroad with access to it. It responds to queries about its databases that are received via phone, letter, fax or email, allows visitors to view the in-house archives and has electronic databases.
A diversified outreach programme takes information about South African literature to scholars and students. It does this by means of: travelling exhibitions, story reading programmes and outdoor exploration camps in collaboration with environmental and heritage educationalists. Groups of youth who participate in the outdoor literature programmes experience storytelling, discuss traditional folklore and customs, do creative writing, and plan and present drama performances of traditional African tales pertaining to the region they are visiting or history they are learning about. The artefacts of the museum are the imaginative and creative writings in English of southern African writers, regardless of their mother tongue
A diversified outreach programme takes information about South African literature to scholars and students. It does this by means of: travelling exhibitions, story reading programmes and outdoor exploration camps in collaboration with environmental and heritage educationalists. Groups of youth who participate in the outdoor literature programmes experience storytelling, discuss traditional folklore and customs, do creative writing, and plan and present drama performances of traditional African tales pertaining to the region they are visiting or history they are learning about. The artefacts of the museum are the imaginative and creative writings in English of southern African writers, regardless of their mother tongue
Development Issues
Education, Environment
Key Points
The three chief collections of NELM from the past and present are:
NELM is in the process of compiling a bibliography of anglophone black literature and literary criticism by black South Africans, spanning the period 1800 to 1990. The museum hopes to publish the bibliography on CD-ROM.
- Where possible, the museum keeps unpublished manuscripts and drafts as well as proofs, diaries, and private correspondence;
- It collects all genres of creative or imaginative writing published by southern African authors: poetry, plays, novels, short stories, diaries, memoirs, journals and travelogues, including books for children;
- It collects critical matter about Southern African authors, their lives, words and works recorded in the daily press and in learned journals.
NELM is in the process of compiling a bibliography of anglophone black literature and literary criticism by black South Africans, spanning the period 1800 to 1990. The museum hopes to publish the bibliography on CD-ROM.
Sources
NELM website on September 22 2004.
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