HMML’s largest project to date focuses on the West African Islamic traditions found in the manuscripts of Timbuktu and Djenné. The Mali library tradition centers on family library collections used, safeguarded, and kept within learned families for generations. HMML's work began with Malian partners at SAVAMA-DCI, digitizing hundreds of thousands of manuscripts evacuated from Timbuktu to Bamako, Mali’s capital, before the armed occupation of Timbuktu in 2012. The SAVAMA collection contains many small and large family libraries, including the family library of SAVAMA’s founder, Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara—the Mamma Haidara Library—and the libraries of Aboubacar Abass, Attaher Mouaz, Almoustapha Abdoulahi, and others. HMML and SAVAMA partnered with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures to build local capacity in conservation, description, and digitization of manuscripts. HMML's work later extended to partnerships with family libraries that remained in Timbuktu and a partnership to photograph multiple family libraries in Djenné with the Djenné Manuscript Library. In Timbuktu, HMML partnered with the EAP for the Endangered Libraries of Timbuktu (ELIT) project based at the Imam Ben Essayouti Library, Al-Wangara Library at the Sidi Yahya Mosque, and the Al-Cady Al-Aqib Library at the Sankore Mosque.

HMML’s digitization work in Mali is now complete, resulting in an estimated 4.25 million unique image files representing 302,000 manuscripts. Our work of cataloging these manuscripts for online access in Reading Room will continue for many years.

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