Structure
In this Community the relevant materials are classified and organized according to the following categories: (i) Volumes, (ii) Chapters in volumes, (iii) Articles (in journals), (iv) Unpublished documents, (v) Images, (vi) Audios, (vii) Videos.
For each item the Archive provides complete references details, an abstract, 3 keyword, some notes and a subject classification. It is therefore possible to search for a document starting the query with any of through (some) key words. Each entry is provided with a link to the relevant file (.pdf or other formats, depending on the type of document). The thematic domains used for classification are (in alphabetic order): agriculture, anthropology, archeology and history, art and photography, bibliographic catalogues, didactics, dictionaries and glossaries, documents, economic resources, geography, law, literature, linguistics, medicine, music, natural sciences, politics, religion, sport. Entries and information are provided in three languages: Italian, Somali and English.
NB: The indication of Somali authors’ nouns is respectful of the spelling provided in the cited publication. This means that a single author can be inserted both using the Somali spelling (for example, “Cali”) and the European/American form (i.e., “Ali”), which is often used by Somali people as well. Therefore, it might be sometimes necessary to make more than one search in the Archive.
Collections
The General Archive is internally divided into several categories, in which different materials are collected, namely:
(i) Volumes
This category includes monographs, textbooks, official documents, etc.(ii) Chapters in volumes
This collection includes articles which are part of miscellaneous volumes (which are also scheduled within the “Volumes” category.(iii) Articles
This category includes articles published in journals.(iv) Unpublished documents
In this category diverse unpublished (sometimes typewritten) documents have been collected referring to
conferences, meetings or other materials which can be considered important from a documentary and
historical viewpoint; many of them deal with relevant aspects and events of the Somali culture.(v) Images
This category includes different types of materials, namely: posters, pictures of the colonialist period,
photographs made by several authors in the ’80 representing landscapes as well as different aspects of
everyday life in Somalia (shop windows, dances, musical instruments, etc.).(vi) Audios
This collection of materials includes:
– Traditional music, collected and described by Prof. Francesco Giannattasio; Santa Cecilia Foundation in
Rome keeps these files in its ethno-musicology library, and has kindly allowed their insertion in our Archive.
– Recording of spontaneous conversations of the Elder members of the Academy of Science, Arts and Literature in Mogadishu collected in the ’80, dealing with subjects of traditional culture;
– Radio broadcasts in Mogadishu;
– Recited poems recorded by the authors themselves;
– Dramas.(vii) Videos
In this section different videos have been collected illustrating important cultural events as, for instance, the presentation of the Somali-Italian Dictionary at the Academy of Science, Arts and Literature in Mogadishu 1985), the Opening of the III Congress of the Somali Studies International Association in Rome (1986), and several videos on different aspects of the Somali social life recorded by researchers and anthropologists.