Developing a Digital Archive System for Endangered Nigerian Traditional Art Forms

Many Nigerian traditional art forms are at critical risk of disappearance due to aging specialist practitioners, declining apprenticeship uptake, and the absence of systematic documentation, and a professionally designed digital archive system would provide essential preservation infrastructure. This study developed a digital archive system specification for documenting endangered Nigerian traditional art forms, with reference to five art traditions identified as critically at risk: Nupe glass-bead making (Niger State), Koma wall painting (Adamawa State), Urhobo woodcarving (Delta State), Katsina embroidered leatherwork (Katsina State), and Yala Igbo weaving (Cross River State). A professional system design methodology was employed, drawing on consultations with 12 cultural heritage specialists, 8 museum curators, and 5 digital humanities technologists, alongside comparative review of digital archive systems from the Smithsonian, British Museum, and UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage documentation platforms. The archive system designed encompasses multimedia documentation standards (video, audio, photography, 3D scan, written ethnography), metadata schema based on Dublin Core and CHIN standards, access control provisions balancing community ownership with public scholarship access, sustainability and hosting specifications, and community consent and benefit-sharing protocols. Integration with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments digital platform was specified as the primary hosting partnership. Expert review by nine heritage documentation specialists confirmed the system's technical and ethical adequacy. The study recommends a pilot documentation initiative targeting two of the five identified endangered traditions within the first year of implementation.

Keywords: digital archive, endangered art forms, cultural heritage documentation, Nigerian traditional arts, preservation