Madadoc, a digital library with full-text documents on rural development and the environment in Madagascar

Around thirty institutions or projects involved in rural development and the environment in Madagascar have joined forces to create the Madadoc digital library. The Madadoc partners have agreed to collect unconventional scientific or technical documents that were dispersed and not easily accessible. The Madadoc project has thus processed 12,641 documents from the 1870 to 2006 period, of which 10,779 full-text documents have been digitized. The Madadoc database; which is freely available on line (www.madadoc.org), is a unique digital information tool in Madagasacar, devoted to local and international scientific communities and development stakeholders. This paper analyses the types of documents managed and it: describes the technical digitization processes used. Difficulties and benefits are described. To conclude, the success of the project lies in the partnership effort and the sharing of local capacities in spite of technical difficulties. The Madadoc experience could be extended to other topics and to other regions of Francophone Africa.