National Museums of Kenya (NMK)

Overview

The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation headquartered at Museum Hill in Nairobi, Kenya. Established in 1980, the archives serve as the primary institutional repository for preserving historical records, photographs, documents, and audiovisual materials related to Kenya's cultural, political, scientific, and natural history.

History and Founding

The National Museums of Kenya traces its roots to 1910, when the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society established a natural history collection in Nairobi. The institution was formally opened as the Coryndon Museum on September 22, 1930. Following Kenyan independence in 1963, it was renamed the National Museum and incorporated into the National Museums of Kenya system in 1964. The NMK Archives section was formally established in 1980 to centralize the preservation of historical documentation.

The NMK is governed by the Museums and Heritage Act of 2006 and today manages over 22 regional museums, numerous sites, and monuments across Kenya. In recent years the archives have collaborated with international institutions including Google Arts and Culture and the Endangered Archives Programme for digital preservation.

Collections and Holdings

The NMK Archives holds over 3.5 million archival materials, 800 paintings, 4,000 photographs, 100 microfilms, and 100 audio tapes. Materials date as far back as 1900 (with gaps between 1909 and 1927). The collection covers official government correspondence and policy documents, records on Kenya's independence and post-colonial governance, historical photographs of prominent Kenyan figures such as Dedan Kimathi and events related to the Mau Mau struggle, information on the introduction of education in Kenya, natural science materials, documentation of coastal towns and Swahili cultural heritage, and a newspaper collection of over 28,000 issues dating from the 1980s.

Access and Usage

The archives provide reference services to scholars, researchers, historians, and the general public. Services include certified copies of archival records for legal and academic purposes, de-acidification and repair of damaged materials, and digitization of fragile documents. The archives are contactable at archives@museums.or.ke.