Ismail Abdallah Mohammed Yousif lives in Omdurman. He was a teacher and journalist, and he has a lifelong passion for history and collecting. His collection now includes over 1000 magazines, many of these from the 1950-70s, and over 1000 objects including newspapers, stamps, objects such jewellery, antique kitchen ware, gramophones, film projectors and much more.

Ismail had previously participated in some festival exhibitions with his collection. However, it was his participation in the previous Sudan Memory Open Space event, attended by various Khartoum and Omdurman community representatives, that made him realise how significant a collection he had established. Ismail also realised how interested others were in his collection and he saw the benefit of being able to both preserve and share his collection. Ismail then established a collaboration with Sudan Memory to record the collection through digitisation and the recording of data, and to be able to share it with the public via the new Sudan Memory web platform.

From the beginning of the work to record his collection, it was important to Ismail to involve his family, who would inherit his collection, so that they would understand its significance and value. This meant that they could continue to protect and benefit from it in the future. Ismail’s family were already interested in technology and were technically aware and involved in photography and film work. The opportunity to apply this interest and build on their existing knowledge through the training and process of digitising materials and organising the data triggered a new interest in the collection amongst Ismail’s family members.