The manuscripts are already being digitised by the Timbouctou Manuscripts Project (the source of this article), hosted at the University of Cape Town and funded

The manuscripts are already being digitised by the Timbouctou Manuscripts Project (the source of this article), hosted at the University of Cape Town and funded by the Ford Foundation. Those already digitised are available in their database [0], sometimes with accompanying translations. This is part of South Africa's assistance to Mali, dating from 2001, to preserve and study the manuscripts by funding and building the new Ahmed Baba Institute building (the one damaged by rebels) with the equipment to prevent further degradation of the manuscripts and digitise them, giving Malian conservationists further training at the National Archives in Pretoria and setting up research projects. Aside from something as drastic as the possibility of another civil war, the manuscripts are the safest they've been in years. [0]http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/db/ http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/db/