An extensive digital archive documenting former South African President Nelson Mandela's life has been launched on the internet.

大量关于南非前总统纳尔逊·曼德拉生平的电子资料已经被上传到互联网。

The archive is housed at Johannesburg's Centre of Memory
Almost 2,000 entries have been made available for scholars and researchers.

Images of the cell on Robben Island, near Cape¹ Town, in which he spent many of his 27 years in jail are among the material stored on the archive.

The plan was announced a year ago with $1.25m (£790,000) in funds from internet firm Google.

It also includes thousands of handwritten documents such as Church membership cards from 1929, notes on political negotiations², and what appears to be a draft of a 1995 letter to a young admirer（爱慕者） about Valentine's Day.

"We believe in the power of digital technologies in bringing the legacy³ of Madiba [Mr Mandela's clan⁴ name] to the masses," AFP news agency quoted Mark Yoshitake, who managed the project, as saying.

"It is content that has never been digitised before, content that has never been accessible before."

The contents, which are stored in the Nelson Mandela Foundation Centre of Memory in Johannesburg, are also free of charge anywhere in the world.

As well as collating⁵ the documents, the centre runs outreach programmes to help communities that may not have internet connections to experience the archive.

While Google helped assemble the collection online, staff at the centre determined⁶ what content to show and how it is presented, the centre's Verne Harris said.

Similar Google projects include the Dead Sea Scrolls⁷ and a Holocaust⁸ archive, partnered with the Vad Yashem centre.