Jan Vansina was a Belgian historian who taught in the US for many years and is considered by many to one of the major figures of African history in the 20th century, pioneering the use of local oral traditions as important historical sources.

In the 1970s he became involved with Libyan scholars and played an important role in setting up what is now the Libyan Studies Center and designing its large-scale project to collect oral histories from participants in the resistance to Italian colonial rule and survivors of the Italian concentration camps. The connection to Libya was undoubtedly through his being on the PhD committee of Mohamed Jerary, one of the founders and long-term director of the Center (thanks to a comment on this post for the tip).*

Although Vansina did not end up writing much or anything about his work with the Libyan oral histories projects and time in Tripoli, the Jan Vansina Papers, held at Northwestern University, contain notes and information about his participation, including some interview designs and trainings he offered to Libyan historians:

Research Notes Libya: Oral History of the Italo-Libyan war (1911-1933)-boxes 2-3: This section contains research methods, procedures, and the interview tool used to collect the oral histories. Also included are maps, general information on the Libyan Studies Centre, and related essays on Libya.

The archive also contains lots of other material about his teaching and research, and exploring it may shed some light on how he became connected with the fledgling Center and helped shape their field research program.

There are also some photos from Libya taken by Vansina held in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Digital Collections.

*Jerary’s PhD thesis was on the ancient history of Libya, not on oral traditions.