NASHVILLE (AP) - A conference under way at Vanderbilt University in Nashville concerns preserving endangered slave records.

The school is launching a digital archive and website, Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies. Experts on preserving slave records are attending the conference through Saturday.

Jane Landers of Vanderbilt said baptismal records became the best information available for the history of Africans in the Americas. She said the Catholic Church required the baptism of African slaves across the Catholic Americas during the 15th century, but these records have been at risk due to climate, bug infestation and other damage.

She said secular records found in the city and provincial archives of Cuba, Brazil and Colombia also are important.