PERSONAL glimpses into the life of this country's first prime minister are part of the package of memorabilia in the Eric Williams which officially opens on Sunday at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.

Included in the collection is a three-dimensional re-creation of the study in which the late leader spent many of his waking hours.

According to daughter Erica Williams Connell, who is spearheading this landmark project, there will be "a sense of use and immediacy, as though he had been working there and had merely stepped out of the room for a few moments."

"All of his personal memorabilia, for example, will be situated on his desk, just as it was when he was alive and the glorious confusion of his work space will be visible for all to see and marvel at how he was able to accomplish so much with such apparent disorganization," she wrote recently, detailing that aspect of the collection.

Other displays will cover the important periods in Dr Williams's life-the boy, student, academic, politician, statesman and father-including his attempted resignation in 1973. The latter will be represented through, among other things, a copy of the resignation letter he had planned to send to Queen Elizabeth II.

Visitors to the collection will be able to see the scramble phone he used for security purposes during the 1970 revolution.

The sofa on which Dr Williams died on March 31, 1981, is also part of the display along with four books of condolences written to Written Connell and six condolence books written to the government.

These items will be contained in three rooms, including a research library, a museum and te re-creation of the late leader's study.

According to Williams Connell, the launch of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection is just one phase of an ongoing project dedicated to the former prime minister. A two-volume Finders Guide to the collection will be published later this year and there are plans for a national logo competition to design a symbol for the collection.

She said: "If it materialises as I have long visualised, for 17 years in fact, then it will be the only one of its kind in the Caribbean and we are all acutely conscious that here, we are not simply building an exhibit, but creating history...

"At the very least, we would have preserved a part of our past, our heritage, for future generations to ponder."

The collection will be officially launched on Sunday by Prime Minister Basdeo Panday and former United States Joint Chief of Staff, General Colin Powell.

Among those in attendance will be nine university scholars-Professor Colin Palmer, Princeton University; Dr Anna Maria Evans, State University, New York; Dr Linda Heywood, Howard University; Dr Sandra Pouche-Paquet, Miami University; Dr Anthony Bryan, Miami University; Dr Andrew O'Shaughnessy, University of Wisconsin; Dr Selwyn Cudjoe, Wellesley College and Dr Clem, London University.