The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport launched the National Archives database digitization project and website at a ceremony held at the National Archives on Wednesday.
According to a GINA report, the project aims to preserve and maintain in digital form, genealogical data, historical records and original documents of the nation’s forbears in order to keep a record of its ancestral history.
“We must preserve the historic background of our ancestors and our origin. It is from these very roots we came and this beautiful country got its rich ethnicity,” Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony said in his address at a ceremony hosted at the National Archives’ Homestretch Avenue location.
Anthony noted that digitization is the ideal way to preserve this data as over time paper documents become fragile and disintegrate. Incorporating this method of preservation will allow information to be stored, managed and easily retrieved, offering access to historians and the public. He told the gathering that the ministry aims to replicate the British Archives system which allows anyone with a computer in any part of the world easy access to information, after paying a small fee. The fee will be used to maintain the system.
According to GINA, the project is coordinated by the ministry, the archives and Dev Information Technology of North America. The minister also revealed that within a few days a team from Ohio University will be here to work on sound and video archiving.
CEO of Dev. Information Technology North America, Robin Singh, said the project has a website that enables administrators to manage up-to-date content/information on a regular or daily basis. It also provides an annual or a monthly summary of document search, request status and other data that would allow the ministry to track the website’s effectiveness. Data supervisors will also be tasked with viewing and verifying records and approving or rejecting information to correct errors before they are uploaded to the website.
Singh said that the website also boasts a Dynamic Photo Gallery which will allow persons who may have visited/toured Guyana to upload their personal pictures. The CEO said that the website is easy to use, for example, an individual can simply enter a ship’s name, a person’s name, a year and area or country of origin and they will be able to access information in any of those areas. The website consists of the names of all the ships that came to Guyana from 1835-1917.
