The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport along with the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) today launched the first phase of the National Archives of Guyana’s digitisation project, the Government Information Agency said.
This venture which is funded by the Guyana Government and the Guyana National Commission for UNESCO, seeks to improve access to rare resources and broaden capabilities for searching and browsing historical collections, GINA said.
The first phase involved procurement of microfilm equipment from ICAM, who provided installation and training. The second phase covers the digitisation of fragile documents, and the third, the creation of a database of information. The final phase will see public accessing digitised information.
Minister of Culture, Dr Frank Anthony said that prior to the new location on Homestretch Avenue; the Ministry had some challenges in terms of archiving. “It’s a very interesting thing how we’ve treated our records; they were mistreated and a lot of our records that we would have had over the years would have been destroyed,” Minister Anthony said, according to GINA.
“Eventually we want to make that service online,” he said. Very little emphasis has also been placed on audio and video archives and Minister Anthony said that the Ministry will be looking at this, GINA reported.
