Digitisation of archives continues

The Archives Department which is moving full steam ahead in digitising its information has been lauded by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Senator Dr Shantal Munro-Knight for its exceptional performance.

Following a tour of the Black Rock, St Michael facility on Monday, Munro-Knight said she was impressed with the scope of work being done there and the expertise of the staff.

She said the department is moving to be fit for purpose as Barbados makes strides in expanding into a digital economy.

“And I think that the Archives Department is going to be doing some exceptional things going forward that is going to make sure that Barbados as a whole is really able to capitalise on all of that history that we have that is so rich,” she said.

“I mean, to think that we have records from 1635 and going forward and that we are able to map our political and social history in that way and that Barbadians can have access; and not only Barbadians, because I am told that we have interests from other countries like Africa who want to be able to access our records because they have lost theirs. I think that is something that we have that we are now going to be able to sell to the world.”

Project Coordinator Ebony Spencer who is overseeing the digitisation project, which started in 2020 with two staff members and now has 14, said at this time the Department is digitising wills before moving on to baptism records.

She said one of the challenges encountered thus far is that some of the stored records are fragile and have to go through the preservation process before further handling is allowed.

“They go to the conservation section first. So, it is a process from the search room, to the conservation, to here. So as long as conservation preserved them and did any mending back or anything like that, we wouldn’t have any problems coming over here,” Spencer explained.

“This is essential because archives are the culture, the heritage. This houses everything from the 1600s right down to now. So, anything you would think is important to the country, such as wills, we have birth certificates, deaths, anything that you could name which is of intrinsic value.

“We have countless records; it is hard to even identify how many. But it is going to be a very long process. As the chief archivist says, she is going to retire and we still aren’t going to get half of this digitised. But so far so good; it wasn’t as tedious as we thought it would have been,” she added.

Spencer said that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Archives Department has limited the number of persons visiting the search room, but the digitisation process will eventually allow it to put its services online. (AH)