Government is prioritising the construction of a new National Archives building in the 2023 budget, fully equipped with the necessary facilities for the institution which is of paramount importance to Seychelles’ history.
A plot of land has already been earmarked for the build, to be undertaken by the Seychelles Infrastructure Agency (SIA).
The National Archives and several other offices for the then Ministry of Culture and Tourism, once housed within the National Library, closed down in 2019 on account of mould infestation. The fungus was first detected in 2012 in the National Archives which triggered a two-week closure to remove it.
As such, the National Archives is for the time being not fully-functional, having been moved to different locations due to space constraints. At present, the office is situated at Ile du Port in Helena Building, with another branch at Providence holding the record centre, as well as another within the centre of town, at the old courthouse. Documents are presently kept in two storage facilities.
With a substantial volume of records still in boxes from the move, all services provided by the institutionhave been impacted in one way or another, although staff are doing their best to provide a service, although members of the publicare advised to call the institution well in advance, giving officers enough time to find such documents.
Despite the fact that the digitising process has commenced, the majority of archives are still in physical format. The Seychelles National Institute for Culture, Heritage and Arts (Snicha) was allocated a budget for the digitisation process in 2022, and awarded two companies the contract to do so, although it still lacks some equipment to accelerate the process to turn its over 400,000 records into digital format.
Vice President Ahmed Afif yesterday relayed to the National Assembly the challenges faced by the National Archives are facing numerous challenges, including lack of human and financial resources and lack of specialised scanning equipment to accelerate the digitalisation process. Lack of training for staff is another challenge, considering the lack of an institution to provide specialised archives training locally.
However, on a positive note, many local institutions are also digitising their services and documentation, which means that the archives have access to such documents in digital format.
With the fungus infestation, government had committed to compensating staff affected by the infestation. VP Afif noted that an exercise was carried out to determine who should be compensated, and that the majority have received compensation, except for a few cases still being determined by the Office of the Attorney General.
The institution in future hopes to be able to secure funding to enable to purchase of rare documents of important historical value from private collectors and owners.
Source: Seychelles Nation