Digitization workshop to help museums meet needs of the public

GINA, GUYANA, Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Staff of museums and the National Archives are participating in a three day capacity building workshop designed to help them convert their most used collections to a digital format. The workshop commenced today at the National Archives, Georgetown.

Archivist of the National Archives of Guyana Nadia Carter

Archivist of the National Archives of Guyana Nadia Carter

The workshop is being facilitated by Information Technology Director, Erick Espinoza and Development Manager Sebastian Alcocer of the National Museum of Mexico.

Archivist of the National Archives of Guyana Nadia Carter said that the aim of the workshop is to build the capacity of the employers from the various museums.

Participating in the workshop are the staff of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, Guyana National Museum, the Museum of African Heritage, National Trust and the National Archives of Guyana. They will be trained to store digitized  documents correctly

Information Technology Director of the National Museum of Mexico Erick Espinoza

Information Technology Director of the National Museum of Mexico Erick Espinoza

“While everyone knows the basic in computer, digitization is something a little more, so this way they will be able to learn new skills that they could apply in their day today work” Carter stated.

Carter also explained that the aim is to have the museums look at different ways in which they can meet the needs of the public.  She stated that, “the new modern medium is to try to digitalize everything and to have it accessible in different formats.”

However, the archivist noted that digitizing everything in the museum is not possible. “We cannot digitalize everything so what persons did, like we did with the immigration records and newspapers, your most used collection and then you make that available,” Carter explained.

Development Manager of the National Museum of the Mexico Sebastian Alcocer

Development Manager of the National Museum of the Mexico Sebastian Alcocer

Development Manager Sebastian Alcocer of the National Museum of Mexico said that he is happy to be a part of the team helping Guyana in making their information more accessible.

Alcocer explained that this is the second phase of the digitalization project adding that he visited last year to discuss subjects related to conservation and preservation of the physical documents.

Alcocer stated that the focus will be “on the needs of the archives, digitalization, preservation and conservation of standards.”

The workshop is as a result of ongoing collaboration between the Governments of Guyana and Mexico, which begun in 2015.

 

By; Isaiah Braithwaite

CATEGORIES
TAGS