Book heritage
Editorial
Stabroek News
May 18, 2003
Amid all the talk about culture, it is not often that one hears anything about Guyana’s printed book heritage. Not even from the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education, which one would have thought should have had an interest in such matters. However, it appears that like every other department of government those two entities are too wrapped up in political wrangling to bother about the things which form part of our definition as a nation, and provide a glimpse into our evolution as a people.
There have, since independence, been spasmodic efforts to collect antiquarian works on Guyana - those by the National Commission on Research Materials (NCRM) in the 1970s being the most sustained - but the thinking behind these has long since been forgotten, and the framework for their continuity has crumbled with the passage of time. Furthermore, the skilled people necessary for identifying and collecting older works on this country have either emigrated, retired or died, and more serious still, institutions which would normally be charged with their preservation have either lost the discipline which is necessary for such collections, and/or do not have access to the requisite financial resources.
The best older collections on Guyana in the world are to be found in two libraries - the British Library and the Library of Congress. There are also significant collections in other institutions in the UK and the USA, one of the most important being the Schomburg collection in the New York Public Library. Works on Guyana are scattered elsewhere in the world too, such as in the Netherlands, and in institutions like the Jamaica National Library, once the West India Reference Library built up by Frank Cundall early last century.
It is strange that a country like Guyana with such a long tradition of formal education should be so cavalier about preserving the written evidence of its past. A nation which is unconcerned about its archives and indifferent to its printed heritage really cannot be taking itself very seriously. Why does Guyana itself not have the largest collection - specifically antiquarian collection - on this country, more especially considering that almost all printed works by definition are produced in some number? Not only does this give a greater guarantee of their survival than is the case with manuscript works, but it also means that even quite old books come on the market every now and again. If this country had wanted to, it could have been buying systematically over the years to build on the collections which our two leading libraries - the National Library and the University Library - already have.
All of which does not mean to say that Guyana does not hold a substantial and unique book collection in its public institutions as things stand. As mentioned earlier, work was done at an earlier stage, because there were men and women of vision down through the years, who understood the importance of a total Guyana collection to the nation. In addition, for modern publications there is the requirement on the statute books whereby authors of works printed in Guyana must deposit copies in the National Library, the National Archives and with the Registrar of the University. However, it has to be observed that the majority of books relating to Guyana nowadays, of course, are published abroad, the authors or publishers of which may not always feel inclined to deposit their works locally.
While it takes funds to acquire a comprehensive Guyana printed collection, above all else it takes commitment. If that commitment existed, then an acquisitions policy could be developed; ways to identify funding, skills (and means to remunerate those skills adequately) could be explored; and conservation issues could be addressed. But the first step is for the authorities to understand that building a nation goes beyond political issues.
