Important archival material, not in the hands of the state, is threatened and ways must be found to network with those bodies to preserve them, says Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Gail Teixeira.

Speaking at the launch of Archives Week 2003 at the National Archives Annex on the lawns of the National Museum yesterday,

Teixeira appealed to churches and religious organisations holding these records to collaborate in their preservation.

These include registers of births, marriages and deaths, many of which could be found in Christian church records. These were important, she noted, in tracing genealogy as many young people were interested and had a right to find out about their families.

Teixeira said there was no need for the state to take possession of these records but a way of networking must be found to preserve them. She noted that similar material among the Hindu and Muslim religions should be in better condition as they were only made registrars of births, deaths and marriages in the 1970’s.

She added that one of the areas of weakness was with the local authorities and municipalities.

She said stacks of documents in the possession of neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) or taken over by the NDCs from previous village councils had been destroyed.

It was time for expertise, technological and financial support to bring people on board to decide on what should be brought to the national archives from the municipalities and NDCs.

Teixeira noted that young people could be part of a “search and rescue team to preserve historical records.”

She added there were career possibilities in the preservation of historical records, pointing out that the micro-filming unit of the National Archives was the most modern in the English-speaking Caribbean.

The archives also launched its first brochure and according to Teixeira it plans to publish a research document before the end of the year.

She said fire prevention and disaster preparedness along with working with registry staff of ministries and state entities on classifying records and cleaning files were all equally important.

Apart from the willful destruction of records, other challenges include the tropical nature of the country, termites and pests such as the silver fish and micro-organisms that destroy archival material.

According to the National Archives, preservation of local documents goes back to 1812 when 5,000 documents on the Colony of Essequibo were taken from Fort Island and brought to the then Parliament Buildings.

Most were destroyed by fire in 1828 but some, which had been copied by the Colony of Demerara in 1777 and stored elsewhere, were recovered.

Historical records through the years had been stored in the Parliament Dome where some were damaged and further destroyed when removed to a temporary repository above the River Police Building at Stabroek in 1966.

In 1981, the archives were moved to the Barclays Bank building on Main Street with an annex at the Museum Building. (Miranda La Rose)