Archive plan underway

THE cost of implementing a 10-year National Library Archives and Records Services strategic plan is about K545 million, director-general Kakaito Kasi says.
Kasi spoke during the launching of the strategic plan 2016 to 2025 this week.
“The strategic plan will cost K54, 500 per year. This cost is basically for putting up the infrastructure for the public libraries,” Kasi said.
“The cost will be shared with the district authorities and even development partners so it is a shared cost.
“We have 22 provinces but we have only six main public libraries and no proper archives in the country.
“Part of this plan is to preserve these records – both hard copy and soft copy.”
Library and archives were established in 1957. The vital service was given to PNG as a gift by the colonial administration.
The aim was to help the new developing country to have access to information and resource that will enable school children and adults to advance in the reading and learning skills.
From 1957 to 1985 there were public libraries throughout the country and after 1985 the organic law and provincial and local level government came into force.
The Organic Law – The National Library and Archives Act 1993 states that all records and files are the property of the Independent State of PNG.
Many functions of the public library were then transferred to the government.
That’s where we saw the collapse of the libraries in the provinces and right now only six have survived.
“These vital services was not up and running in the last 40 years. If these services were operating in the last 40 years, many of our children would have access to library services.
“The archive services are also important for the country as it records and preserves our history.
“The Kiaps and Patrol officers have made the work easy for us by keeping all our records and preserving them.
“Today, we have records dating back to the 1800s, and we should be thankful to the colonial administration. Archiving is our responsibility.
“Our future generation relies on us today.
“Already we have shown bad practices in the government departments where we are burning records and not preserving them for future generation.”
This strategic plan basically provides greater access to information service, improves internal human resources capacity, knowledge skills and it also develops and compliments key policy and directives for sustainable, fair equal and quality distribution of services in the provinces.
The plan targets 23 public libraries and also the 89 district libraries and all school libraries.
“We may not achieve this target in 10 years but we have to start somewhere,” Kasi said.
“I’d like to encourage partners, publishers and writers to take ownership of this plan because library and archives cut all sectors.”