Awareness and use of the national archives

Abstract

The study examined the awareness and use of the Volta and
 Eastern regional archives of Ghana. Archives play a pivotal
 role in documenting the historical memory of humans. Archives as institution and records as documents are generally
 seen by academics and other users as a passive resource to be
 exploited for various historical and cultural purposes. The
 study employed the survey design with data obtained analysed
 using descriptive statistics. The population of the study included inhabitants of the defined geographical area who
 where 18years and above with some level of education from
 secondary to tertiary level. Findings revealed the lack of
 awareness of the Volta and Eastern regional archives by the
 inhabitants within that geographical area. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the archives should create
 more awareness through outreach programmes during festive
 occasions thus breaking the traditional pattern of waiting for
 users to come and patronise them to ‘marketing’ their services
 to the people to achieve better results

Applying Batho Pele principles in South African public archives – Do public programming initiatives count?

“…Online survey research is still relatively new, but it has proven to help reach out to populations over vast geographical regions (Valerie and Ritter, 2012). The selected research method has post-positivist underpinnings (Pickard, 2017). Ryan (2006: 12) explains that…”

“…The online survey consisted of 24 questions. The instrument was pre-tested before use; comments gathered during this exercise were used to improve the questionnaire before it was distributed online (Pickard, 2017). Questions included open- and closed-ended questions to help archivists provide detailed feedback.…”

“…The literature (Archival Platform, 2015;Kau, 2018;Ngoepe and Ngulube, 2011;Ngulube et al, 2017;Sulej, 2014) indicates that South African public archives have struggled to raise awareness and get more people to engage with the archives. Outu and Asante (2015) highlighted various challenges that affect public archives. These include the inadequacy of contemporary conservation facilities, inadequate publicity of the significance of the National Archives to national advancement, limited training prospects for the staff of the National Archives and the absence of comprehensive and integrated records management programmes.…”

Archives Publication and Exhibition Virtualisation by ANRI

“…Efforts so that the archive can be accessed and used by the public is by organizing the Publications Archive. Traditional archival publication, by displaying a physical archive collection, hard work and effective if organized in hordes awareness of the archives is still low and requires a sharper promotion strategy (Kamatula 2011;Otu and Asante, 2015), According to Kamatula (2011) One of the findings of the implementation of archival publications demonstrate that the use of information technology as one way of displaying and disseminating information to improve accessibility archives. National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI) as the main stakeholders in terms of archives in Indonesia have an obligation to continue working to improve public awareness of the archives, it is implied in the duties and functions of ANRI among others, protection, preservation and management of archives nationwide and implementation archival information systems and networks.…”