PAMBU NEWS
The PMB has been
carrying out
its usual vigorous programme of archival projects in the Islands and in
Australia:
· working
with Sr Margaret Sullivan on the archives of
the Catholic Diocese of Tarawa and Nauru;
· microfilming
the English translations of the Hawaiian
language documents in the Micronesian Collection at the Hawaiian
Mission
Children’s Society Library in Honolulu;
· microfilming
archives of the Rabaul Volcanological
Observatory;
· organising
archives of the Unevangelized Fields
Mission at the Bible College of Victoria;
· microfilming
Melanesian Mission archives at the
National Archives of the Solomon Islands.
In Canberra the PMB has microfilmed two major
record
groups: CSR Fiji correspondence, 1880-1947; and the Cooke Collection
documenting volcanic activity in PNG before 1944. All these PMB
projects are
made possible by close collaboration with enthusiasts seriously
concerned
about long-term preservation and accessibility of Pacific Islands
documents. To
such people and to Pacific researchers in general the destruction of
records
held in the Court House in Port Vila on 6 June is an immense tragedy.
If the strong room and adjacent records room
at the
back of the Court House were destroyed, we have lost all the records of
the
Joint Court (Supreme Court of Vanuatu), including its minutes,
judgements, registers,
correspondence and the complete series of procédure files,
consisting of
several thousand files detailing cases before the Court, 1910-1979. Not
to
mention the loss of Native and some Land Court records. A large number of company registration case
files
dating from the late 1980s to 2000 were also stored in a disused cell
underneath the main Court building. In total, about 300 shelf metres of
records
may have been burnt, the patrimony of France and Britain as well as
Vanuatu.
Of this material the PMB had microfilmed a
tiny
proportion, possibly 5%: the civil and criminal judgements of the Joint
Court,
1911-1977, microfilmed in 1999 at PMB 1145/Reels 1-7; and archives of
the Tribunaux
français des Nouvelles-Hébrides, the French side of the Joint
Court,
microfilmed by the PMB in collaboration with the Territorial Archives
of New
Caledonia in 2005, consisting mainly of arrętés et décisions
1910-1978, conférences
1910-1939, and correspondance 1915-1979, at PMB 1254/Reels
1-17. With
regret, I report that the PMB was due to continue microfilming at the
Court
House in 2006, but our tiny resources did not enable us to pursue the
opportunity.
While reporting on this archival tragedy, it
should be
noted, more optimistically, that there are signs of an increasingly
broad
interest in helping to preserve Pacific archives. The Government of
Fiji is
proceeding with construction of a new Archives building for the National Archives
of Fiji and the refurbishment of its existing building. AusAID is supporting records preservation
programs in
the law and justice sector and in radio archives in PNG (see articles
by Sam
Kaima and Jordie Kilbie in this issue of Pambu). AusAID and the
National
Archives of Australia are also supporting appointments of advisers to
the
National Archives of the Solomon Islands. A team of New Zealand
archivists have
been working in Niue this year to help re-establish its National
Archives. The
British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme is supporting several
projects
in the Pacific, including a major project at the Tuvalu National
Library and
Archives in which the PMB is participating. The German government is
supporting
a reformatting and training project in Apia aimed at preserving Samoan
German
Colonial administration archives. The UNESCO, Pacific Office, is
funding
support for the establishment of an archives of the Daughters of Our
Lady of
the Sacred Heart in Tarawa, Kiribati.
Reflecting this increased interest in the
preservation
of Pacific documentary heritage, the Australian National University has
appointed a Pacific Archivist and a Pacific Librarian, to administer
and
develop its magnificent Pacific collections (as Karina Taylor reports
in this
issue of Pambu).
Ewan
Maidment, PMB Executive Officer
2nd edition update.
The
PMB has received news from Ismet Kurtovitch and Adrian Cunningham that
the Port
Vila Court House strong room did survive the fire.
Return to top
COURT HOUSE
FIRE
After the Court House fire, the
Vanuatu National
Cultural Council calls for:
(a) urgent building of a new
National Archives building;
(b) reconstruction of new
Court House building in its original historical architecture style on
the same
site.
In response to the recent
Court House fire, the Vanuatu National Cultural Council, the body
responsible
for the preservation, protection and development of the country’s
cultural
heritage, has called on the national government to prioritise building
of a new
National Archives building to preserve the invaluable and irreplacable
documentary memory of the nation and to rebuild the Court House in its
original
style on the same site, to preserve the historical character of the
building
and site.
The National Cultural
Council, which is comprised of the President of the Malvatumauri, a
Director,
the Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, the CEO of the Vanuatu
National
Council of Women, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
the
Chief Librarian of the University of the South Pacific Emalus Campus
and, until
his death at the end of last year, the Chief Archivist of the National
Archives, points to the recent destruction of the Court House as a
“wake up
call” to the Government regarding the ongoing loss of Vanuatu’s
irreplaceable
historical site and documentary heritage.
a)
Need to prioritise construction of a National Archives of Vanuatu
building.
The loss of irreplaceable and invaluable
historic
court archives dating back to the earliest proceedings and decisions of
the
Joint Court at the beginning of the 1900s in the recent Court House
fire have
reinforced and vindicated the repeated calls by the National Cultural
Council
for the Government to construct a new purpose-built National Archives
building
to safely keep all the Government’s archives.
The plans for a new National Archives
building have
been in existence since the early 1990s, when the masterplan for the
National
Cultural Complex was approved by the Government. This plan situates the
National Archives building in the existing space between the National
Museum
and the Chiefs’ Nakamal. The project profile for the project to
construct the
new National Archives building was first approved by the Government’s
Ministerial
Budget Committee in 2002. The budget for this same project was revised
last
year and now is roughly 150 million vatu.
Appalling situation of the current National
Archives:
The situation with the
National Archives is now
completely unsatisfactory. The bulk of the nation’s archives are housed
in the
converted colonial asylum (“depot”), which was not built for the
purpose of
keeping national records and is now over 50 years old and cracked and
crumbling
in places. If a severe cyclone were to hit Vanuatu and remove part of
the roof
of the building, almost all the records kept there would be damaged
beyond
repair, as the records are stored all over the floor as well as piled
to the
ceiling. Another strong earthquake like the one in 2002 will destroy
the
building and destroy many records also. These records include many
unique and
irreplaceable documents relating to the administrative history of the
colonial
and independent governments, including unique documents relating to all
the
important events and transactions in this country’s history.
The appalling situation of the National
Archives
reflects the very low priority the Government has given to this
important
national institution: for the last decade the National Archives has
been
allocated an operating budget of next to nothing and budget allocation
for only
one archivist. None of the Chief Archivists appointed to this position
since
Independence have ever had the necessary qualifications or support for
this
job, including the latest Chief Archivist, the recently deceased Mr Tom
Sakias.
Since Mr Sakias’ death in December 2006, no new Chief Archivist has
been
appointed.
Completely unsatisfactory situation of
archives kept
in various Government departments: Due to the inability of the National Archives
to
properly keep the Government’s historical records, each Government
department
was requested in the late 1990s to store their own archives until such
time as
the National Archives had its own building. The National Cultural
Council is
aware that these important national records being kept by Departments
are often
kept in a very unsatisfactory state: often the records are simply
shelved or
heaped up in a room, not catalogued or indexed and kept in
non-air-conditioned
conditions. For example, the archives of the National Parliament and
the State
Law Office are all currently kept piled up in a room in each of these
Departments and no files can be accessed because they cannot be found
in the mess.
What this means is that important Government records are being damaged
and are
deteriorating and access to particular documents is impossible because
there is
no way of finding them again.
Preparation by the National Cultural Council
for a new
building:
The
Council is currently putting some of the staff of the National Library
and
Vanuatu Cultural Centre through the Librarianship Diploma at the
University of
the South Pacific in preparation for staffing a new building. In
addition,
almost all the records of the National Library are now properly shelved
in the
National Museum building and catalogued in a new purpose-built computer
database, which means that the records held by this institution at
least are
safe and accessible. The Council has also secured promises of support
from the
National Archives of New Zealand and Australia and other record-keeping
institutions overseas for the additional skilled manpower required to
do the
work of sorting through all Government records and cataloguing them
once a new
building is in place.
A new building and an increased budget and
staff for
the National Archives will ensure that the records now held in the
National
Archives building, the National Library and various Government
departments will
be able to be centralized into one purpose-built facility, sorted out
and
properly catalogued and properly cared for in appropriate conditions.
This will
mean that these records will then become accessible to the Government
and the
people of Vanuatu for the foreseeable future.
Recommendation: On the 18th of January this year,
the
Council wrote to the Minister for Internal Affairs requesting that the
Government make construction of a new building for the National
Archives of
Vanuatu a national priority for 2007. In this letter, the Council
specifically
recommended that:
1) the
Council of Ministers make a decision that the
Government’s aid management unit (DESP) make obtaining funding for a
new
National Archives building a priority
2) additional
Government resources need to be allocated
as soon as possible to employ and train additional staff in preparation
for
staffing this new building.
With the loss of the Court House archives,
the urgency
of constructing a new National Archives building has been made even
more
starkly apparent.
b) Call to rebuild the Court
House in its original historical architectural style on the same site.
The Vanuatu National
Cultural Council is calling upon the Government to rebuild the Port
Vila Court
House in its original historical architectural style on the same site.
The Court House was
Vanuatu’s most famous historical building and was classified as one of
Vanuatu’s first protected historical sites by the Minister of Internal
Affairs
under the Protection of Sites and Artifacts act in 2005.
The significance of the
building and site: The Court House
was one of the first big administrative buildings built by the
Condominium
Government in the New Hebrides. It was completed in 1910, four years
after the
New Hebrides officially became a colony of Britain and France, and was
originally built as the residence of the President of the Joint Court.
The
other big administrative buildings built in the same era were the
original
Joint Court (once located where the Reserve Bank now is) and the
residences of
the British and French judges (now also gone: the French Judge’s house
was
where the residence of the Prime Minister now is). These buildings were
all
built on the top of the hill facing the entrance to the harbour as a
way of
demonstrating the rule of colonial law to all who entered the harbour.
The
Court House was the last of these first big colonial administrative
buildings. During World War II
the building provided the
headquarters for the American forces in the New Hebrides and after the
War it
became the Joint Court, a function it retained until it was burnt down
earlier
this month.
The Court House had been extensively repaired
over the
years, particularly after the 1959 cyclone that hit Vila, but always
with a
view to retaining the original architectural style and historical
integrity of
the building.
Recommendation: Given the extraordinary historical value of
this
building and the site on which it stands, and given that the original
historical architectural character of the building had been faithfully
preserved with extensive maintenance work for over 55 years (both
before and
after Independence), the National Cultural Council is calling on the
Government
to rebuild the building in its original architectural style on the same
site.
By doing this, the Government will be demonstrating not only its
commitment to
maintaining all the historic, heritage and national values and meanings
embodied in the original building and site, but also its commitment to
ensuring
these values continue to be instilled in future generations of
ni-Vanuatu.
While this may be an opportunity for building
a new
Court House which is more architecturally suited to the current needs
of the
judiciary, the Council believes that such needs can be accommodated by
a
building with a modern interior, but which retains the same façade
(outside
appearance) as the original court house building.
The Council is writing to the Minister for
Justice,
the Minister for Internal Affairs and the Judicial Services Commission
with
this request.
Vanuatu National
Cultural
Council / Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Press release, 18 June 2007.
*
* *
Return to top
PACIFIC
RESEARCH COLLECTION AT THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL
UNIVERSITY
Kia
ora, my name is Karina Taylor, I joined the Australian National
University
(ANU) Archives in February 2007 as Pacific Archivist. Prior to this
appointment, I was working as Accessioning Librarian in the Manuscripts
section
of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. Over the
past few
months I have been very busy setting up the Pacific Research
Collection.
The Pacific Research Collection (PRC) at the
ANU was
created with the vision that it will be the leading Australian resource
centre
for accessing resources and information on all aspects of the Pacific
Islands.
The PRC is based in the ANU Archives and is jointly supported by the
International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies, the Pacific
Centre
in the Research School of Asia and Pacific Studies (RSPAS), and the ANU
Division of Information. It aims to collect archival, unpublished and
published
material from and about the Pacific Islands, particularly material
collected by scholars in the course of their research.
As part of the PRC project, the ANU has
recently
appointed Deveni Temu as Pacific Librarian. Deveni and I are working
together
to manage the publications that are received with collections. We have
also
begun meeting with the staff of RSPAS to discuss their requirements for
acquisition of publications relevant to their research and teaching and
to seek
their input into the PRC.
Currently, I am working on the papers of
Gerard Ward
who is a well-known Human Geographer and former Director
of the Research School of Pacific Studies at ANU. The papers cover
Professor
Ward’s research career of more than 50 years in the Pacific, including
papers
documenting his research on ocean currents and Pacific migration. The
PRC has
also received material from Diana Howlett, a Human Geographer from
RSPAS, and
Dr John Ballard, who is a specialist in post-colonial policy-making in
Papua
New Guinea and also has research interests in health and gender issues
in
Australia and the Pacific.
The PRC is working in collaboration with the
Pacific
Manuscripts Bureau. The PMB Executive Officer Ewan Maidment, is on the
PRC Management
Committee, which advises the Pacific Archivist about the establishment
and
future of the Collection. Ewan in particular has a role advising the
Pacific
Archivist of Pacific collections that may be suitable for accessioning
into the
PRC in the ANU Archives. There are also plans for the PMB and the PRC
to work
together in making Pacific collections held by the ANU more widely
available
through microfilming and digitization projects.
I look forward to the challenges of this
role, the
future interactions with the PMB and my other colleagues in the Pacific.
Karina Taylor
Pacific
Archivist, ANU
*
* *
Malinowski taking photographs in the Trobriand
Is.
Return to top
MALINOWSKI’S
TROBRIAND PHOTOGRAPHS ACCESSIBLE ON-LINE
Bronislaw Malinowski’s archive,
held by the Library of the London
School of Economics and Political Science, is a major resource for the
study of
anthropology in the 20th century. The 220 boxes of field notes,
correspondence,
articles, drafts of writings and photographs illustrate Malinowski’s
career
from 1914 right through to his death in 1942. The foundation of much of
his
working and thinking throughout his career were the three field trips
that he
made to the Trobriand Islands in 1914-1918. As well as documenting his
observations on the lives and culture of the islanders in an extensive
series
of field notebooks, Malinowski took a large number of photographs. In
1914,
soon after arriving in the Trobriands, he declared in a letter to his
supervisor Charles Seligman that he had “ambitious schemes of recording
much of
their dances, children’s plays [sic], economic activities
(fishing,
making gardens, etc.) & technology”. The photographs from his first
visit
(to Mailu) have been lost, but over 1000 images from his second and
third
visits (to Kiriwina Island) have survived and form an integral part of
the
collection at LSE.
Malinowski made an active
attempt to
capture a wide range of the islanders’ activities and the photographs
provide a
detailed and evocative record of their lives. They cover 31 subject
areas
defined by Malinowski, including fishing, canoes, mortuary, dance,
pregnancy,
magic, pottery, dress, cooking, children's games, kula, housebuilding,
ropemaking and gardening. There is even a section of photographs
recording
Malinowski’s own presence on the main island of Kiriwina, with
photographs of
him sitting in his tent, watching children playing, and photographing
villagers. These photographs were probably taken by Billy Hancock.
Hancock was
a pearl trader but also a keen photographer and helped Malinowski
develop his
photographs (he had his own dark room) as well as offering general help
and
advice. Malinowski was not a confident or patient photographer and his
fieldwork diaries reveal his frustration at the time-consuming nature
of
photography and the technical difficulties he experienced.
Anthropologists had been aware
of the
advantages of using photography in anthropological studies since the
late 19th
century. Photography was extensively
used by the 1898-99 Torres Strait expedition. However took the use of
photographs a stage further by using them extensively in his published
works.
Recent research has shown the high ratio of photographs to text in
Malinowski’s
published works. He also tried to capture images of people and objects
in their
natural surroundings, rather than separating them from their context to
photograph them.
Malinowski used about 300
photographs in
all to illustrate Argonauts of the Western Pacific and his
other works
on the anthropology of the Trobriand Islands. A further 200 were used
by
Michael Young in his 1999 book, Malinowski's Kiriwina Fieldwork
Photography
1915-191. Now the entire collection has been digitised and is
available via
the LSE Archives Catalogue. The catalogue for the whole of the
collection can
be accessed by searching for Malinowski in the RefNo field, or you can
limit
your search to the photographs (section 3 of the main collection) by
searching
for Malinowski/3 in the RefNo field.
For further information, please
visit our website at http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/
or contact us at document@lse.ac.uk
Anna Towlson
Assistant
Archivist
Library
of the London School of Economics and Political Science
*
* *
Return to top
PROJECT CANTERBURY
WEBSITE: OCEANIA AND BEYOND
I
commend to the PAMBU community the Oceania, Papua New Guinea, New
Zealand and
other directories of "Project Canterbury: An online archive of Anglican
books and texts" at http://anglicanhistory.org.
As one of the site's episcopal patrons, I have been working for the
last two
years with the Project Canterbury Founder and Director, Richard
Mammana,
especially developing the Oceania site.
Project Canterbury was founded in February
1999 in
order to provide an online venue for the hosting and dissemination of
out-of-print Anglican texts. In the last eight years, the site has
grown
through volunteer efforts to become the largest Anglican website of any
kind.
In its entirety, the site now includes about 10,000 files (this figure
includes
text files as well as photographs and indices). Last year the site had
some 4
million hits.
Project Canterbury is a voluntary,
non-commercial,
non-profit enterprise, with volunteers providing transcriptions and the
director uploading them for easy internet access. The intention from
the
beginning has been to provide out-of-print Anglican historical and
theological
documents free of charge to anyone with internet access.
The Oceania directory consists of 19
Polynesia
(including Hawaii) entries and 109 Oceanic Melanesia entries; the Papua
New
Guinea directory consists of 25 entries, and Norfolk Island entries
files.
There is also Maori and Australian Aboriginal material in the New
Zealand and
Australian directories. Many of these are old and out-of-print books
and
pamphlets. Some are transcriptions of archival material, others
contemporary
scholarship on Anglicanism in the Pacific. In the case of the Oceania
directory, one aim is to include all Melanesian Mission publications
unless
they are already on other internet sites. New material is being added
all the
time as we find it, and find time to scan and edit it for uploading.
For example, we are halfway through putting
the Melanesian
Mission Occasional Papers (1892-1897) on the site. The next major
book to
be added is Ruth Godden, Lolowai: The Story of Charles Godden and
the
Western Pacific (1967). Also slated for inclusion is Arthur Innes
Hokpins,
ed., Melanesia To-day: A Study Circle Book (1927).
The site hosts some original research such as
Michael
Blain's biographical directory of (Anglican) Diocese of Honolulu clergy
before
Annexation at http://anglicanhistory.org/hawaii/
blain_directory.pdf.
The particular areas of focus of Project
Canterbury
overall are the history of missionary life among indigenous peoples in
Canada,
New Zealand, Oceania, the United States, Africa and South America;
translations
of the Book of Common Prayer; Anglican poetry; sermon collections and
charges;
commentaries on the Book of Common Prayer; documents by and about
Anglican
women; Tractarian devotional and doctrinal writings; the works of John
Mason
Neale, John Keble and E.B. Pusey; documents on both sides of the
Ritualist
controversies of the nineteenth century; texts connected with Anglican
relations to Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and
Old
Catholicism; general missionary history; the writings of the Caroline
Divines
and the Nonjurors; the works of pre-Tractarian High Churchmen and
biographical
works. There are also a relatively small number of translations of the
Book of
Common Prayer into lesser-known languages, including Haida, Hungarian,
Neklakapamuk, Oneida, Swedish, Sea Dyak and several others. (The
Oceania site
includes some material in Mota.)
The site is totally searchable and indexed
frequently
by Google. The site also has its own internal Google search engine. The
vast
bulk of the material is easily and quickly downloadable in .html,
although
there are some .pdf files. With some exceptions, we do not link to
other sites
because of the time and energy involved in keeping up those links.
As I am located in the Solomons, it has been
easy for
me to access sources here, so there is much Melanesian Mission material
in the
Oceania directory. There is much early
Anglican Diocese of New Guinea material that we would like to put on
the site,
but need a cooperative person in PNG or Australia to find and scan this
material. As many libraries do not allow reproduction of their older
pamphlets,
access to material, even if it is in the public domain, is sometimes
difficult.
The Oceania and PNG directories have the full support of the
Archbishops of
Melanesia and Papua New Guinea. Copyright is, of course, respected,
with any
recent material requiring the consent of the author and publisher.
The broader theological and historical
material on
Project Canterbury should also be helpful for Pacific researchers in
providing
the background for mission practices and theological perspectives of
Anglican
missionaries in the Pacific, for example, in relation to church and
culture,
confession, liturgy, church and government, etc. We are currently
developing a
directory on St. Augustine's Missionary College, Canterbury, which
produced a
number of Anglican missionaries for Oceania.
The site is accessed by clergy, researchers
(in
theology, history, anthropology, etc), professors, students, Anglican
laity and
the general public. If the material is
used or reproduced publicly in any way, we only ask that the Project
Canterbury
origin be acknowledged and that it not be placed on other websites
without
permission.
As the site continues to grow, we hope that
it will be
able to represent for new generations of readers the riches of the
Anglican
tradition. As the internet continues to be a primary point of research
for
students and scholars alike, we hope that Project Canterbury will be a
source
of accurate information and responsible scholarship, focused on primary
and
early secondary sources.
We
welcome suggestions of documents for inclusion and volunteer
transcribers.
Please be in touch with me at domauki@solomon.com.sb.
Feedback on the site is also welcome.
Bishop Terry
Brown
Church of
Melanesia,
Solomon Islands
March
17, 2007
*
* *
Return to top
DIGITISING
THE BROADCASTING PAST OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Papua New Guinea’s National Broadcasting
Corporation
(NBC) recently broadcast a short speech given by American General
Douglas
MacArthur while he was stationed in Port Moresby during World War II.
The
speech was heard throughout the country via the NBC’s Karai and Kundu
network
stations. Within days the station began receiving correspondence from
around
the country from its older listeners, asking about the voice of a
“white man’s
ghost” they had heard. The voice had stirred many memories of a
different time
in the history of the country.
General MacArthur’s speech was taken from a
reel to
reel recording made in Port Moresby and held in the main archives of
the NBC at
Five Mile. It is among thousands of recordings currently being
digitised as
part of a co-operative project between the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation
(ABC) and the NBC, supported by AusAID, the Australian Agency for
International
Development. The project is part of the second phase of a larger
program, the
Media for Development Initiative (MDI), the other part of which is
being
coordinated by the PNG Media Council. The NBC/ABC partnership has
several broad
goals: (1) to build organizational capacity within the NBC, (2) to
strengthen
its news and program output areas and (3) to introduce digital
technology to
the Corporation’s archives.
The archival aspect of the project seeks to
provide
the NBC with equipment, training and mentoring to enable the
digitisation of
its entire audio collection. To date, equipment provided includes the
installation of a modified version of UNESCO’s CDS/ISIS database,
computers,
editing software, airconditioning units and appropriate storage units.
Several
ABC advisors have also been working with NBC’s library and archive
staff to
plan for, and better manage, their growing collection.
The MDI Archive project began in 2005 with
visits by
ABC archivists, John Spence & Ben Whitten. After assessing the
NBC’s needs,
they devised a plan to develop an electronic catalogue, install the
software
and train staff. Because of its free availability, WIN/ISIS archives
database
software was chosen. WIN/ISIS was developed by UNESCO and was both
simple and
flexible, enabling developmental work to suit the needs of individual
organisations. Mr Spence determined the NBC’s requirements and
contracted and
briefed Maureen Henninger, Senior Lecturer Information and Knowledge
Management
at UTS in Sydney, who customised WIN/ISIS for the NBC. Mr Spence then
took the
software to Port Moresby, installed it on newly purchased computers and
tested
the software for problems. These were addressed in Sydney, and changes
made
whilst Mr Spence was in Moresby.
Both Mr Spence and Mr Whitten, a technical
specialist,
led staff and management in workshops on archival principals and
practices. In
a follow up visit, NBC library staff were trained in cataloguing
principles,
given some basic computer training and then trained in searching and
cataloguing using the new database. Whilst in Port Moresby, Mr Spence
and Mr
Whitten surveyed current practices at the NBC in library and
archival-related
matters. The result was a series of recommendations that covered
storage,
technical considerations and techniques as well as relationships with
other
collecting bodies and collection development. In November 2006, ABC
archivist
Jordie Kilby joined the team as the in-country advisor.
The NBC audio collection is spread across 19
provincial stations and at headquarters at Five Mile in Port Moresby.
Each of
the stations hold reel to reel recordings of local string bands,
cultural
events, political speeches and traditional ‘sing sings’. The main
library in
Port Moresby has tapes going back to the 1940s – including records
relating to
World War II. Many of the early recordings were compiled onto archive
tapes
from their master recordings in the early 1970s. The library holds
large
numbers of historic interviews, NBC produced dramas, Papuan string
bands and
current affairs programs. It also has an excellent collection of
material
relating to Papua New Guinea’s elections since independence, which is
being
aired frequently in the lead-up to the country’s elections this year.
All tapes
in the Port Moresby library are currently stored in two rooms at the
end of the
main building. The project has installed two new air-conditioning units
to
promote a controlled climate for these recordings.
There is still work to be
done on building an accurate picture of the nature and quantity of
material
being held in the provincial stations. Stations visited so far hold an
average
of 1,000 recordings marked as being of archival value. The storage
conditions
vary from station to station. Many tapes stored in humid, coastal areas
have
suffered from years of exposure to the elements. Part of the collection
in
Rabaul was rescued by staff from a building that had collapsed under
the weight
of volcanic dust from the eruption of Mount Tavurvur in 1994. Many of
the tapes
were ruined in the eruption, which destroyed much of Rabaul. One goal
of the
project is to facilitate better storage solutions for the collection as
a whole.
This may involve centralising the recordings into several storage
centres with
properly controlled environments.
Over the last 30 years there have been
periods of both
great activity and inactivity within the NBC’s libraries. This has
resulted in
a patchy representation of the Corporation’s
and PNG’s histories. In some cases, one can easily access an entire
year’s
worth of locally produced drama programs; but on the other hand several
years’
worth of current affairs programs were never kept.
In many
stations, decisions on what should be archived rest with the station
manager,
who has no guidelines on the process. Library staff have now drawn up a
Collection Development Policy. Its application will depend on
re-acquainting
staff with the value and need for archival records. Another issue is
simply a
lack of tapes on which to save material in many provincial stations.
The
project is working with the NBC to introduce digital production
equipment in
all stations to overcome the need for tapes. In the meantime, some new
tape has
been supplied to preserve existing recordings.
So far, the focus of the project has been on
the main
library in Port Moresby. All equipment has been installed, training
with local
staff has taken place and more than 250 archive tapes have been
digitised. It
has taken time for staff to become sufficiently relaxed and confident
with the
database to work with it, but they have now begun entering all the
details into
the ISIS database. Valuable lessons have been learned that will assist
in
extending the program out into the regional areas.
Digitising
such a large collection is a long-term task, and it will certainly
continue
after the MDI 2 has finished. From this point, the project will draw up
a plan
for digitising the provincial stations, and will begin to implement it.
The
project is currently reviewing how it will ensure the long-term success
of the
task at hand. The NBC has committed itself to the long-term nature of
the task,
and stands to benefit greatly from a much improved, modernised archive
and
library system.
Jordie Kilby
Advisor, Media
for
Development Initiative
Port Moresby
*
* *
KEEPING
RECORDS OF THE LAW AND JUSTICE SECTOR IN
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Under the Law and Justice
Sector Project (LJSP) current records management practices of five
agencies in
Papua New Guinea are being surveyed and improved. The agencies covered
in this
project are the Department of Justice and Attorney General, National
Judicial
Staff Services, Magisterial Services, the Corrective Services and the
Ombudsman
Commission. Unfortunately, the Police Department has been left out
because of
politics involved with ECP.
Filing systems and records
management have been neglected over the last thirty years since
political
independence in all government departments including the law and
justice sector
agencies. Many departments have lost their records when moving office
or simply
by ignorance. In cases where records are created and retained there
still
remains a management problem as most departments do not have procedures
or
facilities for keeping records. This often results in duplication and
retention
of unnecessary records, thus creating storage problems. Many
departments do not
know how long to keep the records for or when to destroy files. There
are no
retention/ disposal schedules in most departments. This results in all
records
being stored regardless of the value of the record. We cannot keep all
the
files. At the same time we cannot destroy all the files.
In the long run important
historical records of these departments and the nation are being lost
and this
will continue unless attempts are made to improve methods of managing
records
in government departments. A nation without a history is a lost nation.
People
will need to identify important records for storage and preservation in
the
National Archives in future. The records management consultancy under
the LJSP
is based on records surveys of all the sector agencies throughout the
country.
Reports and photographs have been made of offices visited. There are
very
similar problems encountered throughout the country. We have as a
result
planned for the re-reorganization of records of these agencies. We hope
that
Law and Justice Sector agencies covered in this project will develop
policies
and procedures for management of their records. This Project should
take the lead
and showcase the need for proper records management to other government
departments.
The Department of Justice and Attorney
General (DJAG) is the
biggest in the Sector with several
divisions performing functions at different locations. The LJSP records
survey
looked at the offices of the constitutional office holders in the
Department,
including Public Solicitors, Public Prosecutors, Solicitor General,
Lands
Titles Commission, Law Reform Commission, Parole Board, Public
Curators, and
the Village Court Secretariat. Each of these offices create and keep
their own
files and policy, although staff records and administrative files are
kept by
the Departmental headquarters.
The Department has a central
registry or records centre, consisting of five shipping containers
which store
closed files. Although these containers hold valuable files, at
the time of LJSP records survey there was no record of what is kept in
the
containers. The shipping containers have now been cleaned and casual
staff
hired to make a complete list of the files in the containers. The
contents of
one of the containers, infested with termites, has been reorganised and
treated
with insecticide.
The shipping containers are
going to have to be searched again for the purpose of appraisal before
destruction is commenced. Records that are not archival in nature
should not be
stored in these containers. The shipping container cannot be a dumping
ground.
This records centre will store vital and valuable records of the
Department. In
the long run archival records will have to be transferred to the
National
Archives for permanent preservation. Much of this will be decided and
implemented when we have drawn up a Departmental disposal/retention
schedule.
At the moment there is no centralised control
of DJAG
records. There are bound to be duplicate copies of records held in the
different offices of the Department. This is particularly true of court
files
which are kept by lawyers in the Public Prosecutors and Public
Solicitors
Offices throughout the country. There is a need for centralized control
of all
DJAG records so that duplication of files is minimised. The DJAG
records office
will control and issue standard policies and procedures for records
management
in the constitutional offices of the Department.
The DJAG has now appointed a records manager,
Vagi
Igo, who will oversee Departmental record keeping. He has travelled to
offices
of the Department in the country and knows the problems faced by its
regional
and provincial offices. From his observations Mr Igo will draw up plans
and
policies for management of files and records created in each division
and in
particular by the constitutional office holders who have vital records
for the
Department as well as the nation at large.
National Judicial Staff Services. The
National Judicial Staff Service (NJSS) keeps the records of the
National Court
and the Supreme Court. These are some of the more important records of
the
nation; very numerous and created almost daily. The court system
involves a lot
of file creation by the police, prosecution, judiciary and correctional
services. Along the way, duplication of files is likely. Although
administration of all these records is difficult, policies and plans
for
management of these records are being put in place. The court
registries are
the central repositories of these records. In order to facilitate
efficient
operation of the registries, some records have to be destroyed. We
cannot
continue to create files and records without undertaking selective
destruction.
Court orders and records management policies
are
required so that we are permitted to destroy records after completion
of use.
Dagi Golu, an experienced archivist who was formerly based at the
National
Archives, has developed an archives policy and procedure manual for the
management
of NJSS records. It has been endorsed by management and the procedures
are
being followed.
The only problem is the need
to set up better storage facilities for closed and important records at
the
NJSS headquarters and at the regional level. At the NJSS headquaters in
Waigani, we installed new shelves, with dividers, in the central court
registry
while the National Court was in recess before the legal year began in
2007.
There are also plans for expansion of storage space at the NJSS
Headquarters.
Records are also held at the
regional centres in which Supreme Court judges are based, i.e. Lae,
Mt Hagen,
Kokopo, Kimbe and Madang. Under the LJSP we have visited all of these
centres
to assess the records and to look at options for setting up regional
storage
centres. Shipping containers are used at Madang, Lae and Kokopo for
storage of
closed Court files. We are installing shelves at the Mt Hagen Court
House to
allow proper storage and retrieval of Magistrate’s Court records as
well as
those of the Supreme Court.
Mr Golu’s archives policy
and procedure manual has been applied in each of these regional
centres, mainly
in relation to management of Court files and records. However it
appears that
administrative and policy files, in particular general correspondence
file
series, may have been neglected. The Court transcripts are another
series of
records which also need organised management and appropriate storage
facilities, if possible in digital format. In association with Mr Golu,
we will
revise and update the NJSS records policy and procedure manual to cover
all
NJSS records series, aiming to design a computerised database system
for
indexing and retrieval.
Mr Golu’s appointment is a step in the right
direction; however he needs more funding and assistants in order to
operate an
effective records management system. There is a need for positions to
be created
for registry/archives officers to be stationed at regional centres. At
present
only librarians are responsible for records. There has recently been an
advertisement for librarian/ archivist positions in the regional
centres, which
is a good start. Training workshops and procedures will have to be held
in NJSS
in order for records management standards to be implemented
consistently across
the nation.
Magisterial Services (MS). Magisterial Services is
responsible for
records created by District and other lower Courts throughout the
country. The
Court files are organised according to the type of Court where the case
is
heard (Civil, Criminal or Family Court) and then by case number.
There is a need for a procedure manual so
that the
process of creating records is applied nationwide. After attending my
records
management workshops in 2004, Leslie Kolis wrote a draft procedure
manual for
MS records, a standard MS file index, and other papers. These need to
be
updated and published, possibly as an addition to the manual of Court
procedures which has already been had been created.
We hope this MS records management manual and
policies
can be developed and published and distributed to all the Court Houses
to
ensure application of a nation-wide record keeping system. Clerks of
courts are
responsible for creation of files and keeping records at the District
Courts,
however there is also a need for a position of records
manager/archivist to be
established, with overall responsibility for records generated by
Magisterial
Services.
The MS headquarters in Port Moresby needs to
set up a
proper records centre to keep all its important and valuable records.
This will
fall in line with what is planned for the NJSS, Ombudsman Commission
and
Corrective Services headquarters. These records centres will organise
the
transfer of closed files and take responsibility for them pending their
final
transfer to the National Archives or destruction, based on appraisal of
the
archival value of each file.
At present the MS Port Moresby Records Room,
where the
closed files are located, needs to be renovated and fitted with proper
shelves
and air conditioning. The records are not listed and need to be
reorganised.
Proper file covers and archives boxes are needed to store the files and
to ensure
that these are kept in order. It would seem that all Court case files
have been
kept. This leads to space problems so there is a need to develop a
retention/disposal schedule for appraisal and sentencing court files.
Wewak District Court records were destroyed
by fire in
2003. Unlisted Magisterial records held in a leaky shipping container
in Goroka
were dampened by rain water and destroyed.
Corrective Services (CS). This is the most unorganised
agency of the five covered by
the LJSP records survey. One of the major problems CS had faced over
the last
few years had been continuous relocation of its headquarters, leading
to
uncertainty in setting up permanent offices and destruction of
Departmental
records. The Department is now occupying a permanent building so there
is a
good chance that it can sustain a stable records management program
which can
be applied.
A national CS file index is being used but
needs
revision. Sergeant Anis Natusere, who attended some of my training
workshops,
has made recommendations for improvement of records management
practices in the
Department. A Departmental records management policy and procedures
manual will
be written up and steps taken to introduce staff and officers
throughout the
country to apply the same procedures and practices in all of the
country’s
nineteen prisons.
Central control and storage of all CS records
is
required so that all records of the department are created and
transferred
according to procedures. A former mess at the CIS College has been
identified
which can be renovated as a temporary storage shed for records of the
Department. We have established a records centre/archives at the CS
Headquarters and have installed compactus shelving for storage of
intermediate
and closed Departmental files.
Ombudsman Commission (OC). The Commission is a small
organisation
with regional offices in Lae, Hagen and Kokopo, and plans for another
office in
Buka. Within the OC there is a recognition that record keeping is an
important
part of their management practices. As a
result, officers of the different divisions of the OC keep records of
all the
transactions of the Commission. Some records have been transferred to
the
basement ‘archives’, while other semi-current and closed files are
located in
the divisional repositories. It is possible to setup a good record
keeping
system for the Commission if a staff position is established for a
records
manager who will oversee the record keeping practices and supervise the
management of the Commission’s records.
There will be workshops conducted addressing
records
management problems in the Commission and I hope that one of the
participants
at these workshops will take over the role of records management within
the
Commission. We will also draw up a policies and procedures manual for
the
Commission staff to follow when creating records in future. There will
be some
Commission records which are clearly archival in nature, and amongst
these will
include leadership tribunals and life stories of leaders under the
leadership
code. We hope all these records can be transferred to the National
Archives
when the leaders lose their positions. All investigations conducted by
the
commission are important and will have to be transferred to the sector
wide
records centre/archives in future as well.
Sam Kaima
Records
Management
Consultant
PNG
Justice Sector Project
