Connecting the Past and the Future: Memory Institutions Facilitating Access to Information in Zimbabwe
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Date
2017-08
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Publisher
INFLIBNET Centre
Abstract
Memory institutions serve as the bridge spanning the gap of the past and the future through the
preservation of intellectual and cultural heritage to sustain development and prevent memory loss.
Access to information serves as a thread that connects communities, research and memory institutions.
The future and success of national development goals are premised on access to information
and hence the need to explore how technologies can be utilized to integrate libraries and related
memory institutions to support digital inclusivity. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities
of developing countries like Zimbabwe in sustaining the digital infrastructure. The paper highlights
the extent to which libraries can create digital platforms to interact with the digital public in
the area of humanities. The paper also examines how academic library consortia are utilising technology
to connect with the scholars and researchers. It explores the extent to which libraries can
utilise Public and Private sector Partnerships (PPPs) with National Research and Education Networks
(NRENS) and Internet Service Providers (ISP) to enhance the value of service delivery. It will
also highlight the challenges and opportunities of promoting memory institutions for the benefit of
research and education. This paper also brings out another dimension of the media as a critical
platform that preserves and facilitates the access to information, arguing that the media is the first
draft of history and as such useful bedrock that memory institutions might reliably rest upon. However,
the paper is also cognisant of the possibility of the uses and abuses as well as manipulation of
memory institutions as instruments of political expediency. This is so, especially in sceptical regimes
who may view memory institutions as nothing other than appendages of power. Yet if truth be told,
memory institutions are sacrosanct repositories which ought not to be tempered with.
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Keywords
Information Access, Media, Memory Institutions, Patriotic History, Sustainable Development