Connecting the Past and the Future: Memory Institutions Facilitating Access to Information in Zimbabwe

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.