which is regarded as the Dutch colonial period. As a result

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– represents bigger collaborative effortAbout five percent of the collections at the National Archives of Guyana date back to the 18th century, which is regarded as the Dutch colonial period. As a result, Guyana has been closely collaborating with the National Archives of The Netherlands to advance a Mutual Cultural Heritage initiative.And as part of this effort, the local Archives was yesterday endowed with digitised copies of Dutch Colonial Maps of Guyana, compliments of the Netherlands.Director of Mutual Cultural Heritage, Dr Roelof Hol, made the auspicious donation at a simple ceremony at the Homestretch Avenue headquarters of the National Archives.Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr Frank Anthony, were on the receiving end.Dr Anthony revealed that plans are apace to expand the holdings of the archives and to move it into the 21st Century.“When people think of an archive they think of a place that is really boring. We want to make it exciting and fun so that people can also learn about their history and not be intimidated by the records we have here.”He noted that one of the approaches that will be incorporated is to make the archive more visible.In supporting the Minister’s opinion, Dr Hol emphasised that archives should be made more physical as they are unique records and serve to prove the history of a country. “It shows some insight into the identity of a people in a certain region.”According to Prime Minister Hinds, one of the challenges experienced locally is to ‘develop a sense of Guyana and Guyanese’ which would encompass and motivate.“This is a challenge of our time and occasions like these can help us through this…”Director of Culture within the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr James Rose, said it was around 2004 that Guyana was given an opportunity to become part of the Dutch Atlantic Heritage Committee. This, he said, was a project that attempted to integrate colonial Dutch holdings.“It was not an attempt to re-establish the Dutch imperial system but to consolidate, preserve and promote Dutch Cultural traditions along the Atlantic. Out of that grew the Mutual Cultural Heritage Unit…”And according to Dr Rose, The Netherlands has always expressed an interest in the local archival holdings. In doing so, the state of the holdings was considered as well as the possibility of preserving the holding and the sharing of the knowledge contained in the holdings. The interest exhibited by the Dutch nation was strong enough to have a team travel to Guyana in 2006 to offer a better understanding of their operation.“I remember (representatives) of the University of the West Indies, the University of Guyana and the National Archives, they all met at the University of Guyana…and it was an interesting meeting. Out of that meeting came a second gathering in Holland. The entire Atlantic World had met in Holland and Guyana actually had a delegation of four.”And since, some time has been spent agonising about the state of the holdings to ascertain what could be done to save some of the very fragile materials. According to him, a meeting was held yesterday and that topic was in fact the “centrepiece.”“I stand here a bit encouraged because we have been talking for some time and the interest has not waned. We know that the whole process of digitising records is ongoing…Guyana’s records have not been forgotten and there is a distinct possibility that as a consequence of what is taking place, the Dutch component of our records will also be digitised.”Dr Rose revealed that because of the kind of relationship that has been fostered, Guyana will have unimpeded access to all digitised material across the Dutch Atlantic.