Museums, libraries and archives: collaborating for the preservation of heritage materials in Nigeria

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Date
2009-08-27
Authors
Zaid, Y.A
Abioye, A
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Abstract
The survival of a nation’s heritage materials depends, to a large extent, on the effectiveness of its preservation programme. Heritage institutions, therefore, have as one of their core activities the preservation of their collections. The experiences in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and some other countries have shown that this responsibility is better discharged through collaboration and networking among heritage institutions. The rapid development in digital technology and its attendant implication for access to and dissemination of information makes the need for collaboration imperative. An exploration of literature has revealed that the benefits of collaboration among heritage institutions are enormous while collaboration initiatives in developed parts of the world are well documented; little seems to be known about the initiatives in Nigeria. This study, therefore, investigates the heritage preservation collaboration initiatives of museums, libraries and archives with particular focus on the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (National Museums), the National Library and the National Archives of Nigeria. A survey research method was adopted for the study with questionnaire and interview as the research instruments. Curators, librarians and archivists from the three heritage institutions who constituted the target population were purposively sampled. The study revealed among other findings, little or no collaboration in most aspects of heritage preservation among heritage institutions in Nigeria. Based on this finding, a case was made for active collaboration with strong government involvement, particularly in the area of funding.
Description
Conference Papers
Keywords
Preservation , Heritage Materials
Citation
Zaid, Y.A and Abioye, A (2009) Museums, libraries and archives: collaborating for the preservation of heritage materials in Nigeria. World Library and Information Congress: 75TH IFLA General Conference and Council, Held at Milan, Italy