Institutional Repositories Containing Digitized Heritage Material (Special Collections) are Making 'Lost or Hidden' Cultures Accessible: Advantages and Disadvantages of this Trend

Abstract

The current information and electronic publishing age has tremendously increased the demand for academic institutions and libraries to recognise the importance of Institutional Repositories. They are essential infrastructures in modern scholarship. However, the main focus in this study is the digital preservation of cultural heritage or special collection, providing access to knowledge about lost or hidden cultures. The purpose of this study was to examine the importance of the digitized heritage material, in the institutional repositories, in making accessible lost or hidden cultures. The research type was a theoretical research type, focusing on published research literature about the problem. Search terms were generated to get relevant literature about the topic from databases like; Emerald Publishing, Google Scholar, Google search, Booksc.org, portal.unesco.org, eprints.rclis.org, and SPARC. It was reported that all countries under study did not have policies to guide digital preservation of cultural heritage. Only Uganda was reported to have a project WDL (Uganda) under the National Library of Uganda, working on digital preservation of cultural heritage. Makerere University was reported to be the only institution to have a digital preservation of special collection (music archive). Access to the digital collection of the cultural heritage is very vital in many aspects of research and societal dynamics. Governments should pick interest in digital preservation of heritage material and making it easily accessible. Preservation policies should be put in place to guide the preservation processes. Academic and research institutional libraries should take a leading role in digital preservation processes on the national cultural heritage.