Editorial

The National Archives at Rabat and Mdina have now been providing administrators and research workers from a variety of fields with the primary sources they need to support plans and policies or write their books and papers. It is hard to believe that until not so long ago all these sources were spread over many departments and other public bodies and, moreover, that there was no legislation enjoining the preservation and classification of these hundreds of thousands of documents.

Though poorly staffed, the National Archives have already made a name for themselves as a body that is constantly on the go, one that is eager to use the equipment and methods of information technology to preserve its invaluable holdings and make them readily accessible to the public. These holdings consist, to a large extent, of written and printed documents of all kinds, including numberless files from government ministries and departments, some of them dating back to early British rule, as well as legal archives from an even earlier time, that of the Order of St John's rule. They also include maps, plans and other illustrative materials that are sometimes even more important than letters or reports for the finding of information being sought.

The National Archives' most recent project concerns historical photographs and audio-visual materials of which they already have a sizeable collection to which they are determined to add as much as possible. They are calling this the National Memory Project, a title suggestive of its importance within the current context of seeking out, preserving and disseminating information about our amazingly rich heritage. This project, in fact, should provide an essential complement to the works of art, artefacts and monuments administered by Heritage Malta, by focusing on people who made or helped to make our history and on images of thousands of events, showing history being made and recorded at the time.

The National Archives are producing CDs packed with portraits of historic personalities. One trusts that this series of CDs will extend in future to personalities going as far back as possible, without being restricted to portraits in the National Archives' collections.

Hundreds of private persons all over this country possess portraits in oils or other media but there is no central Portrait Gallery. If Malta cannot afford to create a similar collection, the National Archives should be encouraged to create a virtual National Portrait Gallery. However, for this to happen they will require the generous assistance of owners of historic portraits to allow them to digitise those works.

The National Archives will shortly start identifying and cataloguing a large collection of news reels passed on to them by the Department of Information. A similar arrangement should also be reached with the Public Broadcasting Service and other broadcasting stations, but the acquisition and professional handling of what could be a huge influx of material will certainly require much greater financial and human resources than the National Archives now have.

The enthusiasm and generosity of Friends of the Archives have their limits. If this government truly believes, as all thinking persons do, that the National Archives is worthy of great support, even in these financially straitened times, it must ensure that it becomes a credible source of the resources the National Archives need.