[Photo: FILE]
Fiji’s National Archives is moving ahead with digitising national records, but officials say progress is being slowed by major gaps in digital infrastructure and staffing.
More than 60,000 immigration passes have already been digitised, marking early progress in preserving historical documents.
However, millions of additional records remain in physical storage spanning approximately six kilometres of archived material.
Government Archivist Ratu Timoci Balenaivalu says a ¤ key challenge is the lack of a functional digital database.
“We will need more support on human resources, because data entry is the main work that needs to be, you know, included, and the setup of the actual database.”
He says the ministry is now prioritising infrastructure improvements.
“Currently, we’re still working on the infrastructure. We’re still working on the infrastructure first, and also at the same time, we are starting to digitise certain series of records that can be digitised at the moment.”
Balenaivalu adds that human resources also remain a major constraint.
He says their immediate focus is to strengthen both infrastructure and workforce capacity to ensure Fiji’s historical records are preserved and accessible for future generations.
