NYU TEAM IN TERRITORY TO DISCUSS PRESERVATION OF OLDEST ARCHIVES

Tuesday July 13, 2010

A professional team from the New York University (NYU) is currently in the Territory to discuss preservation of the Virgin Islands oldest archives.

The team, which is headed by Dr. Lauren Benton, Dean for Humanities, Professor of History and Affiliate Professor of Law, New York University is in the Territory for two days and met with the Archives and Records Management Unit and stakeholder officials yesterday to discuss the preservation.

Chief Records Management Officer, Mrs. Verna Penn Moll told the Department of Information and Public Relations that the team met with her and other officials to discuss the priorities for the project; they also visited the documents repository in order to assess what equipment and manpower would be required to digitise the records.

She explained that, “The Professor is especially interested in working to preserve the content of the oldest documents in the collection, particularly documents not available in The National Archives of the United Kingdom. She is therefore proposing to begin with deeds, wills, and court judgments from the Presidency period and proceed with other Presidency records, as time permits.”

A proposal is being formulated to be submitted to the Reed Foundation of New York, for funding the project. Besides seeking support to bring a small team of ‘archives students’ to the Virgin Islands to digitise the records, the proposal will include support beyond the photographing stage, in placing the images on a website so that the documents may be available to researchers worldwide.

The objective of the University’s involvement in this project is solely to help preserve the patrimony of the Virgin Islands.

Other visiting professors in the team are Professor Peter Wosh, Director of Archives and Public History Programme at NYU and Paula De Stefano, Associate Curator and Director of Collections and Research Services. The visit is being sponsored by the NYU.