We are our memory

On 23 April the National Archives organised an event to launch a sponsorship scheme to conserve one of the record groups they hold. They teamed up with four major maritime companies and the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry to fundraise money aimed at restoring the records of the Consolato del Mare.

This was a commercial court, set up by Grand Master Perellos in 1697 to assist the Maltese merchants and seafaring community to order their dealings better.  The records deposited at the National Archives cover the period ranging from the Consolato’s establishment in 1697 up to its dissolution in 1812.

Several amazing stories have been published from these records by historians such as Joan Abela, Liam Gauci, Simon Mercieca, Carmel Vassallo and others.

I am sure that there is much more in store when future historians can benefit from the outcomes of this project, especially when the records will be available in digital format. The stories in these volumes are not remote occurrences.  These are the stories we are still hearing about to the present day.  It might have been an historical coincidence that this event occurred on the same day when our nation bid farewell to victims who lost their life in the sea around our islands. 

During that event national archivist Charles Farrugia explained the main objective of this project, namely the proper preservation of the Consolato di Mare’s documentation under the supervision of the National Archives’ Conservation Laboratory.  He also expressed his belief that by using crowd funding for this project, it will ascertain better engagement with the mercantile community in Malta.

On behalf of the sponsors, John Sullivan gave details of how a group of persons connected to the Maltese maritime industry have teamed up to ensure this preservation project, by raising the required funds.

During the event I had the opportunity to meet the conservators of the National Archives, who showcased the first fully-restored bundle, out of the 473 items making up the Consolato di Mare’s records.  They explained how time-consuming such projects are.  The first bundle took one month to be restored and the fact that its conservation report was published online is a laudable initiative.

The event underlines the need that the state invests much more resources in this sector.  We need more conservators, more archivists and consistent streams of funding towards these projects.  Volunteers and sponsors are doing their share.

The setting up of archives and records management courses at the Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences at the University of Malta was a step in the right direction.  However, considering the amount of records we have (this project focuses on 50 metres from 15 kilometres of records), the negligence shown towards the sector in the past, and the contribution to the knowledge economy archives can give, we need to do much more.

We cannot simply increase the budgets of the institutions responsible for the safeguarding of our memory and rely on the statistical increase in such budgets.  What really counts is how much of those funds are really going into the archival activity of the institution, and how we compare with our counterparts abroad.

Much of the damage we are restoring could have been avoided had past generations taken remedial actions then.  We cannot commit the same mistake.  We need to catch up with the backlog, yet take all necessary actions to preserve current records.

The digital challenge is with us now and has to be dealt with right away.  In this sense, the current government already took the action to appoint record officers in the Public Service and sponsor them to take up University studies.

But again, the way ahead is long and challenging.  We can never do enough investment in this sector.  After all we will be investing in preserving the nation’s memory.  There is no price one can pay to preserve one’s memory.  Without it we will no longer call ourselves a nation.