New National Archives building at Ta’ Qali scuppered for car park despite deed

An electoral manifesto pledge to site a new National Archives institute at Ta’ Qali – uncommonly supported by both sides of the political divide – was brusquely swept into the trashcan, despite a land deed transferring the land to the National Archives.

The National Archives was accorded the land in a 2019 deed signed by three ministers, but since then the planned project was overtaken by the Ta’ Qali concert venue built in place of an old concrete factory.

Now the government has been forced to seek new storage space that can guarantee 5,000 linear metres of shelving for the National Archives’ holdings, which are currently held at the Santu Spirtu in Rabat, a premises that is not suitable for the storage of such precious archives, and six other buildings.

A preliminary market consultation is requesting proposals from the private sector for the loading and transportation of the archives, as well as barcoding and storage of 3,000 linear metres of shelving, which could increase to a maximum 5,000 metres.

It is a tall order for the service provider, who will have to also provide the National Archives with an online portal that provides real-time information on the status of the archived records, apart from the facility of requesting records through the same.

Nobody is more disappointed about the foiled plans for the new National Archives, than Chief Archivist Charles J. Farrugia, who rued the time and energy spent at arriving at a concept and design for the Ta’ Qali archives hub, in collaboration with the French national archives.

The prospective new National Archives building would have centralised all services in a state-of-the-art and purposely built repository, housing also the National Audio-Visual Institute (NAVI) for Malta’s audio-visual heritage.

“All these dreams faded away when the Ta’ Qali site was unceremoniously ‘taken over’,” Farrugia noted in an annual report for the National Archives, which came with a severe warning.

“The future of the new national archive building depends on the identification by government of a new site for the project. Until then, we will continue investing in our network of current buildings that with the notarial registers’ archive will comprise seven repositories. We may keep adding to the repositories but in the long run the system risks collapsing.”

Farrugia said that the physical and intellectual control, or the development of IT services for patrons could never be fully achieved through the current fragmentation of the archives into buildings that do not even offer the basic minimum climatic conditions.

“The need of a new national archives is not in any way inspired by a desire for an architectural statement. Obviously, it would be a pity if our country does not invest in a design that makes a clear statement towards culture, openness, and accountability in building its national archives.

“But independently of this, the new national archives premises, building on the new records management culture instilled in this country, is crucial for our country’s soul, memory, and identity,” Farrugia said.

As things stand, the Maltese national archives are now supported by public departments and entities who are applying retention policies on their documents. But such is the scale of the public administration system, that Farrugia says every new year brings with it the need for 1 kilometre of additional storage space.

“Fragmented space is not only costly but risky and will hamper the process of adequate cataloguing and opening to the public,” Farrugia said.

Original plans for the new National Archives were started with the transfer of public land in Ta’ Qali in 2019, by then-education minister Evarist Bartolo and infrastructure minister Ian Borg. The Santu Spirtu building, where the National Archives are currently situated, was to be turned into the first museum on the history of medicine in Malta.

Despite lip service towards the “historic” step in conserving the country’s national memory, much of these plans fell instantly by the wayside when the same Ta’ Qali site started being developed into a 500-car multi-level parking site near the basketball pavilion.

Malta now lacks a proper centralised national archives system that can guarantee longevity to the many public records stored in various buildings, a problem that itself has a long history: in 1944, the British archivist Sir Hilary Jenkinson arrived in Malta after having assessed the state of archives in Italy during the Second World War. His recommendations for Malta’s public records system included the building of appropriate premises for the documents.

Charles J. Farrugia notes just one silver lining in this episode of an 80-year saga for a new building.

“The silver lining in this story is that the current government is still committed to deliver on its electoral promise of building a national archive that will cater for the traditional and new media and that it will cater for current and future needs. We will keep insisting for this to happen and prepare all the reporting needed to have a state-of-the art facility,” he noted in his last annual report.