National Archives faces growing storage pressures

Fiji's National Archives is accelerating its digitization program to cope with an ever-increasing amount of government documents and the strain on its storage capacity. The institution currently holds an estimated six kilometers of government records, with new documents generated daily by various ministries and agencies.

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We have had a new unit within the archives. It’s called the digitisation unit. It solely focuses on the digitisation of physical records.

To address these challenges, the Archives has established a specialized unit focused solely on digitizing physical records. National Archives Director Timoci Balenaivalu highlighted that the team is currently working on digitizing five important record series that detail the evolution of Fiji's government. These records have been identified, and preservation work is in progress before they undergo digitization.

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Currently, we are working towards digitising another five series of records. Very important records about the evolution of the government of Fiji. We have identified them. So, currently, the work on the preservation is in process. And when it is concluded, then we will move those records to be digitised.

Digital Archivist Esther Henry pointed out that a significant hurdle for the initiative is the lack of sufficient manpower. Initially, digitization was done only upon request due to these constraints. Henry emphasized the urgent need for digitization as the original records are deteriorating quickly from constant handling. The program aims not only to preserve historically significant documents but also to improve long-term access to information while minimizing the risks associated with handling fragile originals.

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Initially, we were digitising our archival records upon request because we didn’t have the manpower to proactively digitise; we still don’t have the manpower to proactively digitise, but we have identified a need to digitise our records because our original records are deteriorating at a very fast rate due to continuous handling.