28/04/2016
The idea of Archiving in the University of Ghana, specifically the Institute of African Studies was put forth by one of the world's renowned ethnic musicology, Professor J. Kwabena Nketia whose name was identified with by the Institutes' Archives. The Archives is seen as a central umbrella serving the Institute's Administration purposes, Arabic Manuscript, photo collection as well as audio-visual collection. In this regard, it has a core aim of documenting life recordings.
J. Kwabena Nketia Archives pushes the mission of preseving needs of scholars, researchers and artistes in supporting research documentations, as well as collecting and dissemniating research findings. It also gears at facilitating teachings, supporting all sections in the Institute of African Studies and the University as a whole in promoting all cultural lines and African Traditional Arts. (It is a cultural unit exposed to external use).
Though the initial focus of the Archives was to have African-Ghanaian cultural documentation as the vision of the Institute suggests, "To be a pre-eminent institute for the study of Africa and the African Diaspora" , for some years now, it has in preservation other international documentations like the Indian music and dance movement which are used in comparism at some cases.
Digitization plays a central role in archives and the J. Kwabena Nketia Archives is striving to digitize all materials and have all contents appear in its original form.
It is interesting to know that aside documentation and preservation of research findings, there are in stock, story tellings, interviews conducted on prominent people, oral histories and even witches music.
A distinct of the J. H. Archives from others is that it has a rare filed recordings which are kept in safe storage ideas in addition to its commercial recordings.
Currently, there are 8,000 audio preservation in the Archives that are spread on different format as well as 7,000 video preservation also spread on different format.
