Information Minister commends Graphic for digitising archival materials

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, has commended Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) for its efforts in digitising the company’s archives to provide an effective platform for research work.

He expressed his excitement at the progress of work, urging the company to roll it out and commercialise it for easy access to archival and current materials.

“I am excited to see how the upload is going and how easy it is to reference and download materials for research purposes or for personal use.’’

“What the company is doing is impressive because it fits clearly into the policy direction the country is trying to move towards,” he said.

Mr Oppong-Nkrumah said this when he visited the company’s Digital Unit in Accra on Monday (June 12, 2023) to observe the digitisation of documents.

He further commended the company for diversifying its channels and going deeper into the digital space.

Digital Unit

So far, digital scanning of documents and photos and capturing information and activities in the various brands of the company from 1950 to 2002 have been done.

The project, which started in March last year, has been progressing steadily and is about 70 per cent complete. 

Information Service sector

Mr Oppong-Nkrumah indicated that the Information Service sector was itself going through a gradual transformation in the past years and had intensified in the last couple of months.

“The various entities under the information sector are working to reposition themselves.

Information Service Department (ISD), for instance, is going through a transformation exercise,” he noted.

He urged other institutions and agencies to learn from the GCGL and reposition themselves to move into the digital space.

“Institutions must not get stuck in old ways but look to how they can use new methods and skills to deliver better value for their customers,” he said.

Digital archive

The Managing Director of the GCGL, Ato Afful, was optimistic that the Digital Space would soon be up and running.

He therefore encouraged the public to take advantage of it when it becomes operational.

He said information and activities that dated back to the 1950s would be available and made easily accessible to people in search of information.

He said people could also access digitalised archived material with interesting information to help them in their work.

Graphic Digital Unit

The Head of Archives and Digital Unit of the GCGL, William Ashaley, expressed the hope that the digitisation process would be completed by the end of July.

He said people could access information they wanted through a keyword system.

“By paying a small token through online payment platforms such as mobile money or Visa, an individual can access information by typing a keyword such as a name, event or location and all materials related to the keyword would be made available,” he said.

“A person can also visit the Graphic Digital Unit to access information and also receive assistance from technical persons at the unit,” he explained.

However, he indicated that the next phase was to approach institutions to digitise materials for them.

“We are also appealing for funds since digitising materials was an expensive exercise,” he said.