While Cayman was waiting for the passage of Hurricane Paloma, several listeners called in to a radio talk show to check the exact date of the devastating hurricane that struck these islands in November 1932.
One person mentioned the Memory Bank as a possible source of information.
He was right.
That project, for which some of the oldest residents on all three islands provided recollections, does include accounts of the ’32 Storm. Begun by the Museum in 1979 and continued by the National Trust during the 1980s, the Memory Bank was turned over to the National Archive in 1991.
Some 1,300 taped interviews have since been transcribed and indexed, so that members of the public can read or listen to oral history.
The National Archive also has a collection of over 14,000 images – primarily photographs – and documents that number in the hundreds of thousands. They come from both government and private sources.
‘We are preserving Cayman’s written heritage and making it accessible,’ said Mr. Roger Craig, who left his post as director of the National Archive last Friday.
Mr. Craig came to Cayman in 1991 at the request of the first director, Dr. Philip Pedley, to be in charge of preservation and the photography darkroom. The two men were initially the Archive’s only staff.
Today there are 20 people working at the National Archive; 18 are Caymanian. Among the longest serving are Ms Tamara (Tammi) Selzer, who joined in 1992, and Ms Kimlon (Kim) Woods Seymour, who came on board in 1993.
Their advanced studies over the years and commitment to their work resulted in substantial promotions, gazetted in August. Ms Selzer is the National Archivist, while Ms Seymour succeeds Mr. Craig as director of the National Archive.
Ms Selzer may be the better known of the two women because she did a fair amount of interacting with the public as head of archives and records, while Ms Seymour was working behind the scenes as a conservator of the very documents people might be looking for.
Books and papers may be available in their original form or they may be on microfilm or they may have been digitalised. Paper can last two to three hundred years if it is stored properly, the experts say.
Initially, Ms Selzer said, people came looking for family history. ‘Now we’re getting more and more academics doing research; college-age students coming back to do their theses; and authors like Mr. Roy Bodden for his book The Cayman Islands in Transition.’
Ms Selzer earned a BA in applied communications from Wesley College in Delaware, USA. She then qualified as an archivist in 1997, gaining a master’s degree from the University College London, in records and archives management, through a Chevening Scholarship.
Although the National Archive was instituted by law in 1991, the position of National Archivist is new, created by the National Archives and Public Records Law of 2007, Mr. Craig explained. The holder of this post is responsible for developing policies for the management of archival holdings, issuing standards for, and monitoring and reporting on record keeping within the public sector.
In recent months Ms Selzer has been working with the steering committee for the implementation of the Freedom of Information Law. Part of her work is advising government departments on how to comply with standards set for the care and management of records.
The national archivist is also deputy director of the National Archive.
‘Friends can’t believe I’ve been in the same job 17 years. They can’t understand my loyalty and commitment to the organisation as a whole,’ Ms Selzer said. But that loyalty was the result of Mr. Pedley’s attitude towards staff. ‘He always encouraged us to strive for new things and continue our education in our particular fields,’ she explained.
Mr. Craig also credits Mr. Pedley – now principal policy advisor to the Chief Secretary’s Office — with initiating a training programme for young Caymanians that has enabled them to gain their professional qualifications.
As part of its succession plans, he said, the National Archive financed Ms Seymour’s degrees either directly or as support to overseas scholarships obtained.
Having received a scholarship from the Commonwealth Secretariat, Ms Seymour earned her bachelor’s degree in 1999 at Camberwell College of Arts in the UK, where she concentrated on paper conservation.
With another scholarship from the Association of Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, she was able to stay on and work for her master’s degree, specialising in photographic conservation. Her thesis project was the analysis and conservation of an old carbon-process photograph discovered under the roof of an old Caymanian house that was being dismantled.
In 2004, the National Archive further supported Ms Seymour on the distance-learning master’s degree programme in human resources. Mr. Craig said this was organised through the Portfolio of the Civil Service with the University of Portsmouth to enhance her managerial skills for future succession to a managerial position.
Her position as one of the most highly qualified conservators in the Caribbean was recognised by the regional branch of the International Council on Archives, which asked her to develop an archive conservation training programme for the region, Mr. Craig said.
He recalled recruiting Ms Seymour after he heard she had an ‘A’ level in chemistry. She had taken chemistry because she planned to be a doctor; instead, she became a doctor for books and found it very satisfying, she said.
The National Archive’s succession plan is ongoing. Mr. Craig reported that four staff members so far have obtained master’s degrees in archival disciplines, while another is undertaking an advanced degree in records management. A trainee archivist will start degree work next year and two other staff members are undertaking short-term courses, distance-learning courses and secondments to ensure professionally qualified staff for the scientific and technical disciplines within the Archive.
Deputy Chief Secretary Donovan Ebanks welcomed Ms Seymour and Ms Selzer to their new positions. ‘The services the National Archive are somewhat specialised and unique and I am truly very proud to have been in a position to promote these two young Caymanian professionals to the top and second most senior post in that department,’ he said.
‘They both have earned all the required qualifications in their respective fields and certainly have become positive role models for other young Caymanians to emulate.
‘It is not very often we get to see succession planning in action but the hard work and dedication of these two professionals have made this all possible and I want to congratulate them on this achievement. Thanks must also go to Dr. Pedley, the former director and Mr. Craig, the current director, for the support and guidance they have given to Ms Selzer and Ms Seymour,’ Mr. Ebanks noted.
‘I look forward to working with them and I am confident under the leadership of Ms. Seymour the department will continue to progress and meets the demands of the future.’
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