Georgetown: Digital Tent Guyana is a new website – a virtual library launched that makes available to Guyanese and to everyone in the world, online and free of cost, links to materials about Guyana’s history, national heritage and the experience of Guyanese people.
The website which was officially launched this week at the National Library complements activities inclusive of the National Symposia Series and Guyana’s inaugural Literary Festival, that the Academic Working Group, a sub-group of the National Commemorative Committee was assigned responsibility for, as a part of the country’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Tidbits such as music, videos, text links, as well as Guyanese books and publications among others were produced by students of the universities of Ohio and Guyana.
Giving an overview of the project, College of Communication Studies, University of Ohio Professor, Dr. Vibert Cambridge, explained that the website is a result of a class project, between the students of the two universities. According to Dr. Cambridge the effort, which resulted out of a course called “Technology, Communication and Culture” that he taught this semester, is also the translation of the Academic Working Group aspiration of creating legacy projects, which will be sustainable beyond the 50th anniversary celebrations.
Dr. Cambridge noted that there is a lot of information on the internet about Guyana by Guyanese and non-Guyanese. He explained that the students who worked on the project have pulled much of this together. “This is not a final project, this is the launch of a project that is modular, and we expect that there will be additional contribution to this overtime,” he said.
He pointed out that the team putting together the website did so, conscious of the theme of the 50th Jubilee celebration: “Respect, Celebrate and Inspire. “The work we have presented here sets out to do just that,” he said. The work was also guided by four questions, Dr. Cambridge explained; “Who are we? What has been our journey? What can we become? And how do we get there?”
“I am very proud to be a part of this, this is a resource that will inspire and inform the conversation…this is an access, this is a resource to contribute to literary development, and it is also a resource to encourage research and scholarship. It is also a resource to encourage participation between Guyanese at home and Guyanese abroad,” Dr. Cambridge said.
He explained that the College of Communication of University of Ohio intends to stay with the project and ultimately to hand it over to the University of Guyana for maintenance.
Addressing the launch also was Director of Culture, Dr. James Rose, who presented an overview of the Academic Working Group activities for the jubilee celebrations.
Minister within the Ministry of Education Nicolette Henry spoke for a few minutes about the other Jubilee activities which are being rolled out for the 50th celebrations and the need for persons to go out in their numbers to these events.
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