Perceptions of Sudan Memory Institutions´[SMIs] Professionals to Digital Technology

Memory institutions have already started to make digital copies of their documents and objects in order to use modern Information Communications Technologies (ICT) to make their contents easily available. With increasing levels of digitisation, particularly in the cultural heritage sector, the quantity of digital files to be stored very slightly beyond what was produced by Sudanese nation of text processing and much of the hard- and software have been launched or adopted recently. However, there has been little work about the perceptions of SMIs´ professionals who are the potential adopters of this technology. Knowledge about such perceptions and their relationship to the application of digital technology by them is important because it can help these professionals to become more aware of the relevance and adaptability technological tools for memory institutions practice. This study focused on these perceptions in regard to the use of a particular technological tool. Its aim was to explore SMIs professionals´ perceptions of the ways in which digital collections affect their work, and the reasons why those who don´t use digital images or avoid them. To this end, they were asked to describe their use of digital images, the advantages of using digital images, and problems they have faced and to speculate about which impediments need to be overcome in order to begin using digital images. The perspectives of working SMIs professionals on the use digital collections in their institution practice can contribute to our knowledge of how these collections have, and will continue to, influence work. Digital collections cannot be all things to all SMIs professionals. Much debate exists over the role and value of the use of digital images in relation to day-to-day art. The respondents to this study were asked to articulate the potential of digital technology, but this potential is already evidenced by the wide success of distance- researching environments, multimedia projects- , animated reconstructions, and research guides in our big multicultural community. In the realm of digital use, many more opportunities await the SMIs profession as related technologies continue to evolve. It is concluded that SMIs constitute local repositories of tacit or explicit contents which will be represented in the digital memory of Sudan (DMS) as an effective gateway to national cultural, historical and heritage image collections of great value to research and development in the country as well as a fully the value of the linkage to global memory net. Finally, the recommendations of this study have been elaborated from UNESCO initiatives in sustainable digital archival and preservation system.