AO: The sentiments articulated below echo what my ongoing fieldwork has also revealed, particularly surprising given that I have been engaging with researchers in Kenya. Even amongst local and foreign researchers based in Nairobi, KNA is not seen as a go-to resource. During my visits to the archives, the majority of users appear to be Kenyans from media and think tank organizations.
...the archives remain largely unknown and vastly underutilized by the majority of the Kenyan public. Staff members state that few of the thousands of people passing by the KNA each day have any idea of what the archives are or what they can offer. Indeed, on explaining that they do research at the KNA, the authors have been asked by countless Kenyans, "Where are the archives? What do they do there? Who can use them?" Even students from the University of Nairobi, located scant blocks from the KNA, rarely use the archives' resources. Unfortunately, there are very limited resources for outreach and publicity, restricting the staff's best efforts to market the KNA.
AO: This quote to me highlights the importance of avoiding progress narratives because in the nearly 15 years since this article was written by two American graduate students, the Kenya National Archives that one encounters today contradicts this rosy picture of it as the "leading archives on the continent." Without discounting the good work that they continue to do, the one or two person team available to assist in retrieving materials using the one functioning computer now seems in stark contrast to the ninteen trained archivists described in 2005. This highlights to me the importance of government, funder, and community support for the un-sexy and "un-innovative" maintenance work over the long-term.
Since its move to Moi Avenue, the KNA has developed into one of the leading archives on the continent. Today the institution employs nineteen trained archivists and an overall staff of close to 100, responsible for maintaining over 1.5 million documents along with thousands of microfilms and photographs. (2005, page 447)