Foreign Minister Marjon Kamara has expressed thanks and appreciation to an Austrian businessman who donated a state-of-the-art scanner and a laptop to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enhance the work of the bureau of archives.

“This is a very critical contribution to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is going to increase our own efficiency at the bureau of archives and we’re very grateful that you thought about making this contribution,” Foreign Minister Kamara said.

According to a Foreign Ministry release, Liberia’s top diplomat made the assertion when she received a state-of-the-art scanner and laptop from Mr. Manuel Tschorn, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry recently.

She reflected on how important documents stored at the Foreign Ministry’s bureau of archives were vandalized during the civil war and used by marketers as wrapping paper and because these documents were not preserved and stored, problems have arisen, citing land issues.

Foreign Minister Kamara assured that with this donation, documents in the bureau of archives will be scanned and properly preserved for easy reference and posterity.

She also used the opportunity to thank Mr. Tschorn for the various contributions being made to the community where he resides when in the country. “Austria is not one of the countries that is so visible here in Liberia, but you are filling the void very well and effectively within the limits of your own resources and making contribution in areas of critical needs,” Minister Kamara said.

The foreign minister also thanked Mr. Tschorn for his association with government’s development efforts and encouraged him to continue.

Besides providing and maintaining three hand pumps within the community he resides, Mr. Tschorn is also assisting the University of Liberia establish a modern chemistry laboratory.

Speaking earlier, Mr. Tschorn, who has frequented Liberia over the last 10 years, recounted being invited to visit the bureau of archives by its director, Mr. Morris Kollie last year. Following that tour, he said he saw the need for the preservation of these valuable and irreplaceable documents.

“After leaving, the idea crossed my mind of the need to digitalize all these documents with the help of the scanning machine,” he said, adding that through that, all these precious historical documents could be preserve, accessible and exchangeable in a convenient electronic format. He noted that it could also be available on a server in the clouds and accessible from anywhere in the world.

On his return to Austria, he purchased the scanner and a laptop and decided to donate them to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enhance the work of the bureau of archives.

This state-of-the-art scanner has wifi and cloud service; replaces up to 18 regular scanning machines; scans 60 double pages per minute; makes searchable PDFs (finds key-words) in scanned documents; aligns images straight by help of laser technology; while curve double pages appear flat automatically.

Also, making remarks, the deputy minister for legal affairs, Cllr. Deway Gray, said the department has started a process of transforming and improving the documentation center and the donation of the scanner is in the right direction.