Visibility of Côte d’Ivoire’s documentary heritage: a cartographic study of libraries and archives in the digital age

Abstract

A country’s documentary heritage – comprising books, periodicals, administrative documents and archives – can only fulfil its purpose if it is locatable, accessible and usable. As information-seeking practices now take place online, the digital visibility of the institutions holding this heritage has become a prerequisite for physical access to the collections. However, Côte d’Ivoire does not have an open and up-to-date national directory of its libraries, documentation centres and archives. The aim of this study is to identify the distribution of documentary institutions across Côte d’Ivoire in the digital age. The study was carried out using mixed-methods research, incorporating mapping. The quantitative component is based on an inventory compiled through web searches (Google and Google Scholar). The qualitative component consists of an inductive thematic analysis of a corpus. The results show that 72 entries were identified, of which 58 institutions were selected for analysis and 49 were geolocated. Twenty-one organisations are located in Abidjan; excluding those in the network of reading and cultural activity centres (CLACs), 70 per cent of the geolocated organisations are concentrated there. In summary, a digital directory of Ivorian documentary organisations is possible but incomplete. In fact, it provides a heterogeneous snapshot rather than a reliable directory.

Keywords: Information science; documentary heritage; mapping; digital visibility; Côte d’Ivoire.

Received Date: June 19, 2026

Accepted Date: July 10, 2026

Published Date: August 01, 2026

Available Online at: https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/949