Adoption of Information Technology for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage by Cultural Institutions - A Luxury or a Necessity – A Case of Western-Uganda

This paper focused on information technology (IT) adoption among Cultural institutions in Western Uganda. It was aimed at identifying academic based references to information technologies that plays a role in safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), assessing the status of IT adoption by the cultural institutions and providing suggestions to stakeholders in culture on improving information technologies adoption in safeguarding ICH. IT technologies were grouped into two; online and offline based technologies. An examination on primary data collected using interviews and questionnaires revealed that adoption of these technologies is determined by I.T human resource, I.T knowledge of the users and resource base of the cultural institutions. In order to achieve full adoption of IT, There should be a right mix of offline as processing tools and online as dissemination and archiving tool; hiring and retain professional I.T human resources and increasing on I.T budgets. The paper concluded that without a right mix of all these aspects, I.T adoption as a driver of safeguarding measures of ICH remains can only remain dream for stakeholders in Culture.