The archives bear witness to the past. They constitute a support for liberating speech, for discussion, for communication and for constructing a way of looking at the world from the point of view of a national identity. They permit a better understanding of the national history which can lead to a better construction of the national future. It is for these purposes that Bophana Center hopes to create a wide public for its documentary resources.

A data base has been specially conceived for the Center that permits access to the archives. Available in three languages (Khmer, English and French), this data base has been named Hanuman to recall the strength, alacrity and intelligence of the monkey-god of the Ramayana, the Indian epic poem. The user of this data base may navigate and visualize the documents that he has selected. Certain of the audio documents will eventually be doubled in Khmer, and certain of the visual documents will be subtitled in Khmer.