Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Archives – Digitization – South africa'

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl
This dissertation explores the organisational challenges for an archive which is attempting to digitise its collections. While technical, organisational and managerial challenges are discussed, this research focuses particularly on whether the digitisation process alters the power relations within the archive and between the archive and other role players within the South African context. The role-players include the state and the archive’s external management, artefact copyright holders, digitisation vendors and organisations and archive users. More importantly, it examines how the archive responded to the challenges it faced. The research investigates: the rationale for digitising archival collections; who the stakeholders in a digitisation project are, how they relate to each other and what the power relations between them are; the financial implications of digitising, in particular for access to the collections; the risks of digitisation; and the implications of selection of materials for digitisation. The qualitative research uses open-ended, iterative video and audio interviews to provide the data for the case study. The research found that personal connections, serendipity, ad-hoc behaviour, trust, distrust and the fear of exploitation had an impact on the digitisation process, and concluded that the Archive managed to steer a course between competing interests to maintain its integrity.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study addresses issues concerning power and politics in five music archives in South Africa. It has a three-fold approach. First, it provides an overview of archival theory as it has developed since the French Revolution in 1789. It follows the trajectory of changing archival principles such as appraisal and provenance and provides an oversight into the changing understanding of ‘the archive’ as an impartial custodian of the Truth, to its conceptualisation in the Humanities as a concept deeply rooted in discourses around power, justice and knowledge production. Interrogating the unfolding concept of the archive throws into relief its current envisioned function within a post-Apartheid South Africa. Secondly, this dissertation explores five music archives in South Africa to investigate the level to which archival theory is engaged with and practiced in music archives. The archives in question are the International Library of African Music (ILAM), the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Radio and Sound Archive, the Gallo Record Archive, the Hidden Years Music Archive (HYMA) and the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS). This interrogation serves to illustrate how music archives take part in or subvert the power mechanisms inherent in archival practice. As such, this dissertation is situated within a body of scholarship that seeks to subvert the still prevailing consideration of the music archive as a neutral repository. Third, it investigates how a critical reading of music archives within a consideration of archival theory can add to our understanding of the practical realities of archives that firmly ground them as objects of power.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie spreek vraagstukke aan rakende mag en politiek in vyf Suid-Afrikaanse musiekargiewe. Die studie volg ‘n drie-ledige benadering. Eerstens gee dit ‘n oorsig van argivale teorie soos wat dit ontwikkel het vanaf die Franse Revolusie in 1789. Dit volg die trajek van veranderende argivale grondslae soos waardebepaling en oorspronklike herkoms en gee ‘n oorsig van die veranderende begrip van ‘die argief’ as ‘n neutrale kurator van die Waarheid, tot by die konsepsualisering van die argief in die Geesteswetenskappe as ‘n konsep wat gegrond is in diskoerse van mag, geregtigheid en die produksie van kennis. Die ondersoek na die ontluikende konsep van die argief bring breër kwessies rondom die voorgestelde funksie daarvan in ‘n post-Apartheid Suid-Afrika na vore. Tweedens verken hierdie studie vyf musiekargiewe in Suid-Afrika om ondersoek in te stel na die vlak waartoe daar in gesprek getree word met argivale teorie asook die mate waartoe hierdie teorie toegepas word in musiekargiewe. Die betrokke argiewe is die International Library of African Music (ILAM), die Suid-Afrikaanse Uitsaai Korporasie (SAUK) Radio en Klank Argief, die Gallo Record Argief, die Hidden Years Music Argief (HYMA) en die Dokumentasie Sentrum vir Musiek (DOMUS). Hierdie ondersoek illustreer hoe musiekargiewe in strukture van mag, inherent aan argiefpraktyk, deelneem of dit omverwerp. Dus staan die studie binne ’n vakkundige raamwerk wat daarna streef om die steeds heersende beskouing van die argief as ’n neutrale bewaarplek te ondermyn. Derdens ondersoek die studie maniere hoe ’n kritiese beskouing van musiekargiewe binne ’n raamwerk van argivale teorie kan bydra tot die verstaan van die praktiese realiteite van argiewe op ’n manier wat argiewe stewig begrond as objekte van mag.

Magister Artium - MA
This study is about the recent political history of South Africa. It examined the crucial period of late apartheid, through the political transition into democracy. The study was conducted through the lenses of Shelagh Gastrow's work, whose series of publications titled Who’s Who in South African Politics traversed the spectrum of a severely polarised South Africa, and earned her the accolade as a "leading authority" in the biographical enterprise of Who's who. Gastrow had interviewed people in political office, those in opposition, those hiding from political persecution and even those in exile outside South Africa. It involved about 100 personalities for each of her five volumes. The study involved examining archival collections, documentary analysis, desktop research and interviews with Shelagh Gastrow. It also examined the Mayibuye Archives, where the Gastrow collection was eventually transferred, as an archive of resistance to apartheid. The study showed that from its origin as a research project about personalities in South Africa’s resistance and transition history, the Shelagh Gastrow collection was transformed into a heritage resource. The study examined political collections as heritage resources in the process of remaking the nation, and the contributions they make in the national re-engineering process. The study drew on the convergence of two theoretical claims. First, Achille Mbembe, among others, has asserted that there is no state without its archives. An indispensable, symbiotic, socio-political relationship exists between the state, actors in the state, and related archives. The second, posited by the likes of Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoff, is to the effect that objects have social lives, and that they are formed and transformed through interactions with their related societies. Between the objects and their societies, meanings and values are transmitted, exchanged and retained. Thus, a careful analysis of the formation and transformations (a biographical study) of such objects can reveal the obscure about the societies they relate to. Consequently, socio-political collections do reveal much about the individuals, groups, and societies they represent. In the case of South Africa, the analysis showed the corpus of Shelagh Gastrow's collection (the object in this study) which included transcripts of political interviews, manuscripts and Who's who publications, revealed the transition from apartheid into democracy as a critical historical juncture. Political collections constitute important heritage resources, which contribute to the production of national narratives. They may originate in the past, but their analysis in the present has resonance for the collective future of the nation.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
The main theoretical and empirical interest of this study is the critical examination of the life of David Cecil Oxford (D.C.O.) Matiwane. In it, I critically examine the politics of representing Matiwane’s life and the methods employed in such a discourse. I do this by focusing on the question of representation of political, social and economic struggles launched by D.C.O. Matiwane against segregation and apartheid in South Africa in the twentieth century. This study then questions the notion of creating a biographical supernarrative of his achievements. It confronts the binary approach in the representation of his life and argues that Matiwane’s life is an embodiment of various, even contradictory, philosophies. This study puts forward an argument that Matiwane's representation should be contextualised in relation to the struggles of his contemporaries, and that his narrative should not be seen as a product of a single political route. It unpacks various communal, individual, economic and political strategies employed by organisations and persons against apartheid and colonialism. It looks at how these strategies were implemented to overcome apartheid, and analyses how Matiwane's contribution is documented, especially in relation to contributions made by others. This research project also analyses how different layers and patterns in Matiwane's narrative have been created in an attempt to present his auto/biography as a cohesive discourse in spite of fragmented archival and oral memory. It argues that his memory has been appropriated to pursue different political and personal ends. This study further asks the following question: to what extent and why have different political systems given Matiwane’s voice a platform or silenced his point of view? Are there trends in his representation compared to narratives of his contemporaries? What are the underlying reasons behind such trends, if any? Are there continuities or discontinuities in his representation? What were the ambiguities embedded in their struggles? This study evaluates factors that led to him being declared a persona non grata. It closely examines why and how Matiwane has been represented as a source of controversy, as a lone political activist and as a pragmatist.

Deon van der Walt was, at the height of his career, considered the leading lyric tenor of his generation. In a career that spanned more than 25 years he performed in the great opera houses of the world and sang for the leading conductors of the time, sharing the stage with the best singers in the world. He was the first male South African to accomplish the so-called “grand slam” of opera, having sung in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (London), Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna), La Scala (Milan) and the Metropolitan Opera House (New York). He was also a prolific oratorio and lieder singer, collaborating with the best artists the musical world had to offer. In addition he left a large recorded legacy, both published and unpublished. His untimely death on 29 November 2005 was extensively reported on both locally and abroad - a fact which again highlighted the importance of his personal and professional contribution to the international opera world.The Deon van der Walt Collection is the single most important key to unlocking the life and career of one of the most successful South African opera singers of all time. It was bequeathed to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Library the Deon van der Walt Trust in 2007. The collection is made up of an arbitrary assortment of books, documents, sound and video recordings that were left in van der Walt’s Zürich accommodations at the time of his death in 2005. It is housed in separate section on the lower level of the South Campus Library of the NMMU. The collection has been partially catalogued by the NMMU Library but left largely unattended for the last 6 years. The compiling of an annotated catalogue of this collection is the vital first step in connecting the dots of an extraordinary musical career that was hailed as one of the greatest of his time.

A number of digitization projects undertaken by archival organisations in Africa failed to realise their goals of ensuring preservation and access of records. This is partially due to the lack of strategies to move from analogue to digital records. Despite many guidelines, standards and software systems developed by national archives, coalitions, professional associations, research groups and commercial organisations, digital records are still a challenge to manage. This study explored the strategies adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) in digitizing its liberation archives with a view to capturing lessons learnt. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with purposively selected employees of the African National Congress, Multi Choice, Africa Media Online and Nelson Mandela Foundation who were involved in the repatriation and digitization project of the liberation archives. Interview data were augmented through document analysis and observation. The key findings revealed that the ANC established an archives management committee that played an important role in the repatriation and digitization of liberation archives. The committee utilized former liberation struggle members to identify records in various ANC missions in different countries. It was established that although the ANC was aware of where its records were abroad, not all its records were repatriated to South Africa after the unbanning of the liberation movements. Furthermore, the finding revealed that the ANC relied heavily on Multi Choice and Africa Media Online as its archivists were not trained in digitization. A number of lessons learnt with regard to digitization of liberations archives are captured. The study concludes by demonstrating the importance of having a strategy in digitizing archival holdings. It is recommended that this study should be extended to other liberation movements in eastern and southern Africa.
Information Science
M. Inf.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Library and Information Studies)-Durban University of Technology, 2006. xii, 210 leaves.
This study was aimed at investigating the digital scanning of photographs in archival collections with a view to highlighting some of the key issues in the provision of a digital imaging service.

Despite the importance of the visibility and accessibility of public archives repositories, various scholars agreed that these repositories in eastern and southern Africa are not known to and are accessed by few people. This study utilised the concept of soft power as a framework to examine the visibility and accessibility of public archives repositories in South Africa with the view to suggest ways to enhance it. A quantitative approach, informed by post-positivist paradigm was employed, using questionnaires, interviews, content analysis and observation of landmarks to collect data. Public archives repositories in South Africa, Friends of Archives, legislation, annual reports, and landmarks were the universe of analysis whereas archivists working in public programming sections, deputy director of Friends of archives, 2012 to 2016 annual reports, archival legislation, social media links and the public display signage of the Limpopo, Mpumalanga, National Archives and Records Services of South Africa (NARSSA), National Film, Video and Sound Archives (NFVSA), served as a unit of analysis or source of information. The study revealed that collaboration with a good partner, especially civil society, was a key for successful public programming at the lowest cost. Whereas the KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Western Cape landmarks are visible, the study found that NARSSA, NFVSA, Free State, Limpopo, Northern Cape, North-West and Eastern Cape archives repositories could not easily draw potential users to archives. Furthermore, only Northern Cape and Western Cape provincial archive are active on social media through their departments. The study recommended a visibility and accessibility framework that will provide a foundation and insight on how best public archives could develop and implement integrated and yet impactful public programming activities with less expenses.
Information Science
M. Inf. (Information Science)

When the first democratic government came into power in 1994, it was faced with a number of challenges. One of these challenges was to ensure that the public service is transformed in order to redress the imbalances of the past. The National Archives of South Africa as a branch of the public service was therefore no exception. Prior to the 1994 elections, this branch was known as the State Archives Service. It was converted into the National Archives of South Africa through the passing of the National Archives of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996). It is important to note that before the 1994 election the exercise of hegemony by the government was through the control of social memory, and this control involved remembering and forgetting. Furthermore, this control demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to secure the support of most white South Africans and the minority of blacks who collaborated with this system. Therefore, the promulgation of the National Archives of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996) was of crucial significance in South Africa, since it portrayed the death knell for archival legislation moulded by apartheid. This Act converted the State Archives Service into the National Archives of South Africa with the new mandate of serving all the people of South Africa. This study examines a strategic approach to the management of the National Archives of South Africa. Firstly, the National Archives of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996 is discussed in detail, with emphasis on its formulation and implementation. This act came into operation on 1 January 1997. Secondly, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats experienced by the National Archives of South Africa during its conceptualisation and launching are discussed. Thirdly, the transformation of the National Archives of South Africa was examined and discussed using the public management functions, namely, policy-making, organising, planning, leadership, motivation, control and evaluation. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats experienced by the National Archives of South Africa are focused on. Lastly, conclusions and recommendations end the study.
Thesis (MPA)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of Master of Arts, Durban 2018
This dissertation examines the social, cultural and economic significance of locally forged field-hoes, known as amageja in Zulu. A key question I have engaged in this study is whether gender-based divisions of labour in nineteenth-century African communities of this region, which largely consigned agricultural work to women, also affect attitudes towards the tools they used. I argue that examples of field-hoes held in eight museum collections form an important but neglected archive of “hoeculture”, the form of subsistence crop cultivation based on the use of manual implements, within the Phongolo-Mzimkhulu geographic region that roughly approximates to the modern territory of KwaZulu-Natal. In response to observations made by Maggs (1991), namely that a disparity exists in the numbers of fieldhoes collected by museums in comparison with weapons, I conducted research to establish the present numbers of amageja in these museums, relative to spears in the respective collections. The dissertation assesses the historical context that these metallurgical artefacts were produced in prior to the twentieth-century and documents views on iron production, spears and hoes or agriculture recorded in oral testimony from African sources, as well as Zulu-language idioms that make reference to hoes. I furthermore examine the collecting habits and policies of private individuals and museums in this region from the nineteenthcentury onwards, and the manner in which hoes are used in displays, in order to provide recommendations on how this under-utilised category of material culture should be incorporated into future exhibitions.
XL2019

Thesis (M.M. (Research))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2013.
The NARS is the body charged with the proper management and care of the records of all public bodies in the South African public sector. it has been facing steep challenges in pursuing this mandate. Factors such as a shortage of staff, lack of space in the archival repository, and the inability to enforce compliance have rendered NARS incapable of performing its tasks. The premise of this research was based on the assumption that there is a neglect of NARS and record-keeping function in the public sector. The purpose of the research was to gather evidence of this claim and to understand the underlying reasons behind the neglect. A qualitative methodology was used to collect and analyse data using a field study design. The research revealed that NARS is unable to perform its duties in the public sector because its function is not recognised as vital to the pursuance of objectives in the public sector. Records are not valued due to the lack of priority of basic administrative activities, which has resulted in the neglect of records management. The study contends that the influence of the New Public Management (NPM), particularly the aspect of management which focuses on increasing the capacity of managers in order to enhance efficiency, has led to the lack of prioritisation of basic but important administrative activities, records management included.

South African institutions of preservation, such as archives, have often focused their collecting efforts on records of national significance and documenting the perspectives of the more dominant communities that represent power and government. This has resulted in the underrepresentation of certain communities in the archival heritage of the nation, such as the South African Portuguese community, whose contemporary history and experiences have not been adequately reflected in the country’s archival collections, including in those of government and other mainstream archival institutions and non-public institutions. Since South Africa has a number of Portuguese community-based organisations - and because the records they have created may be a potential resource for safeguarding the social history of this under-documented group - this study aimed to investigate the management of these records with a view of proposing a best practice model that would assist in their future management and guide their inclusion in any intended archival collection initiatives. Utilising a generic interpretive qualitative research design, the study revealed that the selected study population, namely the Portuguese community-based organisations in Gauteng, create and hold diverse types of records that may show important aspects of the community’s history that are worthy of systematic management and preservation. However, it became evident from the empirical findings that the recordkeeping practices of these organisations were performed inadequately, with records often being misplaced or discarded after their administrative use had expired. The findings also showed that, although these organisations had never thought of establishing an archival programme for themselves or depositing their records in any mainstream archives, they were willing to contribute their records to a planned archival collecting initiative of the community. Based on these findings, recommendations were made with regard to these organisational records in order to improve their management and to facilitate their potential inclusion in an archival collecting plan. The study also suggested an archival collecting framework and a model for these records. The proposed model followed an integrated approach, taking into account the community’s divergent collecting and custody preferences, such as the mainstream institutional acquisition of these records or these being preserved within community structures.
Information Science
D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

This study sought to investigate the role of the National Archives of South Africa in terms of the management of the electronic records of central government. The research methodology selected for this study was descriptive research, utilising the case study approach. Two data gathering techniques were employed, that of the record and the interview methods. In utilising the record method extensive use was made of a variety of documents ranging from legislation to the manuals and internal circulars of the National Archives. After the documentary evidence had been analyzed, three nonscheduled-structured-interviews were carried out with National Archives staff. In the process of the investigation a number of findings were generated. It was established that the National Archives is responsible for managing the electronic records of governmental bodies. In order to fulfill this responsibility the National Archives has developed an electronic records management programme. This programme aims to involve the National Archives in the design and maintenance of electronic records systems, to allow the early transfer of electronic records into archival custody, and to facilitate the identification of those archival electronic records that should remain in the possession of the creating body. As a result of the literature reviewed and the interviews conducted, a number of challenges were identified with regards to the National Archives' management of the electronic records of central government. Among these were issues such as the lack of staff resources that the National Archives currently faces, the perceived low status of the National Archives within the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, and the lack of cooperation and communication between the National Archives and its client bodies or components thereof. The National Archives is attempting to deal with a number of these challenges, but it would appear as if they are adopting a reactive and overly cautious approach to the management of electronic records. While they are well informed in terms of the theory of electronic records management, they are greatly lacking in terms of practical experience. It was recommended that the National Archives address the issue of staff resources as a priority. It was further recommended that the National Archives emphasise the business benefits to be gained by governmental bodies implementing records management practices, and that the National Archives become a more active player in the broader discipline of information management.
Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

Public programming initiatives are considered an integral part of archival operations across the world because they support a greater use of archival records. In South Africa, public archival institutions are mandated in terms of section 5(1)(c) of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996) (NARSSA Act), to reach out to the less privileged sectors of society, by making known information concerning records by means such as publications, exhibitions and lending of records. This also includes taking archives to young people, especially school learners. As a result, public archives repositories in South Africa have designed programmes to take archives to school learners for the purpose of creating future users and expanding the use of archival sources. Despite efforts to take archives to the people in South Africa, it would seem that public programming methods that repositories use at schools are not effective in creating awareness and promoting public archives to attract school learners. This qualitative study utilised semi-structured interviews and observation as data collection tools to investigate schools as conduits for taking public archives to learners in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The study targeted learners and teachers in schools which participated in the archival public programming in Gauteng province, as well as staff members of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA) and Gauteng Provincial Archives responsible for public programming. The key findings suggest that the public archives repositories in Gauteng do not use technology, particularly social media, to market their services to school learners. The main method of taking archives to learners is through invitations and participation in the annual archives week, which do not yield any positive results, as learners do not visit the archives afterwards. It is recommended that NARSSA and Gauteng Provincial Archives consider using school learners who participated in archives week and are interested in archives to be ambassadors to further recommend the use of archives to potential users and their peers. Furthermore, collaboration between archivists and teachers from neighbouring schools should be considered by including school projects that involve the use of “archives’’. The study concludes that failure to adopt social media platforms to market archives would result in school learners not using archives. A further study covering all provinces in South Africa is recommended.
Information Science
M. inf. (Archival Science)

In an attempt to understand the multiple lives of an object - specifically a death inquest register from the year 1976 - this dissertation examines five moments in the objects life (referred to as the Ledger) that invest it with ‘capital’. They are; • The Cillié Commission of Inquiry. • Sam Nzima’s photograph of Hector Pieterson. • The destruction of apartheid documents in the early 1990’s. • Kendell Geers’ appropriation of the Ledger. • Museum Africa’s purchase of the Ledger. By applying a biographical methodology to this object, this dissertation examines how the shifts in the multiple lives of the Ledger address the different roles that the archive plays in the construction of memory in South Africa.

Public programming initiatives are considered as an integral part of archival operations because they support greater use of archival records. This study investigated public programming practises in the ESARBICA region. The findings of the study were determined after applying methodological triangulation, within a quantitative research context. This included the use of self-administered questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and the analysis of documents and websites. Participants in this study were ESARBICA board members, Directors of the National Archives and archivists from the ESARBICA region. Nine (69.2%) national directors representing different member states completed the questionnaire and eight archivists from the same region were interviewed. Furthermore, three ESARBICA board members were also interviwed. Legislation and country reports from ESARBICA member states were reviewed, together with websites of institutions within the ESARBICA region that offered archival education and training. Findings of the study indicated that public programming initiatives were not a priority. Reasons for this included lack of public programming policies, budgetary constraints, shortage of staff and lack of transport. Furthermore, the national archives were reluctant to rope in technology to promote their archives. Collaboration efforts with regard to promoting archives were shallow. Moreover, the investigation of user needs was restricted to existing users of the archives. In addition to all this, the archivists felt that they needed to improve their public programming skills. The study therefore suggests that the national archives of ESARBICA should focus on: legislation, public programming policies, advocacy, users, partnerships and skills. Taking these factors into consideration, an inclusive and integrated public programming framework was developed and proposed as a possible measure for improving public programming efforts in the ESARBICA region.
Information Science
D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

Thesis (M.M. (Public and Development Management))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2014.
The archival landscape in South Africa is undergoing transformation necessitated by the democratic system prevailing in the country. In light of this, many institutions are positioning themselves to contribute more extensively to the human rights movement. NARS is one such institution that has been assimilated into the democratisation of the country and is instrumental in human rights promotion and protection equipped with the indispensable value of archival materials. However, despite the weight attached to NARS as an important player in the human rights landscape the institution experiences a number of challenges which include absence of a dedicated budget for records and archives operations, low awareness of its role in fostering indigenous people’s rights, space constraints, political influence and resistance by citizens to participate in oral history programmes. These challenges result in the impairment of accountability mechanisms, proliferation of corruption and fraud, miscarriage of justice and misrepresentation of corporate and national memory. The research was premised on the assumption that there are inconsistencies in the core archival functions of acquisition, appraisal and access provision. The research was conducted within a qualitative paradigm, utilising a case study research design. The study contends that because NARS is accorded minimal attention by the government its operations have been crippled to the extent that it has been relegated to the periphery and its contribution to the human rights movement has been reduced.

Records management plays a significant role in ensuring accountability, transparency and good governance. Chapter nine institutions, on the other hand, are democratic institutions responsible for the promotion of accountability, transparency and good governance in the public sector through various forms such as investigation, reporting and recommendations. Although the regulatory role of records management in the public sector is the responsibility of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA), it seems that this responsibility is cumbersome for the organisation as several scholars concur that the public sector is characterised by poor records management. As a result, NARSSA is unable to support governmental bodies in managing records properly. Given the position of chapter nine institutions in government and their mandate as set out by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, these institutions are able to hold the state accountable for their actions, unlike NARSSA. This study adopted the World Bank’s evolution of good governance as the conceptual framework to investigate the contribution of selected chapter nine institutions, specifically the Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA) and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) towards records management in the public sector in South Africa. Qualitative data was collected through document analysis and interviews with purposively selected participants from the AGSA and the SAHRC. At the AGSA, participants were records management professionals and auditors, whereas at the SAHRC only staff members responsible for the implementation of access to information legislation were interviewed. Although the study established that records management is a key enabler to the process of access to information and the auditing process, the relationship was not fully explored by the SAHRC, which has little or no interaction with the NARSSA. However, the AGSA has taken the lead in this regard as it has managed to develop a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NARSSA. Organised records enable the AGSA to audit the public sector and to facilitate access to records in terms of freedom of information legislation. The study concludes that there is a need for chapter nine institutions to work hand in hand with NARSSA for the purpose of fostering proper record keeping in the public sector. It is recommended that this study be extended to other chapter nine institutions such as the Public Protector.
Information Science
M. Inf. (Archival Studies)

M. Tech. Architecture
The design of a digital, genealogical archival repository in Pretoria West for the preservation of South African family histories, that will inter alia, provide free public access to such archived material, is proposed. Oppression brought about by colonialism and apartheid in South Africa ultimately led to domination by one racial group, resulting in the inadequate documentation of the personal histories of the majority of the population; an omission which may be remediated by the archiving of family histories. Archival buildings are custodians of the valuable items of heritage for future generations. However, due to the strenuous and time intensive nature of the genealogical research process, the National Archives and Records Service does not, currently, effectively address this lack, which has led to this field of research being privately practiced. An archive of family history to be housed in Pretoria West, an industrial area characterised by vacant and abandoned buildings in need of intervention, is proposed. The design seeks to adapt a grain silo which forms a part of an old flour mill complex on Charlotte Maxeke Street. An exploration into the building's past as a place which stores, secures and protects the contents within it, led to its selection as a suitable host for an archive which will utilise the preservative functional logic of the silo as a place of storage and security.

An effective records management programme is a major element of the governance of any organisation. However, despite this crucial role played by records management, there is a consensus amongst researchers that many organisations, including government departments, pay little attention to the management of records. In South Africa, government departments are under legislative obligations to adopt a systematic and organised approach to the management of records. For example, the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996) requires government departments to develop, implement and maintain proper records management systems. The purpose of this study was to explore records management trends in the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) to establish if the Department was managing records according to legislative requirements. Data was collected through online questionnaires, physical observation and interviews with selected DPLG employees and analysed through an open source software. The key findings of the study revealed that an enormous benefit for the implementation of a records management programme is the commitment and support of top management. The study recommended that records management should be included in the performance contracts of all employees in the DPLG. The study concluded that a records management programme will only function effectively if it is developed as part of the strategic objective of the organisation.
Information Science
M.A. (Information Sxcience)

The aim of the study was to examine the implementation of digital preservation practices in academic libraries in South Africa in the light of the rapid changing information environment. The study looked into the strategies, systems and tools being employed to support digital preservation programmes and the costs associated with the various digital preservation programmes. The study was guided by various digital preservation theories and models,namely Davies’ (2000) Policy, Strategy and Resources (PSR) troika model, Kenney and McGovern’s (2003) three leg stool, Corrado and Moulaison‘s (2014) preservation triad and the Carnegie Mellon University’s (1990) Digital Preservation Capability Maturity (DPCM) model and Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model by OCLC (2002), underpinned by the survey research design, triangulation of questionnaires and document analysis as data collection methods. Out of 27 questionnaires distributed to academic institutions, 22 (81.5%) were completed. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive analysis whilst content analysis was used for qualitative data obtained from document analysis. Findings revealed that academic libraries in South Africa were significantly affected by the changes to the digital environment. Most academic libraries face many challenges that hinder the effective implementation of digital preservation. The problems include: lack of funding, lack of skills and training and technology obsolescence. The study identified migration, bit preservation, replication and risk management approaches as the most widely implemented preservation strategies to address preservation challenges faced by academic libraries in South Africa. Although various preservation systems and tools are being developed to enable description, discovery, delivery and preservation of digital collections, there was expressed lack of awareness about digital preservation standards and preservation support organisations. The study also observed that, in some instances, the academic institutions were not fully involved in collaborative and partnerships with other institutions. By collaborating and partnering with other institutions, they would be exposed to new ideas, strategies and tools, and be able to acquire knowledge and skills needed to successfully preserve and manage their digital resources. The findings revealed that the implementation of policies and strategies, provision of adequate resources, sufficient funding and digital preservation knowledge and skills are some of the major factors influencing digital preservation sustainability in academic libraries. This study, therefore, recommends that these institutions can address some of the digital preservation challenges if they leverage on these factors. The study also made several recommendations on how digital preservation can be successfully implemented, and it further proposed a framework for preservation of digital resources in academic libraries, mapped to international preservation models and standards.
Information Science
D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the implementation of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system at Western Cape Government (WCG), South Africa. The study evaluated the state of the implementation in order to establish whether the system met information and records management requirements and objectives. A probability sampling was used on a total population of 51 respondents and participants. The data were triangulated using multi-methods, whereby both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted in a sequential manner. A structured online survey questionnaire, online interviews, and document analysis were used to collect data, which were descriptively analysed. The study revealed that although the WCG has embarked on digitisation projects, which culminated in the department-wide implementation of ECM, the system was not evaluated regularly and consistently. This resulted in an inability to capture the lessons learnt – as well as a failure to realise the full benefits of implementing the system. The findings also showed that ECM implementation at WCG encountered some challenges – for example, inadequate training provided to staff, lack of adequate technology infrastructure, and poor technical support with regard to systems for managing digital records – that impacted on the system’s efficiency. Some of the recommendations of the study are that WCG should consider conducting regular ECM reviews to determine whether the system performs as required in terms of bringing about expected benefits, such as easy retrieval of digitally stored content. Departments should also ensure that there is an alignment among various digital applications for the purpose of creating a single enterprise platform that promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing. A study of ECM implementation in other provinces would enable a comparison of how the system performs elsewhere, including how it could be used as a viable option for organisations to promote digitisation.
Information Science
M. Inf. (Information Science)

Many scholars lament of poor infrastructure to manage and preserve digital records within the public sector in South Africa to support electronic government (egovernment). For example, in South Africa, the national archives’ repository and its subsidiary provincial archives do not have infrastructure to ingest digital records into archival custody. As a result, digital records are left to the creating agencies to manage and preserve. The problem is compounded by the fact that very few public sector organisations in South Africa have procured systems to manage digital records. Therefore, a question is how are digital records managed and stored in these organisations to support e-government? Do public organisations entrust their records to the cloud as an alternative storage given the fact that both physical and virtual storages are a problem? If they do, how do they ensure accessibility, governance, security and long-term preservation of records in the cloud? Utilising the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Lifecycle Model as a guiding framework, this qualitative study sought to explore digital curation of records in the cloud to support e-government services in South Africa with the view to propose a framework that would guide the public sector to migrate records to the cloud storage. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data from the purposively selected Chief Information Officers in the national government departments that have implemented some of the electronic services such as the Department of Arts and Culture, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Higher Education and Training and the Department of Basic Education. Furthermore, the National Archives and Records Services of South Africa was also chosen as it is charged with the statutory regulatory role of records management in governmental bodies. So is the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), a public sector ICT company established in 1999 to consolidate and coordinate the state’s information technology resources in order to achieve cost savings through scale, increase delivery capabilities and enhance interoperability. Interview data were augmented through document analysis of legislation and policies pertaining to data storage. Data were analysed thematically and interpreted in accordance with the objectives of the study. The key finding suggests that although public servants informally and unconsciously put some records in the clouds, government departments in South Africa are sceptical to entrust their records to the cloud due to a number of reasons, such as lack of policy and legislative framework, lack of trust to the cloud storage, jurisdiction, legal implications, privacy, ownership and security risks. This study recommends that given the evolution of technology, the government should regulate cloud storage through policy and legislative promulgation, as well as developing a government-owned cloud managed through SITA in order for all government departments to use it. This study suggests a framework to migrate paperbased records to cloud storage that is controlled by the government.
Information Science
D.Lit. et Phil. (Information Science)

Bibliography: pages 184-207
Digital records are either stored in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or electronic content management (ECM), or managed without the benefit of either system. In many countries, public and private organisations have implemented ECM systems, some have implemented ERP systems and others generate digital records without the benefit of any controlled system. In most organisations such systems are not integrated resulting in duplication and fragmentation of records. The South African Water Utility company, Rand Water, has implemented both ERP and ECM systems. Investing in these systems as an organisation comes at a cost but it can add value when used optimally to improve the organisation’s productivity and efficiency. To achieve high productivity and efficiency, integration of an ERP system into an ECM system is a requirement but remains lacking. This qualitative study utilised the Actor Network Theory to explore the integration of ERP into ECM at the South African Water Utility company, Rand Water, with a view to developing a framework for integration of the systems. The study utilised a system analysis case design with fourteen interviews conducted at different levels in the organisation and diverse business units using ERP and ECM to perform their operational deliverables in line with the organisation’s business objectives. The interviews were augmented with data from document analysis of policies, specifications and functionalities of the systems to determine the feasibility of integration. The study established that the water utility company has implemented ERP systems (SAP) since 1994 and ECM system since 1991 (Papertrail and later IBM FileNet) with only information flow module integrated. The study suggested that to integrate ERP into ECM, human and non-human actors need to collaborate to ensure that the actor network being integrated is achieved. The study also presents a strategy discussion for integrating ERP into ECM. A further study on the transfer of digital records in ECM into archival custody is recommended.
Information Science
D. Phil. (Information Science)

Between 1916 and 1928 Dr Louis Fourie, Medical Officer for the Protectorate of South West Africa and amateur anthropologist, amassed a collection of some three and a half thousand artefacts, three hundred photographs and diverse documents originating from or concerned with numerous Khoisan groups living in the Protectorate. He gathered this material in the context of a complex process of colonisation of the area, in which he himself was an important player, both in his official capacity and in an unofficial role as anthropological adviser to the Administration. During this period South African legislation and administration continued the process of deprivation and dehumanisation of the Khoisan that had begun during the German occupation of the country. Simultaneously, anthropologists were constructing an identity for the Khoisan which foregrounded their primitiveness. The tensions engendered in those whose work involved a combination of civil service and anthropology were difficult to reconcile, leading to a form of melancholia. The thesis examines the ways in which Fourie’s collection was a response to, and a part of the consolidation of, these parallel paradigms. Fourie moved to King William’s Town in South Africa in 1930, taking the collection with him, removing the objects still further from their original habitats, and minimising the possibility that the archive would one day rest in an institution in the country of its origin. The different parts of the collection moved between the University of the Witwatersrand and a number of museums, at certain times becoming an academic teaching tool for social anthropology and at others being used to provide evidence for a popular view of the Khoisan as the last practitioners of a dying cultural pattern with direct links to the Stone Age. The collection, with its emphasis on artefacts made in the “traditional” way, formed a part of the archive upon which anthropologists and others drew to refine this version of Khoisan identity in subsequent years. At the same time the collection itself was reshaped and re-characterised to fit the dynamics of those archetypes and models. The dissertation establishes the recursive manner in which the collection and colonial constructs of Khoisan identity modified and informed each other as they changed shape and emphasis. It does this through an analysis of the shape and structure of the collection itself. In order to understand better the processes which underlay the making of the Fourie Collection there is a focus on the collector himself and an examination of the long tradition of collecting which legitimised and underpinned his avocation. Fourie used the opportunities offered by his position as Medical Officer and the many contacts he made in the process of his work to gather artefacts, photographs and information. The collection became a colonial artefact in itself. The thesis questions the role played by Fourie’s work in the production of knowledge concerning the Bushmen (as he termed this group). Concomitant with that it explores the recursive nature of the ways in which this collection formed a part of the evidentiary basis for Khoisan identities over a period of decades in the twentieth century as it, in turn, was shaped by prevailing understandings of those identities. A combination of methodologies is used to read the finer points of the processes of the production of knowledge. First the collection is historicised in the biographies of the collector himself and of the collection, following them through the twentieth century as they interact with the worlds of South West African administrative politics, anthropological developments in South Africa and Britain, and the Khoisan of the Protectorate. It then moves to do an ethnography of the collection by dividing it into three components. This allows the use of three different methodologies and bodies of literature that theorise documentary archives, photographs, and collections of objects. A classically ethnographic move is to examine the assemblage in its own terms, expressed in the methods of collecting and ordering the material, to see what it tells us about how Fourie and the subsequent curators of the collections perceived the Khoisan. In order to do so it is necessary to outline the history of the discourses of anthropologists in the first third of the twentieth century, as well as museum practice and discourse in the mid to late twentieth century, questioning them as knowledge and reading them as cultural constructs. Finally, the thesis brings an archival lens to bear on the collection, and explores the implications of processing the collection as a historical archive as opposed to an ethnographic record of material culture. In order to do this I establish at the outset that the entire collection formed an archive. All its components hold knowledge and need to be read in relation to each other, so that it is important not to isolate, for example, the artefacts from the documents and the photographs because any interpretation of the collection would then be incomplete. Archive theories help problematise the assumption that museum ethnographic collections serve as simple records of a vanished or vanishing lifestyle. These methodologies provide the materials and insights which enable readings of the collection both along and across the grain, processes which draw attention to the cultures of collecting and categorising which lie at the base of many ethnographic collections found in museums today. In addition to being an expression of his melancholy, Fourie’s avocation was very much a part of the process of creating an identity for himself and his fellow colonists. A close reading of the documents reveals that he was constantly confronted with the disastrous effects of colonisation on the Khoisan, but did not do anything about the fundamental cause. On the contrary, he took part in the Administration’s policy-making processes. The thesis tentatively suggests that his avocation became an act of redemption. If he could not save the people (medically or politically), he would create a collection that would save them metonymically. Ironically those who encountered the collection after it left his hands used it to screen out what few hints there were of colonisation. Finally the study leads to the conclusion that the processes of making and institutionalising this archive formed an important part of the creation of the body of ethnography upon which academic and popular perceptions of Khoisan identity have been based over a period of many decades.