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1 – 10 of over 14000Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
The purpose of this study to investigate the relationships between South Africa (SA) universities and universities surrounding communities (USC) for preserving community histories…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study to investigate the relationships between South Africa (SA) universities and universities surrounding communities (USC) for preserving community histories and serve the universities’ mandate to support their local communities and support universities’ teaching and scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a multiple case study approach through interviews. The population of the study comprised representatives from selected universities and their USC.
Findings
The findings revealed a lack of effective relationships between universities and USC to preserve communities’ histories. Hence, the communities’ archives are tools for teaching and scholarship. Relations between universities and USC are to be built on trust. Accountability and transparency are to be considered by both parties.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to selected SA universities, namely, University of Venda, Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Pretoria and SA and USC. The findings are applicable to all SA universities and USC.
Practical implications
The relationship between universities and USC has a practical impact on the National archives of South Africa (NARSSA) to collect communities archives because it is in conflict with the mandate of NARSSA. The National Archives’ Act 43 of 1996 obliged NARSSA to collect and preserve communities’ archives on behalf of societies.
Social implications
Lack of universities and USC can lead to the loss of communities histories or archives.
Originality/value
This paper appears to be the first to research the relationship between SA universities and USC.
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Aiden M. Bettine and Lindsay Kistler Mattock
This paper aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of community archives, offering a critique of the community archives discourse through a historical…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of community archives, offering a critique of the community archives discourse through a historical case study focused on the origins of the Gerber/Hart LGBTQ library and archives in Chicago.
Design/methodology/approach
This study explores the archival collections of the founders of the Gerber/Hart library and archives and the librarians that have worked there as a means for understanding the origins of the archival impulse, the rationale for building the collections and the practices that shaped the collections during the first decade of the organization’s history.
Findings
The historical analysis of the Gerber/Hart library and archives situates community archives and LGBTQ collections within the broader historical context that lead to the founding of the organization and reveals deep connections to the information professions not previously considered by those studying community archives.
Originality/value
The paper offers a reconceptualization of community archives as archival projects initiated, controlled and maintained by the members of a self-defined community. The authors emphasize the role of the archival impulse or the historical origins of the collection and the necessity for full-community control, setting clear boundaries between community archives and other participatory archival models that engage the community.
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The purpose of this paper is to reveal, how newspaper archives can support contextualisation in management history research by providing quantitative and/or qualitative, accurate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reveal, how newspaper archives can support contextualisation in management history research by providing quantitative and/or qualitative, accurate, contemporary and cost-effective, data which is not always available elsewhere.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper comprises a literature review, which summarises research into contextual analysis and newspaper archive theory; combined with content and textual analysis of articles published in the Journal of Management History and Management and Organizational History (2013-2017).
Findings
The findings reveal that the concept of contextualisation is absent from recent management history articles and that few management historians use newspaper archival sources as a data collection strategy.
Research limitations/implications
There is compelling evidence to suggest that contextual analysis can – perhaps should – be incorporated into management historians’ research strategies because managerial organisations operate in open systems, which are influenced by external factors.
Originality/value
This paper juxtaposes two neglected aspects of management history research, contextuality and newspaper archives, and proposes that a key source for historic contextual analysis is newspaper data.
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Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
This paper aims to assess the role of archives in documenting African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) records on the liberation struggle of South Africa from 1960 to 1990…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the role of archives in documenting African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) records on the liberation struggle of South Africa from 1960 to 1990 with a view to recommending the best method of collection and preservation of archival materials.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative data were collected through interviews with purposively selected employees of the African National Congress (ANC), the Nelson Mandela Foundation centre of memory, the national heritage and cultural studies at the University of Fort Hare, the National Archives of South Africa and provincial archives of South Africa. Interview data were augmented through content analysis of ANC documents such as policies, websites and annual reports.
Findings
The study found a gap of documentation of the role of archives in documenting ANCWL’s contribution to the liberation of South Africa. The National Archives of South Africa did not play a meaningful role to document the history of African National Women’s League in the liberation struggle of South Africa. There was also a lack of coordination of community archives that keep ANCWL archives materials. There is a need to embark on oral history and bilateral relations with overseas archival institutions to repatriate ANCWL archives to South Africa. Furthermore, contemporary history records about the ANCWL records need to be listed, arranged and described and made available to the public.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to the role played by the National Archives of South Africa and community archives such as the ANC archives, the Mayibuye Centre archives based at the University of Western Cape in documenting ANC and ANCWL and contemporary issues that impact the development of ANCWL records created from 1960 to 1990.
Practical implications
The findings are expected to be instrumental to document the history of women’s struggle for democracy in South Africa. The ANCWL collection may contribute to social cohesion to enable society to understand the role of ANCWL during the struggle for democracy in South Africa. While the literature on women’s archives is limited, there is still much research that needs to be conducted. Increasing the body of research will strengthen understanding of the role of the National Archives of South Africa and community archives on documenting women’s liberation struggle in South Africa.
Social implications
The document of women’s history would enrich the archival collection. This means that records with historical, cultural and social significance will be permanently preserved by archives.
Originality/value
The research appears to be the first of its kind to assess the documentation on the role of archives on documenting ANCWL. The archival heritage of women’s struggle for democracy forms part of the national archival heritage of South Africa as they bridge the gap of undocumented history of South Africa.
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This paper aims to build on Fred Beard’s study of the world’s archives to identity historical advertising and marketing ephemera, published in this journal in 2018, by focussing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to build on Fred Beard’s study of the world’s archives to identity historical advertising and marketing ephemera, published in this journal in 2018, by focussing on resources available in Europe to augment his survey.
Design/methodology/approach
Online searching, supplemented by literature emanating from the business archive sector, led to the identification of 177 repositories or online sites in Europe holding advertising and marketing archives of significance for researchers. These are set out in two accompanying tables.
Findings
A wide diversity of European archives that are open to researchers is revealed in this paper. Many are the archives of the business themselves, but a number of collecting repositories are also listed, brought together for the first time.
Research limitations/implications
This paper focusses solely on Europe but does not claim to be comprehensive, as the study was time-limited and readers will, no doubt, know of resources that the author has missed. The findings relate mostly to Western Europe, so there is scope for further study to encompass archives in the former eastern bloc. Exploration of sources in Africa, Asia and Latin America would further supplement Beard’s original study.
Originality/value
This research brings together the broadest list of advertising and marketing sources open to researchers in Europe published to date. As Beard’s focus was more on the Americas, this examination redresses the balance with an array of European sources which, it is hoped, will contribute to the greater use of many little-known or under-researched resources by researchers across the world.
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Melinda Van Wingen and Abigail Bass
This paper aims to explore the relationship between historiography and archival practices. It takes the new social history approach to history as a case study for examining how…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between historiography and archival practices. It takes the new social history approach to history as a case study for examining how historians' changing theories and methods may affect solicitation, acquisition, appraisal, arrangement, description, reference, outreach, and other aspects of archival administration.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a review of the archival and historical literature since the late 1970s.
Findings
The paper finds that many aspects of archival administration have been and continue to be affected by the new social history trend in historical scholarship. The paper suggests that archivists and archival educators be trained in historiography as a way to understand historians' craft and develop strong documentation strategies to anticipate future archival needs.
Research limitations/implications
Because the paper is primarily a literature review, it does not test real‐life examples or case studies that would be useful in understanding the relationship between historians and archivists.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for the development of archival administration and education strategies.
Originality/value
The paper draws from a range of literature to consider the impact of scholarly practices on professional archival work.
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Mpho Ngoepe, Sizwe Mbuyisa, Nampombe Saurombe and Joseph Matshotshwane
South African public archives have not been able to transform into active documenters of society. As a result, they cannot carry out their mandate of collecting non-public records…
Abstract
Purpose
South African public archives have not been able to transform into active documenters of society. As a result, they cannot carry out their mandate of collecting non-public records of lasting value and national significance and recording aspects of the country’s experience that have previously been ignored by archives repositories. This paper aims to discuss efforts by the Gauteng Provincial Archives to transform the archival landscape in South Africa by collecting sports memories. This is because, in democratic South Africa, the archival landscape was expected to change and reflect the nation’s diversity, despite the fact that it still largely reflected the Western-dominated global mainstream.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on the authors’ personal experiences with the development and operation of the Gauteng Provincial Archives. The authors are also involved in the Gauteng Provincial Archives’ oral history project, which aims to build an inclusive archive by recording oral histories of sports memories across the province.
Findings
The construction of the Gauteng Archives Repository has ushered in a chance to decolonise South African archives by collecting sports memories. These are windows of opportunity through which ordinary people can include their own experiences, filling in the gaps left by colonial and apartheid archives.
Originality/value
This paper offers practical experience in transforming and decolonising archives through collecting sports memories.
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Alasdair J.G. Gray, Werner Nutt and M. Howard Williams
Distributed data streams are an important topic of current research. In such a setting, data values will be missed, e.g. due to network errors. This paper aims to allow this…
Abstract
Purpose
Distributed data streams are an important topic of current research. In such a setting, data values will be missed, e.g. due to network errors. This paper aims to allow this incompleteness to be detected and overcome with either the user not being affected or the effects of the incompleteness being reported to the user.
Design/methodology/approach
A model for representing the incomplete information has been developed that captures the information that is known about the missing data. Techniques for query answering involving certain and possible answer sets have been extended so that queries over incomplete data stream histories can be answered.
Findings
It is possible to detect when a distributed data stream is missing one or more values. When such data values are missing there will be some information that is known about the data and this is stored in an appropriate format. Even when the available data are incomplete, it is possible in some circumstances to answer a query completely. When this is not possible, additional meta‐data can be returned to inform the user of the effects of the incompleteness.
Research limitations/implications
The techniques and models proposed in this paper have only been partially implemented.
Practical implications
The proposed system is general and can be applied wherever there is a need to query the history of distributed data streams. The work in this paper enables the system to answer queries when there are missing values in the data.
Originality/value
This paper presents a general model of how to detect, represent, and answer historical queries over incomplete distributed data streams.
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Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
The purpose of the study is to assess the role of political power and politics in selecting, creating and preserving Liberation Movement archives in South Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to assess the role of political power and politics in selecting, creating and preserving Liberation Movement archives in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature focusing on liberations archives was carried out.
Findings
Politics and the associated power play an essential role in the selection, creation and preservation of liberation movement archives. The study found out that the African National Congress (ANC) selected the University of Fort Hare as the center to preserve liberation movements repatriated from all over the world to South Africa. The National Archives of South Africa did not play a role in the preservation of liberation movement archives. The study also noted that there existed an ineffective collaboration between the ANC and the National Archives of South Africa regarding the preservation of liberation movements archives.
Research limitations/implications
The study focused on the liberation movement archives created by the ANC of South Africa only.
Social implications
The establishment of liberation archives may promote social cohesion.
Originality/value
The liberation movement archives are a part of the history of South Africa and present perspectives on the history of the liberation of South Africa. This study, which builds on the post-colonial scholarship on liberation movement archives, discussed the significance of liberation archives.
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Makiba J. Foster and Meredith R. Evans
Throughout history various social movements have galvanized the masses to actualize a more inclusive and humane world. It is through libraries and archives that the authors can…
Abstract
Purpose
Throughout history various social movements have galvanized the masses to actualize a more inclusive and humane world. It is through libraries and archives that the authors can revisit those moments in time to better understand the past and hopefully build a better future. Issues of sustainability within libraries and archives collecting traditional materials from important historical events still create somewhat of a challenge, but with advancements of technologies and workflows, the authors are now better equipped to manage and preserve those items. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
However, in terms of the historical importance of the content from recent protests against police violence, the question arises of how does one create sustainable processes on materials that are captured on temporal technologies or how does an institution create trust where protesters and activists will freely place their content in a digital archive?
Findings
Washington University in St Louis Libraries’ project Documenting Ferguson, is attempting to tackle some of those challenging questions and working through the implications of a non-traditional social movement’s impact on archival collection building and future research, teaching, and learning. Both authors served on the steering committee as employees of Washington University Libraries upon project inception.
Originality/value
Rapid response collecting with the intent to preserve and make accessible relevant born digital content for future generations and to develop unlikely relationships with neighboring community to ensure history is documented from multiple view points.