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This paper aims to explore the role played by the National Archives of South Africa in human rights promotion and protection. The study examined the challenges that archivists encounter when undertaking archival functions, such as acquisition, appraisal and access provision, that contribute to forming documentary archives crucial for human rights promotion and protection.

A review of literature dealing with acquisition, appraisal and access was used in this research. It was supplemented with interviews.

This paper provides recommendations of benefits in the field of archives management with a focus on the areas of acquisition, appraisal and access. The transformational discourse in the jurisdiction of archives management challenges archival institutions to be active players in selecting historical and cultural archives’ significance that is significant in human rights protections. However, despite judicial requirements that recommend the importance of archives, there is evidence that archival functions such as appraisal, acquisition and access are not being fully used, resulting in national archives institutions that are subject to irregularities that contribute to an unbalanced archives collection.

The paper was limited only to the National Archives of South Africa.

The paper makes practical implications concerning the acquisition, appraisal and providing access to human rights records.

Sufficient funding resource allocation ought to be provided to advance human rights promotion.

This paper offers informed recommendations to address the challenges of acquisition, appraisal and access provision of archive materials. The availability of archives materials reinforces the community by aiding to protect legal rights and prevent human rights violations. It was, thus, necessary to establish whether the National Archives of South Africa is actively building the archives collections that are important for human rights promotion and protection.

One of the key issues that affects practitioners is the question of selection and the relationship this bears to records content and an evaluation of the long term value of collections of records. Appraisal has been the means developed by records management and archives to deal with this problem. In this respect, the aim of this paper has been to describe those theories of appraisal that are currently most influential in highlighting the choices and pathways that each present to those actively engaged in research, or in designing recordkeeping systems to manage research records. The conclusion is that the claims to singularity and independence that these perspectives represent will not be maintained during the course of dealing with the complex contingencies encountered when managing real recordkeeping systems. The alternative is to evaluate the strengths and difficulties that each represents and on this basis, develop appraisal strategies that most effectively meet the requirements of the wide range of interests likely to be involved.

The purpose of this study is to assess the appraisal of records at the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Venda. Furthermore, the study intends to recommend appraisal of records to recognize African culture, reviewing records management policy to include an element on the appraisal of records, raise awareness on the appraisal of records, capacity building and develop electronic records management strategy to appraise records.

This study is based on the qualitative research technique. The research approach is a multiple case study comparing the previously advantaged and disadvantaged universities in South Africa.

The study found that archives and records management legislation, archives and records management policy, re-appraisal of records, capacity building are essential for the appraisal of university records. Lack of appropriate appraisal theory and strategy by the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Venda leads to a loss of institutional memory.

This research is limited to the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Venda. These two institutions are a sample of the state of archiving in South Africa.

There is very little, if any, research on the appraisal of South African universities' records. The outcome of this research will benefit universities that are seeking to develop and implement appraisal strategies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the state of appraisal with regard to compliance with archives and records management legislations (ARML), the archives and records management policy (ARMP), reappraisal of records, capacity building, archives building and electronic records management (ERM) and to make a recommendation based on the research findings.

This study was based on the qualitative research technique. The research approach was a multiple case study comparing the previously advantaged and disadvantaged universities in South Africa.

The study found that ARML, ARMP, reappraisal of records and capacity building are essential for the appraisal of university records. The lack of appropriate appraisal theory/strategy led to a loss of institutional memory.

This research was limited to the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) and the University of Venda (UNIVEN). These two institutions are representatives of the state of archiving in South Africa.

This research will serve a benchmark for other South African universities, intending to implement systematic disposal of records in compliance with legislations and policies.

Failure by universities to appraise records will lead to the loss of institutional memory. This implies that history of institution will be lost if necessary measures are not taken.

There is very little, if any, research on the appraisal of South African universities’ records. The outcome of this research will benefit universities that are seeking to develop and implement appraisal strategies.

Appraisal of records to separate the wheat (records of enduring value) from the chaff (ephemeral records) is one of the most important functions of the archives. In terms of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA) Act (No. 43 of 1996) (the Act), “no public records may be transferred to an archives repository, destroyed, erased or otherwise disposed of without the written authorisation of the national archivist”. In implementing this section of the Act, the NARSSA issues a disposal authority, which emanates from the appraisal process explained in the policy guidelines of 2002. The purpose of the study is to analyse the appraisal policy guidelines on the approach of NARSSA in relation to preservation of digital records.

This study has used qualitative data obtained through content analysis and literature to review the appraisal policy guidelines and approach of NARSSA in relation to preservation of digital records. The 2002 approved appraisal policy, as well as the directives issued by NARSSA in terms of Section 13(4) of the Act, is examined to determine the criteria, the process and the methodology adopted in the appraisal of records. Content analysis data are augmented through interviews conducted in person with the head of the records management unit at NARSSA and the archivist responsible for appraisal of government records.

The study has established that, in terms of the approach, records are appraised two years after the implementation of records classification systems in governmental bodies and those of archival value are then transferred to an archives repository after a period of 20 years. Twenty years is a long period as records might be lost, especially in digital environments. Furthermore, the appraisal policy guidelines limit the powers of records managers in governmental bodies in deciding on records of enduring value, as this responsibility is assigned to archivists at NARSSA. It is clear that the policy was written with paper records in mind.

This study may go a long way in influencing policy review to embrace appraisal of digital records in South Africa. This in turn will help in determining the feasibility of preservation technology for digital records.

This study is useful to ensure participation of the public in the appraisal process. This study has triangulated content analysis data with interviews to examine appraisal criteria, process and methodology, followed by NARSSA.

Digital records appraisal and aspects of archival values in theory, regularization and practice are explored. This paper aims to reflect upon the appraisal process, responsibility and norms for value creation in a digitalized environment. The research question was how do appraisal theory, normative rules and appraisal practice meet the aims of values in digital archives?

The study triangulated appraisal theory, normative values and participants’ views about archival values in appraisal practice in a Swedish setting. Content analysis were used to explore normative documents and interviews. Appraisal theories of the Swedish Nils Nilsson and the Canadian Terry Cook were interpreted. The result was related to theories on public values, the nature of responsibility and relations between the state and citizens.

The results show influences between theory, norms and practice. Changes in norms and practice do not follow the development of digitalization. Responsibility is focused on tasks, which exposes risks of accountability control and knowledge of appraisal grounds. The paper concludes that access requirements and user needs may prompt change in appraisal processes. In the light of digitalization, “primary and secondary value” are merely a matter of use and usability in a time and space (continuum) perspective.

This study is based in Sweden where extensive right of access to public records and default preservation are norm.

The result shows how allocated responsibilities impinge on a re-active digital appraisal process.

English Heritage is a non‐departmental public body and as such is covered by the provisions of the Public Records Act. In 1999 all file destructions were suspended and the entire approach to records appraisal was re‐examined. This paper explains the revised appraisal programme, based on the functional approach, introduced at English Heritage last year. It sets out the proposals that were made for implementation and future action; it outlines the resources that have been committed to the programme and other resources that will be needed in the future. It also examines the drivers for the revised programme and sets out the projected corporate benefits, which include accountability, affordability and openness, the early identification and documentation of records selected for permanent preservation and a significant reduction in non‐current record holdings.

This paper aims to assess the appraisal, disposal and transfer of records of the Kruger National Park (KNP) rangers’ diaries processes from 1926 to 1930 with a view to recommend best practices.

The paper applied a qualitative methodology through document analysis, interviews and observations as data collection instruments to analyse contents of rangers’ diaries. The population of the study comprised rangers, a records manager and a representative from the National Archives of South Africa (NARSSA), a member of South Africa National Parks’ management and a scientist from South African National Biodiversity Institute.

The key findings revealed that rangers’ diaries contain historical, scientific and cultural information. However, such information is not disseminated to society. Lack of systematic appraisal, arrangement of records led to a loss of institutional memories. The role of National Archives and Records Service of South Africa is not visible to provide guidelines on the preservation of rangers’ records.

This research is limited to KNP ranger’s diaries created from 1926 to 1930 because it is the period of establishment of the national park and introduction of rangers’ programme.

The findings are expected to be instrumental towards the preservation of rangers’ diaries within the park. Rangers’ diaries are also potentially of great biogeographical value in constituting a historical record of the plants and animals in a given area, their distribution and population changes, and the effects of human interventions such as game fences and artificially created waterholes, game culling and tourism, not to forget climate change.

Preservation of ranger diaries may lead to documentation of records with historical, scientific and social value. Rangers’ diaries also form part of the national archival heritage of South Africa, as they bridge the gap of undocumented history of the rangers and national parks in South Africa.

This paper appears to be the first to research the assessment of the appraisal, disposal and transfer of rangers’ diaries created from 1926 to 1930.

This paper aims to investigate how automatic classification can assist employees and records managers with the appraisal of e-mails as records of value for the organization.

The study performed a qualitative analysis of the appraisal behaviours of eight records management experts to train a series of support vector machine classifiers to replicate the decision process for identifying e-mails of business value. Automatic classification experiments were performed on a corpus of 846 e-mails from two of these experts’ mailboxes.

Despite the highly contextual nature of record value, these experiments show that classifiers have a high degree of accuracy. Unlike existing manual practices in corporate e-mail archiving, machine classification models are not highly dependent on features such as the identity of the sender and receiver or on threading, forwarding or importance flags. Rather, the dominant discriminating features are textual features from the e-mail body and subject field.

The need to automatically classify corporate e-mails is growing in importance, as e-mail remains one of the prevalent recordkeeping challenges.

Automated methods for identifying e-mail records promise to be of significant benefit to organizations that need to appraise e-mail for long-term preservation and access on demand.

The research adopts an innovative approach to assist employees and records managers with the appraisal of digital records. By doing so, the research fosters new insights on the adoption of technological strategies to automate recordkeeping tasks, an important research gap.

Our experiment show that a SVM classifier can be trained to replicate an expert's decision process for identifying e-mails of business value with a reasonably high degree of accuracy. In principle, such a classifier could be integrated into a corporate Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) to improve the quality of e-mail records appraisal.

Archival appraisal is the process of determining which manuscripts and archives acquired by a repository are worthy of long‐term preservation. The abundance of modern records prevents saving everything, so archivists must make difficult choices. Records have value as evidence of organizations’ functions and activities, or for their informational content. Appraisal criteria include analysis of functions, context, content, future uses, and cost‐benefit of retention. Decisions to discard manuscripts are irreversible, so choices must be carefully weighed. Reappraisal and deaccessioning may also be applied to legacy holdings. The challenging task of appraisal also contributes to the preservation of institutional evidence, cultural heritage, and social memory.