FIAT IFTA Conference 2022 - Karen du Toit presentation - Legacy of the archivist.pptx
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The document discusses the legacy that archivists leave behind in archives. It provides context about the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) which has 19 radio stations and its radio archive work to preserve broadcast audio. The archive has 14 archivists in the headquarters and one archivist per radio station in 8 regions. The document then discusses the legacy archivists can leave behind through choices like the programs and collections they choose to keep, their metadata practices, and how well they organize and catalog materials. Both good and bad practices are discussed.
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FIAT IFTA Conference 2022 - Karen du Toit presentation - Legacy of the archivist.pptx
- 1. Archivists’ Legacy by Karen du Toit Sectional Lead SABC Radio Archive and Restoration Section 4 October 2022
- 2. The legacy archivists leave behind Karen du Toit (SABC) FIAT/IFTA Conference “Archives out of the box”
- 3. Agenda Introduction •SABC Radio Head Office SABC Radio Archives • Head Office • Regions • Formats – Analogue / digital Legacy of archivists • Legacy left behind in the archive
- 4. SABC Radio Archives • Preserve the audio archives for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster in South Africa • 19 radio stations The SABC Radio Archive preserve the audio archives for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster in South Africa. SABC has 19 radio stations
- 5. SABC RADIO ARCHIVES • JHB HQ: 14 Archivists with each their own specialty • 8 regions – 1 archivist per radio station
- 8. MAM • EDL
- 10. Radio Archive permanent storage • Main Control Servers
- 11. 2020 • Corona virus – impact on the archives
- 12. Legacy left behind by the Archivist • Chosen programmes • Backlog shelve • Separate collections • Metadata • Personal filter • Gaps • Handling of audio carriers (rubber bands?)
- 13. Example: Tweet about rubber bands
- 14. Legacy left behind by the Archivist • Unfiled/Unnumbered • Improper cataloguing • Spelling!!! • Improper filing/saving • Research not done • Bad work Bad archivist
- 15. Legacy left behind by the Archivist Legacy thoughts around the archivist changes, when dealing with their legacy left behind. Good or Bad!
- 16. Legacy left behind by the Archivist Margaret C. Norton: “[her] most important contributions to the archival profession, she gave a sense of respect and professionalism that others had been trying to give but had not had her wide reach. She was crucial in establishing the legitimacy of the archival profession…”
- 17. Legacy left behind by the Archivist
- 18. Thank you SABC Radio Archives • Facebook: SABC Radio Archives • Twitter: SABC Radio Archives • Instagram: SABC Radio Archives • Karen du Toit: dutoitk@sabc.co.za +27117142718 Photos: Malebone Makena (Intern)/Karen du Toit
Editor's Notes
- Title page – Archivists’ legacy
- Karen du Toit – Sectional Lead Radio Archives and Restoration. 32 years. Different sections: Television News Archives, Newspaper Clippings and Radio Archives. Coming from Library and Information Science background, with a deep love for the Afrikaans language.
- Agenda
- SABC has 19 radio stations, and legacy material, of which the audio needs to be preserved for future generations. South Africa has 11 official languages, all of which are addressed by an indigenous radio station each. Note, Springbok Radio, is number 20, which stopped broadcasting in 1985, but is still streaming legacy material in 8-hour repeating streams.
- We have 14 archivists at Head Office: Ndebele (Ikwekwezi), Sport, English, Requests, Restoration, Channel Africa, News and Actuality, Music, Springbok Radio, Afrikaans (Radio Sonder Grense). We are nearly a full house, after many years of posts being frozen. 8 regions, with 1 archivist per radio station – for example: Eastern Cape SABC has an archivist for TruFM, and an archivist for Umhlobo Wenene.
- We have a large collection of analogue audio carriers, which still needs to be digitised, but since 2012 we have been preserving the audio digitally on servers. We are digitising the content when we are working with requests, while we await the EDL project. A mini-disc digitisation project is also planned for 2023, as these carriers are going obsolete, the fastest. The radio collection in the SABC Radio Archives spans over more than one hundred years.
- We have a large collection of analogue audio carriers, which still needs to be digitised, but since 2012 we have been preserving the audio digitally on servers. We are digitising the content when we are working with requests, while we await the EDL project. A mini-disc digitisation project is also planned for 2023, as these carriers are going obsolete, the fastest. The radio collection in the SABC Radio Archives spans over more than one hundred years.
- .A future Enterprise Digital Library (EDL) is in the pipeline which will encompass a MAM system for all the archives in the SABC.
- In mitigation for the forthcoming EDL, we have been saving our catalogued audio clips to servers. It is linked to our cataloging system via unique numbers. We also have 24/7 Sonifex Netlog servers, of which we do 24/7 DVD back-ups. We also do scheduling of important programmes identified by the archivist in collaboration with the radio station. It is also saved on a permanent server and backed up on LTO tape drives.
- Main Control Room with Arcstore1 and Arcstore2 server machines, with are also being backed up to LTO tape drives
- 2020 brought its own challenges in the SABC Archives. Only a few of us came to the office to do requests in the beginning… Then it was every second day… It led to thoughts around the legacy we as each archivist leave behind in an archive. It is perhaps a tongue-in-cheek look at the challenges encountered while searching for material, but it is also a reminder to all of us, myself included, to think about the legacy you as archivist leave behind. Why did you, or did you not preserve the material?
- The programmes you choose to catalogue, the programmes you leave on the backlog shelf, the metadata you use, your own personal filter when cataloguing, and the gaps you leave when you are busy with a project. Why did you use those rubber bands, or the cello tape? Why did you start your own personal collection, separate from the rest? Choice of programmes What do you keep/catalogue, and what is not selected, and kept on the shelve Gaps in collection. You don’t know a couple of years from now why certain stories were not catalogued. – personal reasons (leave/sick for a period) / Working on other projects
- Example of rubber band use in the archives. It should be a big no-no! It makes everything sticky. You can’t get it off the shelves, and needs a tool to dislodge it. It also crumbles, and fall everywhere.
- Bad work now = bad work in the future. When you leave behind a legacy of bad work, it will stay bad work, and it will still be bad work. Translated: This was a bad archivist in future! Table of unfiled or even worse unnumbered audio formats Improper cataloguing Spelling is so important. Wrong spelling, and the audio is never found. Improper meta-data allocation Improper filing When cataloguing a clip in full, but 3 stories Archive interviews with broadcasters – invaluable to future anniversary programmes
- The legacy/thoughts around the archivist changes, when confronted with issues created by them I have been angry with myself for some archival mishaps and have been angry at archivists who have left 10 or 20 years earlier.
- As archivists we would all like to get the following mention as Margaret C. Norton, an archivist instrumental in the archival profession in the 1940’s and 50s: “[her] most important contributions to the archival profession, she gave a sense of respect and professionalism that others had been trying to give but had not had her wide reach. She was crucial in establishing the legitimacy of the archival profession in its formative years in the United States.”
- Questions and discussion by group ? More examples
- Thank you for the opportunity. SABC Radio Archives are on socials. Contact me anytime.