Archival Repositories Research Articles

“All is withered and burnt”

In the years 1923-1929 the Clanwilliam Ring of the Dutch Reformed Church was struck by a drought that left the area’s traditionally rural and agricultural population struggling with issues of food security, unemployment, and bankruptcy. Occurring in the early 20th century, the still nascent Union government was unwilling to dedicate the resources to direct food assistance schemes under flawed sociological reasoning and lacked the institutional capacity necessary to provide direct alleviation for the impacts of the drought. Consequently, the Dutch Reformed Church became the main overseer of food provision and charitable relief efforts among stricken communities through its Algemene Armesorg Kommissie. Local Dominees, deacons and elders of the church bodies in the arid Karoo acted as a grass roots organization in the monitoring and distribution of assistance (primarily through clothing and food donations) for local communities. This article focuses on the social and political realities that led to the Dutch Reformed Church playing a central role in combating the impact of the 1923–1929 drought in the ring of Clanwilliam. The study made use of archival primary sources mostly from the Dutch Reformed Church Archive in Stellenbosch, with additional sources from the Western Cape Archival Repository System and the National Archive of South Africa. Secondary research sources such as published journal articles and books, as well as unpublished dissertations were used to contextualize primary information and to add previous studies’ discussions on the topic. The study proves that the church, through its well-organized Algemene Armesorg Kommissie charity wing, acted as a much-needed intermediary often organizing and distributing donations of food, clothing and money from donors in other congregations to drought-stricken areas in a time when the government could not or would not provide such assistance.

Cyber catalogue and revision of the nematode genus Enchodelus (Dorylaimida, Nordiidae).

The genus Enchodelus is an intriguing free-living dorylaimid nematode taxon. Its representatives display a distinct distributional pattern as they are mainly spread in high altitudinal enclaves of the Northern Hemisphere, being often associated with mosses and cliff vegetation. Although their feeding habits have not been studied with experimental protocols, it is traditionally assumed that they are omnivorous.The genus Enchodelus has not been recently revised; descriptions of many 'old species' (that have been described long ago and have not been reported since their original discovery) are of poor quality, hardly discoverable and do not conform to the nowadays taxonomical standards. Thus, a comprehensive compilation and analysis of their literature data is indispensable to provide new insights into the taxonomy of the genus and to elucidate its evolutionary relationships. This contribution provides a cyber catalogue of all Enchodelus species, 28 in total. It compiles available information from the key European Research Infrastructures, such as TreatmentBank, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Literature Services (SIBiLS), the Catalogue of Life (CoL), Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) and Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR). Data about their distribution (geographical records and habitats) are incorporated too and all brought together. It is completed with discussion and notes for some species, along with information on species distributions and microhabitats. Here, all available information on Enchodelus species is brought together. This will contribute to a more complete assessment of species diversity and distribution and support further biogeographical and ecological research.Besides, type material Enchodelusvestibulifer Altherr, 1952, deposited in the Museo Cantonale di Storia Naturale di Lugano (Switzerland), is re-examined and the species is considered as incertae sedis. Further, a new species of the genus found in Caucasus, Georgia is described after its morphological and molecular study; also morphological and molecular data for E.macrodorus (de Man, 1880) Thorne, 1939, the type species of the genus, collected from Spain are provided.

The Future of the Past: The Preservation of and Access to Oral History Records at Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, South Africa

The Future of the Past: The Preservation of and Access to Oral History Records at Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, South Africa

Historical perspective on the artificial urinary sphincter

ABSTRACT Urinary incontinence imposes significant social and psychological distress. The artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) is the most effective device presently available for treating severe stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The principal reason for AUS placement worldwide is to correct postprostatectomy urinary incontinence in males. The concept of an implantable prosthetic device to address SUI dates back to the 1940s. The history of AUS development is marked by trial and error in an era of more permissible latitude for experimentation. Numerous technological innovations, modifications, setbacks, and lucky happenstance paved the path for the emergence of the current Boston Scientific American Medical Systems (AMS) AUS 800 device we use today. This review article emerges from a systematic examination of archival repositories, scholarly databases, primary source materials, and subsequent qualitative assessments, with the aim of delving into the techno-historical evolution of the AUS.

Online harvesting of municipality websites into trusted digital repository

PurposeMunicipalities, as the front lines of service delivery, use websites as one of the tools to communicate information to the public. While it is considered a record, many organisations, including municipalities, do not manage websites as such. This study aims to explore the archiving of websites as records in the municipalities of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province in South Africa by using the web archiving life cycle model.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a mixed-methods research with an explanatory design, with quantitative data collected first through content analysis of websites and qualitative data collected through interviews. Researchers used multilevel sampling, first quantitatively analysing all available websites of the municipalities (52) in KZN, and then qualitatively selecting only records managers, information managers, web administrators, communication managers and website managers or designers from municipalities because of their understanding and involvement with websites in some way.FindingsThis study established that some records on municipal websites are often in paper format in record-keeping systems, whereas others are born digital and are not captured in the systems. Municipalities lack a dedicated web online harvesting tool as well as an archiving policy or strategy to guide website archiving. Furthermore, municipalities placed a high reliance on service providers to keep their websites operational.Research limitations/implicationsIt became clear during the interviews that most of the participants were unfamiliar with web archiving. As a result, only 12 of the 56 selected participants from the municipalities provided the required information in relation to the current study as others could not provide answers. Data for other participants were not analysed.Originality/valueDue to a lack of infrastructure for ingesting digital records into archival custody, a framework for harvesting web content of value is proposed both internally in municipalities and externally to an archive repository.

History, a compulsory component of basic education in South Africa from 2023 – Are South African archivists ready?

History helps society understand its past and its influence on the present and future. South Africa is a country with a unique history, comprising of varying accounts from the different people that make up its ‘rainbow’ nation. In 2018, South Africa’s Department of Basic Education; announced that history would be a compulsory subject for learners from Grades 10–12 starting from 2023. Changes would include a revised curriculum, teacher training and other issues. Expectedly archives would also be factored into this transformation process, as they are integral to history. Therefore, this study investigated the involvement and readiness of archivists in South African public archival repositories to support this development. Nineteen (19) archivists from the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa and the nine (9) Provincial Archives participated in an online survey. The findings indicate that there was minimal involvement of archivists. Nevertheless, the archivists were confident that they had the content and skills, to some extent, to support the revised curriculum. The study recommends that archivists be more proactive in raising awareness about the archives and linking various stakeholders, such as the Department of Basic Education, with these valuable records.

Out of the ashes: rethinking loss in the African archive

ABSTRACT African archives were predominantly outgrowths of the colonialist machinery, essential armoury in the mechanisms of control which paid little attention to comprehensively documenting the cultures and pasts of the subjugated peoples. Consequently, the genesis of conventional African archives was constituted by loss, a fact perhaps dramatically signified by the string of fires and other disasters to have hit African archival repositories from as early as 1919. Yet still, the embers of these conflagrations provide opportunities for critical reconsiderations of loss that would lead to theoretical and practical gains in the African archive. Archival loss can prod African archivists towards new ontologies of praxis and conceptions of archive that would enable recovery of all the varied registers of the African archive. Specifically, the paper examines the creation and work of the J.H. Kwabena Nketia Archives (at the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies) and the Likpe Traditional Area Community Archives as archival sites of resistance and challenge to loss that leverage community and institutional partnerships to build and recover the African archive. Ultimately, these archives’ work, and the general “African archival turn” advocated for here, have implications for African Studies and the decolonising of knowledge production in and about Africa.

Купчая на вологодский двор 1624 г. из собрания Slovanská knihovna

The article is devoted to the analysis of a unique document from the collection of the Slavonic Library in Prague (Slovansk knihovna). According to the assumption of E. F. Maksimovich these acts belonged to V. O. Kliuchevskii in his time. Most of the acts in this collection are related to noble land ownership and come from family archives, some are related to monasteries and bishop's chairs, as well as to state institutions (the Pomestniy Prikaz, the Alatyr congress hut). Sources that do not belong to these groups are particularly interesting. Among them is the bill of sale of Tretiak Kondratyev, the son of Pustokhin, for the yard of Patrikeev’s druzhina, the son of Dylev, in the Kirillovsky Sorok of Vologda dated November 9, 1624 - the earliest document related to Vologda from the collection of Russian acts in this archival repository. This charter reveals the peculiarities of real estate transactions of the Vologda posadki people. This document is one of the rare examples of a private deed, when none of the counterparties is a representative of the Church. The biographies of the parties to the transaction, their origin, and social status can be found out thanks to the prosopographical base compiled on the basis of a wide range of sources (primarily city cadastres, customs books and deeds), which contains information about more than five thousand townspeople who lived in Vologda in the second half of the 16th - second half of the 17th centuries. The bill of sale supplements the prosopographical base with information about ordinary Vologda people. In addition, it describes in detail the composition of the yard, which includes a hut, gate, cellar, barn, bathhouse and other outbuildings, vegetable garden and well. It should be noted that the document contains unique indications on old boundaries and rules of maintenance of hedges between yards. The bill of sale was executed by the court scrivener Osip Semyonov, with the involvement of other court scriveners Efim Lumpov and Denis Panov as servants. Later, the assignment of notarial functions to court scriveners was reflected in the norms of the 1649 Code of Regulations. The document contains an indication of their appearance before the local authorities - voivode Vasily Fyodorovich Buturlin and clerk Vasily Larionov. A corresponding note was made on the charter, and information about the transaction was recorded in the "books", which indicates state registration of transactions with city real estate. Such a set of information in the majority of similar documents is extremely rare.

Private Practices, Promiscuous Archives

Abstract: This essay mobilizes critical archival studies and Tonia Sutherland’s notion of “the carceral archive” in dialogue with Asian American feminist praxis to propose the framework of promiscuous archives, which seeks to harness the power and resources of archives towards unconventional, liberatory aims directed by community need. I draw principally from the concrete archival practices employed by the “Private Practices: AAPI Artist and Sex Worker Collection” at the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive to ask: What can abolitionist knowledge practices look like? What can archives learn from sex workers? Weaving critique of carceral narratives around sex workers with interrogation of the logics of capture and surveillance that direct archival practice, the essay presents promiscuity as an exploratory strategy of collaboration, proliferation, and usurpation that radically expands the porosity of archives, challenging the temporality, affective charge, and social role of archival repositories.

Effect of converted buildings on the management of records and archives in the Eastern Cape Provincial Archives of South Africa

Archival buildings play a pivotal role in the management of records and archives. This paper highlights the findings of a case study that investigated the effect of converted buildings on the management of records and archives in the Eastern Cape Provincial Archives in the Eastern Cape province in South Africa. The study population consisted of all archives and records personnel in the Eastern Cape Provincial Archives. The sample comprised 13 purposively selected participants. The participants had the requisite knowledge and experience pertaining to the management of records and archives in their respective records and archives in the provincial archives offices. These included the director, assistant directors, archivists, and assistant archivists. Data were collected using interviews, observations, and document analysis. Collected data were analysed using emerging themes based on the objectives of the study. The findings of the study revealed that all archival offices and repositories of the Eastern Cape Provincial Archives are housed in converted buildings. There was a clear lack of adequate and suitable office and working space, and repositories for effective management of records and archives. This has serious implications for adequate processing, storage, access to, and preservation of, records and archival materials. It was recommended that more resources should be allocated for the management of records and archives by revamping the existing facilities while resources are provided for planning and building of requisite infrastructure for records and archives management for the Eastern Cape province.

The readiness to implement digital humanities data curation of four institutional repositories in Indonesia

PurposeThis study aims to identify the readiness of institutional repositories in Indonesia to implement digital humanities (DH) data curation. Data curation is a method of managing research data that maintains the data’s accuracy and makes it available for reuse. It requires controlled data management.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a qualitative approach. Data collection was carried out through a focus group discussion in September–October 2022, interviews and document analysis. The informants came from four institutions in Indonesia.FindingsThe findings reveal that the national research repository has implemented data curation, albeit not optimally. Within the case study, one of the university repositories diligently curates its humanities data and has established networks extending to various ASEAN countries. Both the national archive repository and the other university repository have implemented rudimentary data curation practices but have not prioritized them. In conclusion, the readiness of the national research repository and the university repository stand at the high-capacity stage, while the national archive repository and the other university repository are at the established and early stages of data curation, respectively.Research limitations/implicationsThis study examined only four repositories due to time constraints. Nonetheless, the four institutions were able to provide a comprehensive picture of their readiness for DH data curation management.Practical implicationsThis study provides insight into strategies for developing DH data curation activities in institutional repositories. It also highlights the need for professional development for curators so they can devise and implement stronger ownership policies and data privacy to support a data-driven research agenda.Originality/valueThis study describes the preparations that must be considered by institutional repositories in the development of DH data curation activities.

Efforts to enhance reproducibility in a human performance research project.

Background: Ensuring the validity of results from funded programs is a critical concern for agencies that sponsor biological research. In recent years, the open science movement has sought to promote reproducibility by encouraging sharing not only of finished manuscripts but also of data and code supporting their findings. While these innovations have lent support to third-party efforts to replicate calculations underlying key results in the scientific literature, fields of inquiry where privacy considerations or other sensitivities preclude the broad distribution of raw data or analysis may require a more targeted approach to promote the quality of research output. Methods: We describe efforts oriented toward this goal that were implemented in one human performance research program, Measuring Biological Aptitude, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Biological Technologies Office. Our team implemented a four-pronged independent verification and validation (IV&V) strategy including 1) a centralized data storage and exchange platform, 2) quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of data collection, 3) test and evaluation of performer models, and 4) an archival software and data repository. Results: Our IV&V plan was carried out with assistance from both the funding agency and participating teams of researchers. QA/QC of data acquisition aided in process improvement and the flagging of experimental errors. Holdout validation set tests provided an independent gauge of model performance. Conclusions: In circumstances that do not support a fully open approach to scientific criticism, standing up independent teams to cross-check and validate the results generated by primary investigators can be an important tool to promote reproducibility of results.

Limpopo Provincial Archives Public Programming Initiatives from 2015 to 2020

Public archival repositories house records of value to society. Even though such records are essential, these institutions remain largely unknown and underutilised. For this reason, public programming initiatives have become a necessary function in public archives. The Limpopo Provincial Archives was officially opened in 2015, but recent records show that only a few people engage with the records at this repository. The repository has conducted various public programming initiatives to raise awareness about the archives since its establishment. However, since 2015 there has been no effort to evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives. This study, therefore, aimed to assess the effectiveness of these public programming initiatives at this repository starting from 2015 up to 2020. A mixed-method approach to data collection was applied to gain information to address the objectives of this study. Participants in the study included 14 archivists and 100 community members. The study’s findings revealed that though the archivists had engaged in various public programming initiatives, more people did not engage with the archives. Challenges such as budget constraints and government red tape further complicated the archivists’ efforts. The study recommends measures such as collaboration, perfecting advocacy skills, and soft power to strengthen the repository’s public programming strategy.

KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive: Sounds, Voices, Memories, and Cognitive Rupture

ABSTRACT KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive is a pioneering project to repatriate, digitize, record, and classify the remaining sonic memory of Morocco's dwindling Jewish community. This article probes into the necessary sociological cognitive rupture that either allows or disallows the formation of archival repositories of minority memory. Stemming from interventions since the eighteenth century, Morocco's Jewish archives have mainly been kept in the diaspora by Jewish communities and higher education institutions. Contextualizing them within the long durée of Jewish presence in Morocco, this article develops the challenges posed by efforts toward establishing centralized digital archival repositories of the Jewish minority within Morocco itself. This case study proposes a shift into crowdsourced archiving, thus allowing for the alternate grassroots history of Morocco to be maintained and told by intersectional minority actors themselves, while simultaneously engaging with the sonic role, gender, and memory of nonhegemonic and grassroots members of this minority community until today with the formation of an other-archives.

Archival Accessioning. Edited by Audra Eagle Yun. [Review

Accessioning is an essential component of collections management, establishing a baseline of legal, physical, and intellectual control over each collection held by an archival repository. However, the theory and practice of archival accessioning remains largely overlooked in professional literature. Archival Accessioning seeks to address this gap through a robust introduction to the history and principles of accessioning and a collection of thoughtful case studies.

Implementation of legislative framework governing records management throughout the life cycle in the Limpopo provincial government of South Africa

Purpose This study aims to investigate a framework for implementation of legislative framework governing records management throughout the life cycle in the Limpopo provincial government of South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This quantitative multi-method study used a semi-structured questionnaire, document analysis and interviews to collect data. The dominant approach was quantitative, with some support from limited qualitative data, which served to clarify the statistical data. No sampling method was applied, as the study targeted the entire population of 135 records management participants from the provincial departments with the questionnaire, while nine participants from provincial archives participated in interviews. Findings The study revealed that the role of the provincial archives in enforcing compliance with legislative frameworks for the proper management of records was always disrupted by a lack of key resources such as staffing, for inspecting and training records-creating departments and working resources at the departmental levels. Research limitations/implications The findings will contribute to the field in respect of future studies into compliance with records management legislation, and the proposed framework may be applied as a theoretical basis for, or part of, a conceptual framework. Practical implications The study will serve as a resource or benchmark for archivists and records management professionals in the industry, as they count amongst the policymakers who find ways of monitoring, evaluating and enforcing compliance with the legislation governing proper records management. Social implications The proper implementation of recommendations from this study will lead to significant improvements in the management of records with enduring value, allowing them to finally be transferred to an archival repository to serve the public interest as heritage, national memory, or resources for researchers and authors, amongst others. Originality/value The study proposes a framework for implementation of legislation governing records management with greater ease in the Limpopo provincial government of South Africa.

Synthesizing forecasts to inform decision‐making and advance ecological theory

Synthesizing forecasts to inform decision‐making and advance ecological theory

Many Mouths: The Politics of Food in Britain from the Workhouse to the Welfare State, by Nadja Durbach

Reviewed by: Many Mouths: The Politics of Food in Britain from the Workhouse to the Welfare State by Nadja Durbach Rebecca Earle (bio) Many Mouths: The Politics of Food in Britain from the Workhouse to the Welfare State, by Nadja Durbach; pp. xii + 363. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020, £36.99, £30.00 ebook, $46.99, $38.00 ebook. Many Mouths: The Politics of Food in Britain from the Workhouse to the Welfare State explores a series of occasions when the modern British state undertook to feed “some members of its population (but not others) and what government food meant to those who devised, those who executed, those who used, and those who refused the state’s alimentary interventions” (17). These programs of state feeding were motivated by a range of concerns; discontent over the mounting cost of poor relief, desire to ensure the robustness of the labor supply, anxieties that hungry children would be unable to benefit from state education, and humanitarian responses to famine (among other factors) all shaped the diverse occasions on which the modern British state sought to provide food for sections of the population. Precisely because these programs responded to diverse situations, the responses were themselves inconsistent and incoherent, Durbach argues. History, she writes, reveals “no arc of progressive change” (245); she does not trace “a growing state interest in feeding its citizens” (5). Rather, her themes are the agency exercised by the recipients of state feeding, the important role of local authorities in implementing, and modifying, national initiatives, and the limited impact of nutritional science in shaping any of these policies. A particular strength is Durbach’s sustained attention to Britain’s status as an empire. State feeding initiatives demonstrate clearly the unequal levels of responsibility the government felt toward ensuring that different imperial subjects were not hungry. Many Mouths explores these themes through a series of case studies ranging from debates over the provision of Christmas meals in Victorian workhouses to the efforts of the Welfare Foods Service to supply orange juice to small children during and after the Second World War. Other chapters study, inter alia, the attempts to design standard dietaries for nineteenth-century prisons, the principles governing eligibility for free school meals in the interwar years, and the unexpected popularity of British restaurants. Weaving together these case studies are helpful historical synopses that provide a framework for understanding the specificities of each example. The book is based on extensive research in the United Kingdom’s National Archives and other repositories, a mass of printed primary sources, and much engagement with the [End Page 729] considerable scholarship on the evolution of the British diet, biopolitics, and other relevant topics. The result is a readable, compelling, and authoritative book that adds greatly to our understanding of the complexities shaping the alimentary interventions that Durbach studies. Her use of case studies is intended to underscore the contingency and variability of these interventions. Officials rarely learned from past experiences of state feeding, were inconsistent in their use of nutritional science, and responded more to the specifics of each situation than to broader comparisons with other state feeding programs. Consistency, indeed, was rarely the goal. To be sure, as Durbach concedes, there were some overarching trends; over the twentieth century the state began to accept some responsibility for supporting the wellbeing of all members of the nation, but Durbach’s focus is on the “messiness” of these processes (4). As much as she identifies change, she stresses unexpected continuities linking (for instance) Charles Trevelyan and the 1943 London Council of Social Service: both decried the provision of subsidized food to unde-serving eaters. What did it mean to receive food from the state? On occasion, it meant a recognition of the recipient’s membership in the body politic. When inhabitants of the work-house demanded the Christmas meal of roast beef, plum pudding, and beer abolished by the New Poor Law, they were affirming their rights as British citizens to participate in the cultural life of the nation. For this very reason, the guardians of some workhouses refused to comply with the prohibition, allowing inmates this customary “old English fare” on holidays...

Factors influencing access to archives at Botswana National Archives and Records Services

As the responsibility for governments to account and be transparent evolves, access to information is becoming a significant tool in that regard. As such, most countries prioritised access to archives to uphold accountability and transparency, particularly in democratic states. However, for some institutions, access to archives is still a challenge. In this regard, this paper sought to assess the factors that affect access to archives at the Botswana National Archives and Records services (BNARS) with the aim of finding solutions to improve access to archives in Botswana. The study adopted a qualitative approach to review literature on the factors that affect access to archives. The study found that access to archives at BNARS is impacted by copyright issues; weak and lacking appropriate legislative framework; distance barriers; as well as logistical barriers. Ultimately, the paper reflects that several solutions such as the development and review of the legislative framework regarding access to archives, improvement of logistical and operational standards, and implementation of policies are recommended. These interventions should be implemented in line with the International Council on Archives (ICA) principles of access to archives. This would pave way for improved access to archives and archival repositories in Botswana and the ESARBICA region at large.

Breast Cancer Prediction and Control Using BiLSTM and Two-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network

Breast cancer has a devastating effect on women. Different strategies of breast cancer classification exist with minimal work done on the prediction of the occurrence of the disease in potential carriers. In this study, a breast cancer predictive system has been developed using bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) for feature extraction and learning while the two-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) was used for breast cancer classification. Histopathological images were used for cancer prediction. Python was used as the programming language for implementing the system. The model was tested using datasets from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA) repository. An accuracy level of 98.8% (higher than the most recent existing model) was achieved for the prediction of the future occurrence of breast cancer based on the tests on the dataset. The application of the model using live data from women can help in the prediction and control of the occurrence of breast cancer amongst women.