An exploration of the digitisation strategies of the liberation archives of the African National Congress in South Africa

Abstract

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.