Role of public archivists in post-apartheid South Africa: passive custodians or proactive narrators

Abstract

This paper explores the conflicting roles of archivists in the execution of their archival mandates in directing the management, preservation, and disposition of current public records. A postmodernist approach and Frank Upward’s Australian continuum model (Upward, “Continuum Mechanics and Memory Banks,” 84–109.) have been explored and contextualized in the milieu of post-apartheid South Africa. The article proposes a two-pronged strategy for a more comprehensive approach from the public archivists and their interactions with the records management practitioners, by applying Oliver and Foscarini’s record-keeping informatics pyramid (Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and Information Culture, 16.). Firstly, public archivists and practitioners should have as their objective the formulation of effective solutions which consider the skills, knowledge, and expertise of officials tasked with the responsibilities of implementing and maintaining the records management systems. Secondly, the archivists and the records practitioners need to ensure that they equip themselves with knowledge that enables them to have broadened, contextualized understanding of the environmental parameters within which the information sources need to be utilized by the current dispensation. Public entities must be able to find the information sources required to address poverty, support sustainable development undertakings, and the National Development Plan.

Keywords:

• Postmodernism
• metanarrative
• records management
• information culture
• records continuum model

Notes

1. Harris, Archives and Justice.

2. Allan, Paper wars.

3. Tempelhoff, “History of the Waterlit Collection,” 162–183.

4. Schellnack-Kelly, “The Role of Records Management in Governance-based Evidence.”

5. Ngoepe, “An Exploration of Records Management Trends.”

Makhura, “The role of Electronic Records Management.”

Marutha, “Records Management in Support of Service Delivery.”

6. Schellnack-Kelly, “The role of records management,” 4.

7. Archival Platform, “The State of the Archives,” 89.

8. Ibid., 84.

9. Ibid., 71.

10. Ibid., 62.

11. Qwabe, “Realising South Africa’s Vision 2030,” 21–22.

Kelly, “Over the Edge: The Impact of Urban Sprawl.”

12. Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and the Information Culture.

13. Ibid.

14. Foscarini and Oliver, “Introducing the Information Culture Framework,” 3.

15. Qwabe, “Realising South Africa’s Vision,” 34.

16. National Archives, Records Management Policy.

17. Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and the Information Culture, 17.

18. Ibid., 18–19.

19. Ibid., 15.

20. Ibid., 18–19.

21. Ibid., 35–42.

22. Ibid., 91.

23. Ibid., 91–99.

24. Schellnack-Kelly, “The Role of Records Management,” 123–125.

25. Makhura, “The Role of Electronic Records Management.”

Research Focus and Content-at-Work, The Demand for and Supply of Skills, 65–66.

26. Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and Information Culture, 15.

27. Ngoepe, “Exploration of Records Management.”

Makhura, “The Role of Electronic Records Management.”

Marutha, “Records Management in Support of Service Delivery.”

28. Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and Information Culture, 145.

29. Australian Capital Territory Records Office. Guidelines for Records, 6, 13.

30. Ngoepe, An Exploration of Records Management, 5.

31. Upward and Stillman, “Community Informatics,” 12.

32. Ibid.

33. Nesmith, “Re-exploring the Continuum,” 35.

34. Upward, “Continuum Mechanics,” 87.

35. Ibid., 87.

36. Ibid., 24.

37. Oliver and Foscarini, Records Management and Information Culture, 12–13.

38. Ketelaar, “Archives of the People,” 5–16.

39. Brothman, “Afterglow: Concepts of Records,” 311–342.

40. Harris, Archives and Justice.

41. Cox, Archives and Archivists.

Cox, Ethics, Accountability and Recordkeeping.

42. Nesmith, “Re-exploring the Continuum,” 35–37.

43. Derrida, Archive Fever.

44. Hedstrom, “Archives, Memory and Interfaces,” 43.

45. Cook, “What is Past is Prologue,” 17–63.

46. Derrida, Archive Fever.

47. Foucault, Archeology of Knowledge.

48. Allan, Paper Wars, 206.

49. Eichhorn, “Archival Genres,” 3.

50. Ibid.

51. Lynch, “Archives in Formation,” 71.

52. Ibid., 75–76.

53. Eichhorn, “Archival Genres,” 2.

54. Ibid.

55. Eichhorn, “Archival Genres,” 1–10.

56. Derrida, Archive Fever.

57. Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge.

58. Lynch, “Archives in Formation.”

59. Ibid., 71.

60. Ibid.

61. Schwartz, “Records of Simple Truth,” 85.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid.

64. Harris, Archives and Justice, 86, 207.

65. Ketelaar, “The Panoptical Archives,” 145.

66. National Archives, Records Management Policy, 55.

67. Harris, Archives and Justice, 260.

68. Cook, “Remembering the Future,” 174.

69. Harris, Archives and Justice, 120–121.

70. Ibid., 134.

71. Ibid., 11.

72. Kirkwood, “Records Management in the Public Sector,” 13.

73. Ibid.

74. National Archives, Records Management Policy.

75. Stuckey, “Keepers of the Fame,” 47.

76. Cox, Archives and Archivists, 7.

77. Trace, “What is recorded,” 140.

78. Harris, Archives and Justice, 120.

79. Ibid., 85.

80. Cox, Archives and Archivists, 7.

81. Harris, Archives and Justice, 92.

82. Ibid., 93–94.

83. Ibid., 87–88.

84. Ibid., 97–98.

85. Ngulube, “Archival Appraisal,” 250.

86. Kirkwood, “Records Management,” 12.

87. Hurley, “What, If Anything, Is Records Management,” 14.

88. Cox, Ethics, Accountability and Recordkeeping, 231.

89. Stuckey, “Keepers of the Fame.”

90. Hurley, “What, If Anything, Is Records Management.”

91. McKemmish, “Upward and Reed, Records Continuum Model,” 4449.

92. National Archives website.

93. National Archives, Records Management Policy.

94. Venter, “National Archives and Records Service Requirements,” 22–26.

National Archives, Managing Electronic Records.

95. Harris, Archives and Justice, 117–118.

96. Kirkwood, “Records Management in the Public Sector.”

97. Ibid., 22.

98. Griffin, Records Management Capacity, 71.

99. National Archives website.

100. Department of Arts and Culture, Annual Report 2009/2010.

Department of Arts and Culture, Annual Report 2011/2012.

101. Trace, “What is Recorded,” 138–139.

102. Eichhorn, Archival Genres, 1–10.

103. Cox, Archives and Archivists, 91.

104. Healy and Palepu, “The Fall of Enron,” 3.

105. Ibid., 9.

106. Ibid., 10–11.

Isa, Records Management and Accountability, 63.

107. Healy and Palepu, “The Fall of Enron,” 63.

108. Office of the Auditor-General, Consolidated General Report.

109. Cox, Archives and Archivists, 104, 208.

110. Healy and Palepu, “The Fall of Enron,” 3.

111. Isa, Records Management and Accountability.

112. Cox, Archives and Archivists, 208.

113. Isa, Records Management and Accountability, 63.

114. Cox, Ethics, Accountability and Recordkeeping.

115. Harris, Archives and Justice, 123.

116. Meijer, “Transparent Government,” 67.

117. International Monetary Fund, The IMF’s Approach to Promoting Good Governance.

118. Ibid.

119. Ibid.

120. Ibid.

121. United Nations Human Rights office of the Commissioner of Human Rights, Human rights and the Millennium Development Goals, 1.

122. United States General Accounting Office, Best Practices Methodology, 6.

123. Roper and Miller, Managing Public Records, 7–10.

124. MacNeil, Trusting Records.

125. Harris, Archives and Justice, 138, 140.

126. Meijer, “Transparent Government,” 67–78.

127. McKemmish et al. Records Continuum Model, 4449.

128. Bantin, Understanding Data, 5.

129. Flynn, The Records Continuum, 144.

130. Ibid.

131. Trace, “What is recorded,” 144.

132. McKemmish et al., Records Continuum Model, 4449.

133. Ibid.

134. National Archives, Records Management Policy, 123.

135. McKemmish et al., Records Continuum Model, 4449.

136. Ibid.

137. National Archives, Records Management Policy.

138. National Archives, Prototype Registry Procedure.

139. Ibid., sections 1, 1, 2.2.

140. Ibid., 2.

141. National Archives, Records Management Policy.

142. Republic of South Africa, “National Archives Act.”

143. National Archives, Registry Procedure Manual.

144. Republic of South Africa, National Archives Act, sections 13(1)–13(5).

145. Ibid.

146. Ibid., sections 3, 5, 11, 12.

147. National Archives website.

148. Republic of South Africa, National Archives Act, sections 3, 5, 13(1)–13(5).

149. National Archives Act, Managing Electronic Records.

150. Bantin, Understanding Data, 5.

151. Hurley, “What, If Anything, Is Records Management.”

152. Stuckey, “Keepers of the Fame”.

153. Flynn, “The Records Continuum Model,” 80.

154. Schellnack-Kelly, “The Role of Records Management,” 97, 191.

155. Kelly, “Over the Edge,” 48.

156. Ibid., 41.

157. Archival Platform, “The State of the Archives,” 71.

158. Ibid.