From analogue collection to multifunctional access

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filip Kwiatek
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Audiovisual Archives ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Public Tv

Polish audiovisual heritage is a very important part of the cultural legacy of the country. Unfortunately the use of and access to Polish audiovisual archives is still in its initial phases. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has made great strides towards solving the problems of access and limitations of use. In 2009 the ministry established the National Audiovisual Institute (NInA), which prompted several digitization projects including collaborations between Polish Public TV, National Archives, museums and private collections. This paper highlights some of the creative uses of Poland’s audiovisual heritage and demonstrates how NInA has become an innovator and a leader in the audiovisual field in Poland and Eastern Europe.

Safeguarding National Heritage through Conservation of Oral History Collections at Bulawayo National Archives, Zimbabwe

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vimbayi Natalie Nhenga-Mugarisanwa ◽  
Peterson Dewah
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Storage Conditions ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Conservation Unit ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Digital Formats ◽  
Depth Interviews

 Oral history collections are vital assets that represent national heritage. While transcribed collections are kept in a proper archival repository at the Bulawayo National Archives, the audio-visual collections are kept unprocessed and unprotected in unsuitable housing such as cardboard boxes within the Principal Archivist’s office. Storage conditions are not conducive and therefore, unbearable. The study, therefore, explored issues relating to how national heritage contained in oral history collections can be protected through conservation at the institution. In this regard, the study opted to employ the qualitative research methodology, using the case study research design. The informants were purposively sampled, while data were collected through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and document analysis. Questionnaires were administered to the chosen respondents through hand delivery. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews that lasted between 20–30 minutes. The Director’s Annual Reports from 1990 to 2016 were analysed for the study. The findings of the study indicated that the Bulawayo National Archives captures and stores oral history in paper, cassettes, magnetic tape, and digital formats, and according to various subject areas; which include chieftaincy, minority groups, land question, religion and liberation wars. However, the institution does not have a conservation unit nor an Oral Historian in charge of the collections. In this regard, we recommend that the institution sets up a conservation unit to protect oral history collections, and facilitate the restoration of the already damaged and deteriorated oral history collections. 

Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Riedlmayer
Keyword(s):  
Human Suffering ◽  
The Past ◽  
University Library ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Rare Books ◽  
The University

Three years have passed since the beginning of the war in Bosnia. Amidst the reports of human suffering and atrocities, another tragic loss has gone largely unnoted—the destruction of the written record of Bosnia’s past.On 25 August 1992, Bosnia’s National and University Library, a handsome Moorish-revival building built in the 1890s on the Sarajevo riverfront, was shelled and burned. Before the fire, the library held 1.5 million volumes, including over 155,000 rare books and manuscripts; the country’s national archives; deposit copies of newspapers, periodicals and books published in Bosnia; and the collections of the University of Sarajevo. Bombarded with incendiary grenades from Serbian nationalist positions across the river, the library burned for three days; it was reduced to ashes with most of its contents. Braving a hail of sniper fire, librarians and citizen volunteers formed a human chain to pass books out of the burning building. Interviewed by ABC News, one of them said: “We managed to save just a few very precious books. Everything else burned down. And a lot of our heritage, national heritage, lay down there in ashes.” Aida Buturovic, a librarian in the National Library’s exchanges section, was shot to death by a sniper while attempting to rescue books from the flames.

Applying the “baby nursing model” in under-resourced audiovisual archives in Africa

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Opoku-Boateng
Keyword(s):  
African Countries ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Extensive Documentation ◽  
Audiovisual Archives ◽  
The University ◽  
Traditional Arts ◽  
University Of Ghana ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Positive Results

It is a well-known fact that there has been extensive documentation of African traditional arts in post-colonial Africa, which has contributed to the growing accumulation of field recordings in Africa that could form the nucleus for archives in individual African countries. These include private collections as well as recordings at broadcasting and television stations; government ministries such as Tourism, Culture and Information; museums and academic institutions. Sadly, these precious traditions – which have been expensively captured – are often not properly managed in their host institutions. The caretakers of this heritage mostly sit by as collections deteriorate and sometimes are disposed of due to lack of institutional support. Such practices prevail in most African archives. This paper proposes a new mode of consciousness of the value of audiovisual heritage materials by comparing them with human babies. This new archival management principle, ‘the baby nursing model’, has been adopted and practiced at the University of Ghana and has achieved positive results.

Contemporary diplomatics of the civil and deceased estate case files found at the national archives of Zimbabwe

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindiso Bhebhe
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Electronic Records ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Government ◽  
Developed Nations

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss how the originality, authenticity, reliability and genuineness of legal records found at the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) are maintained. Provenance issues and their implications in diplomatics are also discussed. It notes that the status quo at the NAZ favours the diplomatic archiving of paper records, while electronic records are neglected. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative research approach. The data will mainly be collected using document analysis augmented by observations from the NAZ. Literature in regard to the Court Legal system of Zimbabwe will be reviewed and this even includes newspaper articles. Academic research papers on the archiving of electronic records in the less developed nations and developed nations will be reviewed also. Findings – The qualitative research approach revealed that the electronic national heritage of Zimbabwe is being lost mainly due to the archaic legislation which is silent on the management of electronic records. The results show again the violation of the sanctity of provenance principles in some selected cases. It was also found that the government is now producing both paper and electronic records, but the National Archives is only archiving paper records, the result of this being the incompleteness of records, thereby negatively affecting their diplomatics. Originality/value – Whereas a lot has been published about the management of electronic records in the developing world, this paper does not try to duplicate that but tries to bring a new dimension into this by showing how the diplomatics of these records is affected.

scholarly journals Designing a Software to manage and provide the Available Oral Historical Documents in the Documents and Archives Authority

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Shamsa Habib Shambeh Al Musafir ◽  
بثينة بنت خلفان بن سالم البدري
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Remote Access ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
National Memory ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Basic Objective ◽  
Intellectual Production

The oral history is of great importance in preserving the national memory beside the written document and in the belief in its importance and role in preserving the national heritage. The researcher prepared this study with the aim of limiting intellectual production in the field of oral history, achieving effective scientific communication between different researchers, facilitating remote access to oral history, Oral History To combat any intellectual invasion of history, the idea of establishing an electronic oral history program in the National Archives and Archives was conceived The first chapter contains the general framework of the study and the second chapter discusses the theoretical framework of the study. The third chapter deals with the actual management and availability of documents and oral history documents in the National Documents and Archives. Chapter 4 includes the survey study of the subject of the study. The researcher studied the final chapter of the study to prepare a proposed model for the establishment of an electronic program for oral history in the National Documents and Archives to achieve the basic objective that the study sought to achieve In conclusion, the study concludes with a set of general findings and recommendations that can contribute to the use of modern programs and technology in the management of oral history documents.

Sport and Defection From Romania During the Cold War

2020 ◽  
pp. 019372352097357
Author(s):  
Simona Petracovschi ◽  
Jessica W. Chin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
National Council ◽  
Communist State ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
National Archives ◽  
National Archives Of Australia ◽  
Travel Abroad ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War in Eastern Europe, sport and politics became increasingly intertwined and complicated as the communist states, which strictly controlled the movement of its athletes, allowed athletes to travel abroad for competition, consequently opening opportunities for defection. In search of a better life, many athletes knowingly put themselves and their families at great risk, seeking opportunities to defect to other countries once outside their national borders. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the communist state in Romania acted to stop the defection of athletes from Romania, focusing on two defection situations which occurred at different points during the Cold War, one in 1956 and the second in 1981. Historical data for this study were retrieved from the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS) in Romania, the archives at the Lausanne Olympic Museum in Switzerland, and the online archives from the National Archives of Australia (NAA).

scholarly journals The Cultural Legacy of Usher Chiter and Elyukim Maltz in the Context of the Development of Jewish Ethnography and Museum Practice in the Interwar Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 80-118
Author(s):  
Eugeny Kotlyar
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Field Trips ◽  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
Visual Materials ◽  
Museum Practice ◽  
Private Collections

The article examines the interwar period in the life and work of two architects, Usher Chiter (1899–1967) and Elyukim Maltz (1898–1973), both graduates of the Odessa School of Architecture. During that time the architects were doing work for the Mendele Moicher Sforim All-Ukrainian Museum of Jewish Proletarian Culture in Odessa. Based on documents and visual materials from a number of museums and archives located in Ukraine, Russia and Israel, as well as on private collections (including those of families of architects from Moscow, where Chiter and Maltz moved in the late 1920s),the author attempts to trace and reconstruct the two architects’ research expeditions across the former Pale of Jewish Settlement.A total of seven field trips were conducted in Podolia and the Soviet part of Volhynia – with the aim of collecting materials and exhibition items for the museum and of making nature drawings and watercolors showing Jewish sites, such as synagogues, cemeteries and residential buildings.This empirical approach exemplifies the method of preserving and representing disintegrating Jewish shtetls, commonly practised during the interwar period. The work of both architects is viewed through the prism of musealization of Jewish heritage in the early Soviet period which was closely connected to the formation of state ideology and its transition from «building of the national identity» to class paradigm and atheistic upbringing.

scholarly journals National archives’ priorities: an international overview

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Martínez-Cardama ◽  
Ana R. Pacios
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
National Archive ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Vision Statements ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
National Archives ◽  
To Come

AbstractThis discussion of national archives’ present priorities affords an overview of the areas meriting their greatest attention. It is based on an analysis of 18 strategic plans and 41 vision statements found for the 159 national archives affiliated with the International Council on Archives’ regional branches that provide public access to these documents on their websites. Improvement in access to and conservation and digitisation of the respective collections are convergent items in such plans and statements. Other strategies including protection for the national heritage and collective memory are also identified in some developing countries where the national archive is the mainstay of cultural and intellectual life. Strengthening national archive authority as the governing institution that guides a country’s archival policy, another issue found in both plans and statements, infers the need to heighten archives’ social and institutional role in their respective countries. The article identifies what is deemed good practice in cultural institution transparency management by describing what these institutions do and how. The scant presence of strategic plans on national archives’ websites is regretted, however, for it deprives citizens of information on the action planned for the years to come and precludes any international extrapolation of the present findings.

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