scholarly journals Transition from analogue to digital at the National Archives of Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Amos Bishi ◽  
Antonio Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Collections ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Collecting Methods ◽  
The Right ◽  
Public Archives ◽  
Analogue To Digital

This paper seeks to bring to light the contemporary landscape of digital technology at the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) and its move towards the provision of access and awareness of its historical collections through technology. The institution has geared towards opening its doors to the public through outreach programmes; public exhibitions; websites; oral history projects; publications and broadcasting archives with changing circumstances. The ideology of taking the archives to the citizens has paved way for outreach archivists to do the right thing, in line with their obligations to provide access to information. The National Archives of Zimbabwe, like any other archive, preserves records that have been selected for permanent preservation because of their historical and enduring value. The paper explores the challenges faced by the public archivist in the management of traditional and analogue archives and the subsequent need for transition to digital technologies. The adoption of digital technologies in the management of public archives will enable the public archivists to provide faster and easier access to the archival materials. Digital technologies enhance information sharing and reduce redundancy of the collections. The researchers used a qualitative case study methodology with an interpretivist perspective where the main focus of the research was on the NAZ’s Public Archive. Interviews, document analysis and observations were used as the major data collecting methods. The results showed that the institution had made a good start, encouraging progress and was still working on the migration from analogue technology to full adoption of digital technology.

scholarly journals Transition from analogue to digital at the National Archives of Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
Amos Bishi ◽  
Antonio Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Collections ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Collecting Methods ◽  
The Right ◽  
Public Archives ◽  
Analogue To Digital

This paper seeks to bring to light the contemporary landscape of digital technology at the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) and its move towards the provision of access and awareness of its historical collections through technology. The institution has geared towards opening its doors to the public through outreach programmes; public exhibitions; websites; oral history projects; publications and broadcasting archives with changing circumstances. The ideology of taking the archives to the citizens has paved way for outreach archivists to do the right thing, in line with their obligations to provide access to information. The National Archives of Zimbabwe, like any other archive, preserves records that have been selected for permanent preservation because of their historical and enduring value. The paper explores the challenges faced by the public archivist in the management of traditional and analogue archives and the subsequent need for transition to digital technologies. The adoption of digital technologies in the management of public archives will enable the public archivists to provide faster and easier access to the archival materials. Digital technologies enhance information sharing and reduce redundancy of the collections. The researchers used a qualitative case study methodology with an interpretivist perspective where the main focus of the research was on the NAZ’s Public Archive. Interviews, document analysis and observations were used as the major data collecting methods. The results showed that the institution had made a good start, encouraging progress and was still working on the migration from analogue technology to full adoption of digital technology.

scholarly journals Review of Digitize and Punish: Racial Criminalization in the Digital Age by Brian Jefferson (University of Minnesota Press)

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Kārkliņa
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
University Of Minnesota ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Drugs And Crime

In Digitize and Punish, Brian Jefferson argues that the US policing and incarceration infrastructure is increasingly marked by new forms of racialized digital criminalization. Examining the incorporation of digital technologies into the criminal justice apparatus, Jefferson shows the central role that digital technology and data science has had in reinforcing racial surveillance practices since the War on Drugs and Crime began more than four decades ago. Jefferson’s timely new book traces the merging of carcerality and technology in Chicago and New York City, unveiling forms of digital racial management that have remained largely obscured from the public.

scholarly journals Public actors without public values: legitimacy, domination and the regulation of the technology sector

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linnet Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technology Sector ◽  
Technology Firms ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Commercial Technology ◽  
The Right

The scale and asymmetry of commercial technology firms’ power over people through data, combined with the increasing involvement of the private sector in public governance, means that increasingly people do not have the ability to opt out of engaging with technology firms. At the same time, those firms are increasingly intervening on the population level in ways that have implications for social and political life. This creates the potential for power relations of domination, and demands that we decide what constitutes the legitimacy to act on the public. Business ethics and private law are not designed to answer these questions, which are primarily political. If people have lost the right to disengage with commercial technologies, we may need to hold the companies that offer them to the same standards to which we hold the public sector. This paper therefore argues for the development of an overarching normative framework for what constitutes non-domination with regard to digital technologies. Such a framework must involve a nuanced idea of political power and accountability that can respond not only to the legality of corporate behaviour, but to its legitimacy.

To collaborate or not to collaborate, that is the question

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nampombe Saurombe ◽  
Patrick Ngulube
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Other Information ◽  
The Common ◽  
Public Archives ◽  
Information Providers ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

Public archives in east and southern Africa are functioning in a competitive information environment. Institutions such as libraries and museums also offer information, but fewer people utilise public archives. More effort is required to make archives a part of the daily lives of citizens in east and southern Africa. This study sought to explore whether or not public archives should collaborate with other information providers in their mission to increase social interaction with the archives. Directors of National Archives, archivists and members of the East and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA) Board were invited to shed light on their experiences and views regarding collaboration in outreach initiatives. The directors completed a questionnaire, while the archivists and board members participated in face-to-face interviews. Country reports from the different ESARBICA member states were also reviewed. The findings indicate that collaboration in outreach initiatives took place to a certain extent, but libraries and museums were rarely part of this. This paper recommends that public archives play a stronger role in collaborative efforts to improve their visibility and widen their outreach to the public in east and southern Africa. The findings provide an overview on collaborative outreach projects from the perspective of selected archivists from this region, and therefore cannot be generalised to represent the common views of this entire region.

scholarly journals Varðveisla gagna í stjórnsýslunni

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 321
Author(s):  
Kristín Benediktsdóttir ◽  
Trausti Fannar Valsson
Keyword(s):  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Public Archives

A great amount of information is accumulated by public authorities. The preservation or disposal of such information is regularly the subject of disputes. This paper addresses the Articles of the Public Archives Act No. 77/2014 that specify what records should be preserved by authorities subject to an obligation of transfer and the subsequent transfer of these records to public archives at a later stage, as well as which authority controls the transfer. The main conclusions are: Firstly, all records produced by and associated with the operation of entities subject to the obligation of transfer fall within the scope of the Act irrespective of their form or how they are produced unless special Acts lead to different conclusions. Secondly, all records should be preserved unless prescriptions and authorizations by the National Archives of Iceland or special Acts lead to different conclusions with respect to the preservation or disposal of the records. Thirdly, The National Archives of Iceland supervises compliance with the Act.

21. Database Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 486-496
Author(s):  
Justine Pila ◽  
Paul L.C. Torremans
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Council Directive ◽  
Digital Format ◽  
Database Right ◽  
Real Value ◽  
The Right ◽  
Database Protection ◽  
Exclusive Right

This chapter discusses database protection and database right under European Parliament and Council Directive on the protection of databases [1996] OJ L 77/20.1, better known as the Database Directive. Long before the advent of digital technology various forms of databases were around in analogue format, such as telephone directories. Digital technology opened up opportunities of scale in this area and made data easy to search. But at the same time it impeded the mere consultation or reading of the data, that are now hidden in a digital format. The real value of a database lies in the comprehensive nature of the information it contains, rather than in the originality of the information itself. Thus, granting an exclusive right in a collection of data or information, without any requirement of originality in relation to the data or information, not only risks interfering with the right of access to information, but also risks interfering with the freedom of competition, since the only workable access to information and data that are themselves in the public domain and freely available will now pass via the rights holder and its database. The database right has the difficult task of striking the right balance between the various interests involved, and the Directive has been accused of putting in place the least balanced and most anti-competitive exclusive right in the EU.

Institutional collaboration in the creation of digital linguistic resources: the case of the British Telecom correspondence corpus

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-164
Author(s):  
Ralph Morton ◽  
Hilary Nesi
Keyword(s):  
Post Office ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Searchable Database ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Collaboration ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Creation ◽  
British Telecom ◽  
Public Archives

This chapter discusses the creation of the British Telecom Correspondence Corpus (BTCC), a searchable database of letters taken from the public archives of British Telecom (BT) that were written by nearly 400 authors on a wide variety of topics between 1853 and 1982. It first discusses some experiences working on the New Connections project, funded by Jisc (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee) and a collaboration between Coventry University, BT Heritage, and The National Archives, focusing particularly on the methodological issues encountered. The corpus was created to address a gap in existing corpus resources, and so that researchers (primarily linguists) could access and, crucially, engage with the language of the letters. Since the completion of the BTCC there have been efforts to expand the corpus to include correspondence written to and from the Post Office, an institution with many historical links to BT. This chapter addresses issues surrounding institutional collaboration in both phases of this ongoing research.

scholarly journals Public Actors Without Public Values: Legitimacy, Domination and the Regulation of the Technology Sector

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linnet Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technology Sector ◽  
Technology Firms ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Commercial Technology ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe scale and asymmetry of commercial technology firms’ power over people through data, combined with the increasing involvement of the private sector in public governance, means that increasingly, people do not have the ability to opt out of engaging with technology firms. At the same time, those firms are increasingly intervening on the population level in ways that have implications for social and political life. This creates the potential for power relations of domination, and demands that we decide what constitutes the legitimacy to act on the public. Business ethics and private law are not designed to answer these questions, which are primarily political. If people have lost the right to disengage with commercial technologies, we may need to hold the companies that offer them to the same standards to which we hold the public sector. This paper first defines the problem and demonstrates that it is significant and widespread, and then argues for the development of an overarching normative framework for what constitutes non-domination with regard to digital technologies. Such a framework must involve a nuanced idea of political power and accountability that can respond not only to the legality of corporate behaviour, but to its legitimacy.

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