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Digital records infrastructure in Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe

2022, Chaterera Zambuko, Forget, Masuku, Mehluli, Bhebhe, Sindiso

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Ngaadzoke Please A Dare/Inkundla for the Rhodesian Army Records

2022, Chaterera Zambuko, Forget

This chapter uses ideas of communal listening in traditional Zimbabwean jurisprudence to consider the affects of archival displacement from Zimbabwe to the United Kingdom. Providing a space for the responses of archivists to this ongoing dispossession, this chapter echoes the calls to radical empathy now being made in Western archival discourse. While previous debates and writings concentrated more on Zimbabwe's migrated archives, this chapter focuses on Rhodesian Army archives whose situation is even more complex because it is unclear which British entity has custody of the archives and there are many questions about their ownership. Not only is the archive obscured from view, but the metadata that describes it is hidden from us too. Through the decades, the African perspectives on the question of archival displacement have been characterised by a sense of loss, a desire for the return of records and custody over the traces of our history. Britain's elders have not heard our elders. Our archives are still displaced. Will they hear us now? The fact that we are imploring Britain, first invoking our rights and now invoking empathy, reveals the limits of the Dare/Inkundla (Communal listening approach to solving disputes). If we make room for all to speak and be heard, as has been done before and as I am doing here, what then? the community has decided that the records should be repatriated, whether the community is construed as Zimbabwean archivists or archivists in Commonwealth countries (including Britain): there is no disagreement in the literature, yet the records have not been returned.

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Enterprise Content Management system implementation: Insights from the National Library and Archives of UAE

2023, Chaterera Zambuko, Forget

This study aims to elucidate the key elements that contribute to the successful execution of an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. The insights provided are based on the experiences of professionals at the National Library and Archives of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during their ECM implementation. An interpretive philosophical model, along with qualitative methodologies such as interviews and focus group discussions were employed for data collection. The participants included professionals from the UAE's National Library and Archives who played a significant role in the ECM system's implementation. A thorough review of relevant literature was also carried out to validate and reinforce the viewpoints obtained from the interviewees and focus group participants. The study discovered that comprehensive business needs assessment, detailed research, system compatibility, clarity of policies, and effective change management are vital for the successful roll-out of an ECM system. However, it's worth noting that the proposed implementation model offered in this study may not be all-encompassing. The insights shared are limited to the experiences of one archival institution, and the literature consulted may not cover all existing viewpoints. Despite these limitations, this research provides essential guidance, particularly to national archival institutions contemplating the adoption of ECM systems. It underlines the importance of ECM in effectively managing an organization's structured and unstructured data and emphasizes the need for due diligence during ECM implementation. Further research is recommended to explore the advantages arising from the successful implementation of an ECM system.

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Records management and archiving in UAE: a beginner's handbook

2022, Chaterera Zambuko, Forget, Kabata, Victor, Masuku, Mehluli

Records management is the key to unlocking greater potential in an institution's execution of its overall mandate. Despite the indisputable role that records management play in promoting service delivery, productivity, good governance, and accountability among many other functions, there has been a continued invisibility on the importance of formally trained records and information management professionals. A preliminary survey of the status quo in the United Arab Emirates shows that even though many organizations do not have formally trained personnel in records management and archival administration, there is a high level of appreciation on the need to meet international best practice in records and information management through receiving formal training among other ways. Instead of having trained records management practitioners, many institutions are using the expert services of the National Library and Archives of UAE while others resort to having their records management needs taken care of by private consultancy companies. Although this is not bad practice, the ideal situation would be to have onsite records management professionals who are able to ensure that the organization's records management needs are fully met. In this respect, it is prudent to acknowledge the collaborative effort made by the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and the National Archives of UAE, who took the initiative to professionalize records management through establishing training programmes in records management and archival science at Certificate, Bachelor's, and Masters' degree levels. The initiative is a giant step towards professionalizing records management and archiving in UAE and the Gulf region.

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Lost Unities: The materiality of the migrated archives

2023, Lowry, James, Chaterera Zambuko, Forget

Using images from the Museum of British Colonialism’s ‘Lost Unities’ virtual exhibition, this brief photo essay elaborates the material aspects of the displacement of archives to London from 37 former British colonies. The journey of the so-called Migrated Archives has been discussed by historians and archivists in political and technical terms, but through the lens of materiality, this piece seeks to understand these records through the space they occupy, the presences and absences they instantiate, their distances and journeys, to uncover insights into the meanings of their material displacements. It does this by exploring the spaces the records occupy and the spaces they leave empty. It applies the notion of ‘records-in-motion’ to chart how the Migrated Archives changes meaning, value and substance through the decontextualisations and recontextualisations of the processes of displacement. The essay then turns to the affective experiences of being close to or far from archives, the significance of place in displacement and the work that these papers – as material supports rather than as texts – do while they are displaced. Finally, the essay engages with the digital, to trouble the concept of digital repatriation by demonstrating the way that the digital introduces and sustains distance.