From broadcasting to archiving: the Southern African public service broadcast archives

Public Service Broadcasters have an obligation to manage their records as public organisations. This is often legislated and public broadcasters therefore have to protect collections from physical deterioration and damage to minimise the loss of information. Public Service Broadcasters should thus be informed and up to date with preservation strategies to ensure the safeguarding of their collections. This study investigated the current status of the Southern African Broadcasting Association member Public Service Broadcasting archives collections and their digitisation strategies to ensure long-term preservation of collections. While many aspects of preservation status were investigated, this article focuses on the formats held within each collection, playback equipment available in archives, cataloguing practices to provide access to the collections and the digitisation initiatives undertaken by the broadcaster. Findings showed that decisive action for long-term preservation is needed to mitigate the risk of large portions of the study sample collections being lost for ever.