CHALLENGES FACED BY AFRICAN ARCHIVISTS IN DIGITIZING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

Information professionals are now embracing digitization techniques in the management of information. Digital libraries and digital archives are becoming popular nowadays because of their wider accessibility, preservation purposes and a host of their advantages which are related to the digitization of information. In this paper, the author is going to identify challenges faced by African archivists in digitizing indigenous knowledge.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The author will define the words the terms indigenous knowledge and digitization first. Greaves [1996] as quoted in Chisita[2011:4] defines indigenous knowledge as  ‘…something more than matter of fact-information. Rather it is invested with a sacred quality and systematic quality, supplying the foundation on which the members of a traditional community sense their commutes, personal identity, and ancestral anchorage…’ Mugabe [ibid] defines indigenous knowledge as knowledge that is held and made use of by people who regard themselves indigenous to a particular place.’ On the other hand Lee S.D.[2001:3] defines digitization as “the conversion of an analog signal or code into a digital signal or code.’ He also said digitization means the conversion of any analog material into electronic storage, including sound and video.

There are legal challenges which can be faced by African archivists in documenting indigenous knowledge such as issues to do with intellectual property rights. Eke [2011] says information professionals need to take precautions on the issue to do with copyrights before digitizing any piece of information. Kuny is quoted as saying: “…if libraries do begin to systematically collect digital information on a large scale, the provision of effective access could be questionable. In fact, copyright could end preventing libraries from providing open access to the digital information they collect. Questions of copyright must be managed so that digital information can be created and distributed throughout “digital libraries” in a manner that is equitable for both information producers and information customers. Copyright could become an insurmountable barrier to the development of digital collections.” To avoid the copyright problems there is need for archivists to agree with copyright owners that may mean paying continuous subscriptions and royalties to authors. Since Africa is a developing continent archivists may fail to get funding to pay copyright fees and royalties hampering the digitization of indigenous knowledge.

Borgholf et al [2010] talks of challenges related to what he call the rendition system. He defines the rendition system as the hardware, system software and the presentation software. He says the hardware consists of the CPU, memory and bus connection-also some required and desired addenda like graphics card and monitor, secondary storage devices eticetera. The system software consisting of the operating system and the driver programs together constitutes a layer of programs that allow human users to concentrates on the so-called “logical” attributes of the computer and to abstract from the less relevant, physical attributes of the hardware. Preservation software consists of text editors, painting software, web browsers etcetera.

Borgholf et al [2010] says there is pressure to upgrade the rendition system quit often. The presentation programs and all other components of these systems have to be replaced regularly by new ones: all the time new and ‘better’ devices and variants are being developed. In order to use them new software components are needed. That increases the challenges of digitization of African indigenous knowledge because challenges in one component of the rendition system cause changes in the other components. Since African institutions are poorly funded they may fail to upgrade the rendition system often which may endanger the accessibility of the digitized indigenous knowledge.

African archivists may face a selection dilemma. There are a lot of documentation on indigenous knowledge needing digitization and archivists may find it difficult to choose the best document to digitize Borgholf et al [2010].Libraries and archives need precise criteria on what is to be considered valuable and, therefore, should be conserved. Because of the wealth of available materials and because of the high costs involved African archivists may face difficulty in choosing the best documents to digitize.

Exorbitant costs maybe also another challenge faced by African archivists as they digitize indigenous knowledge. Costs may range from the ICTs and expert personnel. It maybe expensive to buy computers, scanners and electricity costs needed to run the computers. As explained above copyright costs must be put into consideration. All the above are costs to put into consideration which African institution may fail to sustain.

Sigauke D.T & Nengomasha Dr [2011] said, for example, the National Archives of Zimbabwe has a depreciated staff establishment which needs further staff development and exposure to modern digitization technologies. They also said the NAZ lacks a digitization policy program which hinders the digitization of the indigenous knowledge. The above problems observed by Sigauke D.T & Nengomasha Dr[2011] may be uniform throughout all African information institutions. That is lack sufficient and skilled personnel capable of running the digitization programs.

Eke H.N.[2011] says developing countries may have limited bandwidth an important requirement for a digitization program. Poor connectivity has always affected the rate at which files are uploaded. It was noted [Eke H.N.2011] that poor connectivity has been a big challenge for accessing and downloading information especially large files and then become a challenge for African archivists in digitizing indigenous knowledge.

The other challenge faced by African archivists in digitizing indigenous knowledge is the difficulty in digitizing some materials and the strenuous work of editing of works digitized. Most academic staff supplies their biodata and scholarly publications on a CD. At times the CD_ROM drive of computers used for scanning is faulty. Some cases have occurred where the drives could not open, nor read the CDs provided. As a result, a section was created for dumping of such CDs and they were tagged ‘problematic documents’ The scanning also requires considerable editing to conform to the standard set for such materials. The information professionals involved in appending digital signatures on the scanned documents must have to edit the work by first checking the spellings, looking out for bookmarks to ensure it is properly done. The laborious work can be problematic to the digitization of African indigenous knowledge.

CONCLUSION

The author had cited the legal aspect of the digitization of the indigenous knowledge, copyright protection, costs and lack of funding by African government for digitization projects, poor policing by African information institutions, material selection challenges, poor training in digitization and under-staffing as some of the challenges faced by African archivists in the digitization of indigenous knowledge

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EKE H.N, 2011, Digitizing Resources for University of Nigeria: Process and Challenges, Webology,8[1]Article 85.Available at: http://www.webology.org/2011/v8n1/a85.html

SIGAUKE & NENGOMASHA DR,2011,Challenges and Prospects Facing the Digitization of Historical Records for their Preservation Within the National Archives of Zimbabwe ,University of Witwaterand 2^nd International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives [ICADLA],SOUTH AFRICA

BORGHOLF U.M.et al, 2010, Long-Term Preservation of Digital Documents Principles and Practices, Springer, UK

Lee S.D, 2001, Digital Imaging A practical Handbook, Library Association, London,UK

CHISITA C.T., 2011, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, ZOU, Harare, ZIMBABWE

Lesk  .M, 2005,Understanding Digital Libraries, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, an Francisco, USA

Etiwel Mutero holds a Bsc Honours Degree in Records and Archives Management from the Zimbabwe Open University.Do you want assistance in writing your college or university assignment? You can contact Etiwel Mutero on 00264817871070 or etiwelm02@gmail.com