“You’ll never really understand South Africa until you get into the archive, get into the research, and recontextualise South Africa for yourself.” These poignant words were spoken by Nomandla Vilakazi, one of the student archival assistants who aided in the recovery of the audiovisual archive damaged in the 2021 Jagger Library Fire, at a seminar on Tuesday, 16 April. The seminar, hosted by the Centre for Film and Media Studies and Special Collections team, saw archivists and student interns speak about recovery and digitisation efforts in the wake of the fire.
Andrea Walker and Susan Mvungi, both Special Collections archivists, gave a presentation about the processes undertaken and progress made with regards to the audiovisual archive, much of which was held in the library’s basem*nt. These collections were submerged for many hours due to water leaking into the basem*nt from the upper levels of Jagger following firemen’s attempts to put out the blaze.
Volunteer efforts from about 2000 people made the removal of over 12000 crates from the building possible. Conservators and heritage practitioners from local institutions, such as the University of Pretoria, and international companies, such as DK Conservators, worked to salvage damaged materials in triage tents set up on UCT’s Plaza. Following this collaborative salvage, an extensive Digitisation Recovery Project pertaining to audio-visual materials commenced.
Video Restoration Television, an independent contractor, provided digitisation expertise and access to a Clintel Scanner, which enabled the scanning of 16mm and 35mm film reels. Due to water damage and ash, tapes had to be cleaned with alcohol, manually rewound, and, if they snapped due to complications from the moisture, spliced together if possible. Audio City and Open Broadcaster Software were utilised for audio and video digitisation, respectively. Throughout this over two-year long process, holdings were sorted into four different kinds of crates: ‘Ingest’ (tapes yet to be digitised), ‘Damaged’, ‘Store’ (in need of further metadata), or ‘Deep Store’.
Katherine Poggenpoel, Nomandla Vilakazi, and Booker Mwenzva are three postgraduate Film and Media Studies students who, due to external funding sought by their department, were able to serve as archival assistants during this process. According to Poggenpoel, much of their work had to do with African content from film festivals, and involved searching for and cross-referencing available metadata to determine whether each object was African and in alignment with how it was recorded. “It takes a lot of patience to create an archive in general, let alone recovering things,” she said.
In her presentation, Vilakazi recalled a quote attributed to Abdul Kareem, one of the video digitisers with whom she worked: “Data loss is temporary, but recovery is forever.” She also spoke to the importance of her assistantship in deepening her appreciation for the archive in many aspects of her life. This was echoed by Mwenzva, who described the work they did as “phoenix-like”. “Get connected to your archive, because there’s so much material that could feed your material,” he said. Nikki Crowster, Director of Information Systems and Resources at UCT Libraries, was in attendance, and said of the significance of South African archives, “It’s our history, and we need to own it and continue to care for it.”
The Audiovisual Audit was completed in September 2023, digitisation in December 2023, and a stocktake in January of this year.According to Walker and Mvungi’s presentation, of the post-fire audited amount of 25227 items, 21628 were digitised (around 86%) and 481 (2%) damaged beyond recovery. However, whilst this monumental undertaking has been completed, material is still not accessible. Each of these items require detailed metadata in order to be discoverable and, thus, usable. In the wake of the fire, UCT Special Collections and archival holdings relocated to off-site premises. Currently, the team is operating out of offices in Mowbray.
The accessibility of the archive, and the issue of digitisation that often comes up in conversations around the Jagger Library Fire, is largely a question of financial resources. The audio-visual archive alone amasses to 350 terabytes, which cost R1 million to store for 18 months. Storing these holdings in perpetuity requires high-cost digital and physical infrastructure. “We are betwixt and between – we don’t have infrastructure for you to view the physical materials because we are in temporary premises, but [the archivists] are working frantically to provide the information you need,” said Crowster.
