Creating a secure and fail-proof hosting environment for digital heritage is the problem we have been working to solve for years. In this past year, however, we have been able to take significant strides in this regard. We are now celebrating with the launch of what we are calling our Preservation Cloud.

Dell servers with disk arrays in the AMO Server Room. The room is temperature controlled, has biometric access and 24-hour monitoring, has a full fire suppressant system and has backup power and backup internet and the data is automatically backed up to an off-site location.

Everyone speaks about “The Cloud” or “Cloud-based computing” but many of us don’t know exactly what that is. All we know is that our data is out there in the ether somewhere and not on our own computer. While that is certainly true, what we often fail to understand is that every bit and byte of data needs to reside on some computer somewhere and the computers have to have a physical location. Most commonly “Clouds” are made up of servers connected to disk arrays that sit in a data centre somewhere are then made accessible on the internet. That data may be synchronised across a number of servers sitting in data centres in different parts of the World.

The automated fire suppressant system can be seen in the background and the back of one of the server racks in the foreground

The challenge we had at Africa Media Online is how do we build a “cloud” where data is never deleted. For most cloud-based computing, data is not kept for the long term. Like a desktop computer, one is constantly creating files and often changing them or deleting them. It tends to grow over time, but there is no requirement for the files to be secured and maintained exactly as they are for generations to come. That, however, is the challenge of digital archiving. To archive a digital file one wants to know that it will be maintained exactly as it is for the foreseeable future and migrated at the appropriate time to keep with new standards. Keeping every file exactly as it is when first loaded means that storage capacity has to grow and grow and grow… There is no end to its growth. And one needs to know that the files are not being corrupted in any way or overwritten or deleted or catch a virus or fall prey to ransomware or become obsolete.

So over the past year, we have taken our core of servers and disk arrays and we have grown the infrastructure around it ensuring there is backup power, backup internet, and multiple backups of the data. We have also established an external web server and in time that will be synchronised with our existing internal web server to ensure seamless uninterrupted service. Right now this is what our Preservation Cloud looks like with our MEMAT digital asset management system running on top of it.

What we call the Infrastructure Layer in this diagram is the Preservation Cloud. The first column shows our external web server that resides in a data centre in Midrand, Gauteng. This is the server that is browsed when one is on a MEMAT site. The second column refers to what is in the Africa Media Online Server Room. This resides in a separate building separated by a road from the Backup Room (see the third column) which is in our main offices. These rooms are connected by a fibre cable. Backups then, are automatically offsite. The Server Room is fitted with biometric access and monitoring, fire suppressant systems and other security measures. It also has an inverter and batteries that provide 12 hours of backup power and a backup generator that can support the batteries when they are running low. The Server Room hosts the main storage servers, the internal web server and the processing server that is used to process material that is loaded to the MEMAT Digital Vault. The Backup Room has our LTO tape libraries including the capability to back up to both LTO6 and LTO7 tapes. In addition we have a system to burn data to Bluray disks to give us an offline backup. LTO tapes and Bluray disks, then, are stored in a safe, 20 km away in a rural area (column 4).

The Africa Media Online backup room with the inverter and backup power batteries in the foreground the the server rack with a switch and LTO tape library (not visible) and Bluray burner. This room is temperature and humidity controlled.

On top of the Infrastructure Layer is the Operating System layer. Like a desktop computer that may have Mac OS or Windows as its operating system, these servers have a common Open Source Linux-based operating system. On top of that sits the MEMAT layers of Asset Management Layer (AML), Cataloguing Layer (MEMAT Metadata App) and Presentation Layer (PL). In this way, MEMAT together with our Preservation Cloud provide a solid digital repository for the long-term preservation of your digital collections as well as reliable ready access.

The University of Göttingen and the Göttingen State and University Library, Germany, will play host to the 2019 IIIF Annual Conference.

IIIF Chairperson, Tom Cramer from Stanford University presented an Introduction to IIIF in the Coolidge Auditorium, Jefferson Building in the Library of Congress.

The IIIF or International Image Interoperability Framework is an international community drawn from many of the World’s leading academic, heritage and scientific organisations working together to create technology that allows for the collaborative and interoperable technology for the web-based delivery of images. As the IIIF website says: “Access to image-based resources is fundamental to research, scholarship and the transmission of cultural knowledge. Digital images are a container for much of the information content in the Web-based delivery of images, books, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, scrolls, single sheet collections, and archival materials. Yet much of the Internet’s image-based resources are locked up in silos, with access restricted to bespoke, locally built applications.” IIIF aims to break open those silos and enable sharing of image-based collections.

The Library of Congress in Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States of America is the largest library in the World. This is the Jefferson Building where the main sessions of the IIIF Conference were held.

The Göttingen Planning Committee is looking for proposals for talks in the following forms:

Up to a ½ day workshop
7 to 10-minute lightning talks
20-minute presentations (plus 10 mins questions)
90-minute open block (Could be panel session or grouped presentations)

Time is extremely short to submit an abstract of no longer than 500 words for your presentation or discussion as they need to be in by Friday the 1st of March using the conference tool. But I know the committee are welcoming papers from Africa:

https://goo.gl/forms/qNOT6i2IAW75C6NS2

The opening reception of the 2018 IIIF Annual Conference at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC.

Africa Media Online was the first organisation in Africa to implement IIIF technology and over the past year has been hard at work building this technology into our MEMAT digital asset management system enabling our clients to benefit from cutting edge IIIF innovations.

The Castle is the iconic building of the Smithsonian Institute and serves as the Visitor Centre of the Institute. The IIIF Conference was hosted in the building one evening for a reception.

Toward the end of May 2018, I had the privilege of being the first speaker from Africa to have ever presented at the IIIF Annual Conference. It was held at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. I found it such a stimulation to be interacting with scientific, heritage and IT people who are on the cutting edge of enabling access to digital resources. I presented on how we have used IIIF to enhance the user experience of the ANC Digital Archive and you can hear a version of my 10-minute presentation on Vimeo.

David Larsen, Managing Director of Africa Mediia Online, presenting at the 2018 IIIF Annual Conference at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, USA.

When I go abroad to such conferences I am always amazed at how large institutions, government agencies and organisations work together with small enterprises. There is a clear recognition of the strength of small and medium entrepreneurial businesses to innovate at a speed not possible for larger entities. At the launch of the Wits-NRF Digitisation Capacity Development Initiative, I made an appeal for just such close collaboration among institutions, organisations, agencies and business here in South Africa around creating and sustaining digital collections.

Participants at the 2018 Annual Congress of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Conference held at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, USA, at the Smithsonian Institute and at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

I had the honour of a guided tour together with digital imaging consultant friend, Peter Krogh, of the reading room at the Library of Congress

We were also guided into the usually closed card catalogue section. In the Library of Congress’ main card catalogue there are 22,000 drawers and 22 million cards covering author, title and subject. No new cards have been added since 1980. Now records are added to an online catalogue at a rate of 10,000 items each working day.

May 2018 saw the launch of an exciting initiative by the National Research Foundation in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand Libraries to set up an institute that can create digitisation capacity in South Africa. This was the first initiative of its kind funded by the NRF and is an exciting initiative in South Africa. It is expected to grow significant capacity in South African institutions in terms of the conceptualisation and execution of significant digitisation projects that can both contribute to the preservation of valuable collections and enable access to them.

Isaac Nkadimeng, Principal Curator: Archives and Digitisation at University of the Witwatersrand (centre) with Dr Connie Bitso (right), University Librarian at the University of Fort Hare and Ayodele O. Ladokun (left), Lecturer in Computer Literacy at the University of Fort Hare.

I had the privilege of being invited at the last minute to present at the launch event, when another speaker had a family crisis, and to share something of our experience in digitising the ANC Archive. I started with the report by the Economist Intelligence Unit that placed South Africa behind Kenya in terms of its digitisation efforts and ended with an appeal for government, business and institutions to ackowledge one another’s contribution and work together to cross the digital divide. You can hear that speech on SoundCloud which was graciously recorded by Ayodele Ladokun from the University of Fort Hare.

A member of the Wits University digitisation team explains the digitisation technology that the University has available to Dr Daniel Adams, Chief Director: Department of Science and Technology (left) and Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Post-Graduate Affairs, Wits University (centre), while Ayodele O. Ladokun (left), Lecturer in Computer Literacy at the University of Fort Hare (second left) looks on during the official opening of the Wits-NRF Digitisation Capacity Development Initiative at the Wartenweiler Library 4th floor, University of the Witwatersrand.

Isaac Nkadimeng, Principal Curator: Archives and Digitisation at University of the Witwatersrand (centre) with Dr Connie Bitso (right), University Librarian at the University of Fort Hare and Ayodele O. Ladokun (left), Lecturer in Computer Literacy at the University of Fort Hare.

It took the Africa Media Online digitisation team two months to digitise over 4,000 traditional Zulu artefacts at the Phansi Museum in Durban. The project, funded by the National Lottery Commission was awarded to the Phansi Museum for the digitisation of their collection and the building of a digital archive. The funding was awarded in 2015. We, however, were on site at the museum premises toward the end of 2016.

Scott Cronwright assisted by Sandile Mhongo, operating our Phase One XF camera tethered to a computer. The camera allows us to set the range of focus and the number of focus points within that range to capture. Phansi Museum, Durban.

Our digitisation team headed up by our photographer, Scott Cronwright, used our Phase One IQ3 100 megapixel digital back on two cameras, our Phase One XF camera for 3D objects and our Alpa FPS 12 camera for flat objects.

Sandile Mhlongo, who has just loaded a flat object onto the capture surface, waits for Scott Cronwright to capture a flat object while Timothy Zuma prepares the next object. The object being captured is a beaded waistcoat. It is illuminated evenly by our Broncolor lights. Phansi Museum, Durban.

The museum made a large room available to us and we commuted from Pietermaritzburg every day to capture objects. Many of the objects had significant depth to them and in order to capture that depth we ended up capturing most objects at multiple focus points and then focus stacking the various images of each object into a single fully-in-focus image.

Scott Cronwright looks on while Sandile Mhlongo loads a flat object to the capture surface and Timothy Zuma prepares the next object, Phansi Museum, Durban.

The Phansi Museum has been working on the capture of metadata against the items that have been loaded to a MEMAT 3 digital repository system. We are hoping that this system will be upgraded to a MEMAT 4 system soon to allow researchers from around the World to deep zoom into the images that are between 150 and 300 MB in size.

Item: Ukhezo, Provenance: Zulu, Clan: Unknown, Owner: PMC, Maker: Unknown, Date: Old Collector: Paul Mikula, Date of Acquisition: Unknown, Dimensions: Small, Colour: Natural, Condition: Good

Detail of an object zoomed in in Photoshop to show the detail captured by the Africa Media Online digitisation team. File Name: PHM_20161018_20308.tif, Item: Unlidded telephone wire basket, Provenance: Inanda.

We have done it! In December 2017 two of the Africa Media Online team tied the knot and got married in fine style at Grace Generation church in Pietermaritzburg – a first for Africa Media Online.

Nkanyiso Ngcobo takes hold of his wife, Sanelisiwe Ngcobo (nee Nxumalo) at their “white” wedding ceremony.

Nkanyiso Ngcobo as been part of the Africa Media Online digitisation team for many years having grown up in Pietermaritzburg. He was part of the original team that traveled to the Eastern Cape ahead of the ANC centenary celebration to digitise a select number of manuscripts and photographic images in 2011. Over the years he has gained significant experience in digitisation and he has a gift for dealing with technical systems and so during the course of running a new project digitising the ANC Archive at the University of Fort Hare (UFH) from November 2016 to the end of March 2018, Nkanyiso took over the responsibility of technical leader on the team.

Nkanyiso Ngcobo had to chase and catch Nelly before she escaped during the course of their traditional Zulu ceremony.

Sanelisiwe Nxumalo joined the team that was itemizing the ANC Archive down at the University of Fort Hare in 2016. Finding that the ANC Archive had been ordered to the folder level but not to the item level, we needed to grow the team from 6 to 14 people and Nelly, who had just started assisting us at head office in Pietermaritzburg with metadata capture, was one of those relocated to UFH. It was not long before Nkanyiso came to speak to me about his interest in Nelly and he did well to save up for the wedding, travel to KZN for lobolo negotiations in the latter half of 2017 and finally marry her on the 30th of December 2017.

All of us at Africa Media Online wish Nkas and Nelly a long, happy and fruitful marriage!

Last year we had the privilege of digitising 184 original artworks by World renowned botanical artist, Dr Auriol Batten. Dr Batten passed away in June 2015 and the Batten family approached us to capture paintings and pencil sketches that they have access to for preservation purposes and to make them accessible. The artworks included some of the dieramas created for her famous book, Flowers of Southern Africa, and some seldom seen early line drawings that were not made public. The Batten family wanted the paintings captured at a standard that accurately reflected the condition of the originals.

We were digitising the ANC Archive at the University of Fort Hare at the time, and Dr Batten’s son, Chris Batten, was able to drive up from Port Elizabeth and deliver them to us personally. We digitised the artworks using our Alpa 12 FPS camera with a Rodenstock lens and our Phase One IQ3 100 megapixel digital back. Below is an example of one of the images zoomed in. These are unenhanced files maintaining the colour as per the original. There is discolouration of the physical paper due to age and some fungal spots that can be seen. While to zoom percentages are true, we had to reduce the size of each image to make it fit the format of this blog post (so zoomed in at 100% in Photoshop would be larger than it appears here).

Auriol Batten:
Dierama Pendulum Krom River 5th August 1982, near the forest station.
Drawing completed 22nd Jan 1989 on the King Williams Town – Grahamstown Rd, where D. Pendulum forms clumps. Drawing at 12.5% zoom.

According to Chris, his mother was born on 3 March 1918 in a small house in Braid Street, Pietermaritzburg. “From a very early age, she loved drawing,” he wrote. “It was a Miss Currie at Pietermaritzburg Girls High School that pointed her in the direction of botanical art. After matriculating she went down to Durban and studied botany and teaching at the University of Natal and she trained in art at the Durban Technical College. In about 1942 she met up with Nils Anderson the official naval artist and became good friends. The two artists fed off each other and created some fantastic work painting beachscapes on the South Coast.”

Auriol Batten: Dierama Pendulum Krom River 5th August 1982 at 33% zoom

“After meeting Ashley Batten she moved down to East London and taught art at the East London Technical College. In 1962 she and Herta Boekelmann started collecting for a book called Wild Flowers of the Eastern Cape Which was illustrated in watercolour. The book took four years to produce and was published by TV Bulpin in 1966. I know that she wrote and illustrated another 13 books but her first book was the one she really enjoyed writing. It was reprinted in about 2009 with an updated text by Peter Goldblatt in a series done by Kirstenbosch. From 1962 to 1990 was the era of the botanical expeditions where cars were piled high with equipment went all over the Eastern Cape collecting samples for her books. In 1985 she wrote a beautiful book called Flowers of Southern Africa where she pencilled in the habitat in the background of the plates. A winner of numerous gold awards both locally and internationally she was considered to be in the top three botanical artists worldwide. She was a very approachable humble woman who would give tips to junior artists.”

Auriol Batten: Dierama Pendulum Krom River 5th August 1982 at 66% zoom

“Unfortunately, she suffered a slight stroke and one can see errors when magnifying her plates of freesias which were the last set of illustrations she painted. She had an exhibition in 2012 at the Anne Bryant Gallery in East London which was packed and showed many pictures and ceramics that she created over 74 years. She died on 3 June 2015 surrounded by her family.”

Auriol Batten: Dierama Pendulum Krom River 5th August 1982 at 100% zoom

A recent global report has shown that while both Kenya and South Africa are shown to be “progressing” in terms of the assessment of the websites of some of their top heritage institutions, both countries are lagging behind severely in comparison to other nations when it comes to digitisation and making their digital archives accessible and even more surprisingly South Africa is lagging behind Kenya in this regard.

The report, entitled A New Age of Culture, provides a fascinating insight into the progress in digitisation and the adoption of digital technologies by cultural heritage institutions across the World and the disparities evident between various countries. Commissioned by Google and created by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the 2017 report on global trends in digital engagement by cultural heritage institutions in 22 countries around the World featured two African countries, Kenya and South Africa. The report assessed 243 institutions across four groups (museums, archives, performing arts institutions and heritage sites) in each of the 22 countries on 45 indicators to produce a Cultural Digitisation Scorecard. The 45 indicators were grouped into five categories that assessed:

• Website evaluation
• Social media presence
• Interactive experience by users
• Digital access to archives
• Digital educational initiatives

Both Kenya and South Africa had 11 leading institutions assessed. The assessment included both qualitative and quantitative measures. In addition to the scorecard, the EIU surveyed 2,200 “consumers” of culture across the 22 countries and conducted 25 in-depth interviews with professionals in the heritage sector to understand their experience with digitisation in these nations.

I had the privilege of being one of the 25 interviewed. The interviews did not affect the country score but provided commentary and case studies for the final report. Africa Media Online’s Heritage Digital Campus was drawn on as one of the case studies (page 34 of the White Paper).

Below are Kenya and South Africa’s position out of 22 in each category as well as the percentile in which they fell. A score was given out of 100 in each category. If the country fell into the 71-100 range, they were considered Advanced. If they fell into the 51-70 range, then they were considered Progressing and if into the 31-50 range, as Emerging. And finally, if they fell into the 0-30 range, they were considered as no more than Nascent.

While most nations assessed were found to have a Progressing or Advanced website evaluation, and Kenya and South Africa did not disappoint in this area, Kenya was found to be Nascent in four of the five categories, which is cause for concern. South Africa was found to be strong in the Digital Educational Initiatives category, where 15 of the 22 nations fell into the Nascent range and South Africa fell into the Emerging range.

South Africa’s real weakness, however, was in the Digital Access to Archives. This area is assessed in four sub-categories:

1. the digitisation of archives
2. the accessibility of digital repositories
3. the quality of content and
4. the preservation of archives

In three important measures here, South Africa trails Kenya. In terms of the digitisation of archives, South Africa is in 18th position to Kenya’s 17th. In the accessibility of digital repositories, South Africa comes in in 21st place to Kenya’s 20th. And in quality of content, South Africa is once again in 21st position and Kenya 20th. The only measure where South Africa is doing better than Kenya in terms of the “Digital Access to Archives” is in terms of the preservation of archives where it is very much better, coming in 8th position overall to Kenya’s 22nd position.

So South Africa is good at keeping its archives, but not at taking the measures required to give access to them. For the most advanced economy on the African continent and one of the most democratic, that is a real indictment and one that surely needs speedy correction. Kenya, on the other hand, needs to work hard on both digitisation and engaging the technologies required to present its digital collections to its people and to interested users from all over the World.

View A New Age of Culture: The Digitisation of Arts and Heritage Around the World online summary and download the White Paper.

The Digitise Africa Trust is looking to recruit retired teachers, historians, archivists, journalists, librarians, archaeologists, museologists and other researchers to join our growing community of volunteer metadata capturers.

Africa has rich heritage resources that showcase its history and culture. These are spread throughout our continent in memory institutions such as libraries, museums and archives and in the hands of private collectors. Digitisation is a wonderful way of making the wealth of these collections available to an African and global audience. Capturing the collections in digital form, however, is only half of what is needed to really make them available. If they are to be useful to researchers, students, scholars and other users, they have to be findable. And that is where we need your help!

Metadata for Africa is a community of skilled people who are passionate about contributing to Africans telling Africa’s story – enabling the best of African historical, cultural and natural collections to get to an African and global audience. We are looking for people who believe in enabling the African story to be heard from an African perspective. So much of Africa’s story is told by those outside of Africa. We are contributing to changing that, to making primary material about our history, culture and natural resources available to the World. We do this by adding information to digital files such as photographs, audio, video and manuscripts – information that can be used to search for and find these digital files. For instance, we might add a caption to a photograph, that explains what is in the photograph and we may add keywords that highlight the main subject matter of the photograph. Often there is some information associated with the files and we are able to bring order to that information. At other times we need to do some research to add useful information to the file. Mostly we do this from the comfort of our own home, working on our own computers with an internet connection.

So if you have a broad general knowledge and the ability to research and have a passion to contribute some of the wealth of what you have gained over the years towards making Africa’s primary memory resources available for current and future generations, please let us know by signing up here. Some of our projects have sponsors and so work is paid for. One such project that we are currently busy with is the ANC Archives Metadata Project for which we need a large team of enthusiastic and skilled people. If you are interested or you know anyone who would be, please sign up or contact us.