Applying Batho Pele principles in South African public archives – Do public programming initiatives count?

Archival records exist for the benefit of society; therefore, people are at the very centre of the purpose of keeping archives. The South African government developed the Batho Pele principles to embrace them as a charter for public service to ensure a reliable and customer-oriented public service. Archival institutions such as the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa and the provincial archives are not exempted from this responsibility. These repositories form a part of the South African Public Service and play a crucial role in promoting the preservation and access to significant records that have enduring value. The National Archives and Records Service of South Africa and the provincial archives are responsible for preserving public and non-public records and promoting them to the public. In this quantitative study, an online survey completed by 20 archivists from these repositories helped establish whether archivists from the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa and the provincial archives utilised public programming initiatives to fulfil the Batho Pele principles. The analysed data indicated that the public archival institutions struggle to conduct public programming initiatives, and their limited efforts were not effective. This implies that most of these repositories did not consider public programming initiatives as tools to implement the Batho Pele principles. The study recommends that South African public archival institutions take advantage of the ‘window of opportunity’ presented by the Batho Pele principles to strengthen their outreach strategies to improve archival service quality.

Public libraries and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

As motors of change driving development, public libraries, with their commitment to information provision and access, are crucial to the realization of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This article contributes to emerging Library and Information Science scholarship on the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by arguing for the central roles played by public libraries in realizing its goals. The purpose is twofold. First, it overviews the agenda’s history coupled with the start of a literature review of the Library and Information Science research on it. Second, it presents a conceptual framework in which to approach the agenda’s goals and associated targets within the context of public libraries. The ultimate aim is to establish a base for and expand awareness of the UN 2030 Agenda within the Library and Information Science discipline, in addition to promoting the importance of public libraries in advancing sustainable development efforts generally and the agenda specifically.