Reprographic and Digital Services at the National Library of South Africa: an overview

Abstract

An overview will be given of reprographic and digital services at the NLSA. Digitisation activities included the DISA Southern African Freedom Struggles 1950-1994 project, the UNESCO Memory of the World project and the World Digital Library. Research covered digitisation in Africa as well as a review of South African policy making with reference to the preservation of digital collections. Scanning services include ad hoc reprography and digital photography on request to library users. Policy development and the NLSA's digitisation vision is based on existing legislation and the draft National Policy for the Digitization of Heritage Resources as prepared by the Department of Arts and Culture. Future plans include the digitisation of historical newspapers representing the early years of the Black Press in South Africa. Proposed systems infrastructure (storage and preservation) will be explained.