Archives serve as society's collective memory in so far as they provide evidence of the past and promote accountability and transparency of past actions. An appreciation of archives would then result in citizens linking archival records with their identity, history, civic duty and cultural heritage. However, research in Eastern and Southern Africa indicates that most citizens are unaware of archives and rarely use them. Apart from financial constraints, this is often associated with inadequate outreach programs. Taking archives to the people (promoting archives) is one way of making citizens aware of archival holdings and facilitating access and use of these resources. Through the application of three research techniques, this article shows that, although the number of archival users in this region is declining, public programming initiatives were not prioritised. Reasons for this included lack of policies; shortage of staff; lack of skills; reluctance to rope in technology in public programming initiatives; working in silos; and budgetary constraints. This article recommends a framework that may help archivists in the Eastern and Southern Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives region to raise awareness about public archival repositories, despite the existing challenges.

Public programming initiatives are considered an integral part of archival operations across the world because they support a greater use of archival records. In South Africa, public archival institutions are mandated in terms of section 5(1)(c) of the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (Act No. 43 of 1996) (NARSSA Act) to reach out to the less privileged sectors of society, including children, by making known information concerning records by means such as publications, exhibitions and lending of records. As a result, public archives repositories in South Africa have designed programmes to take archives to school learners for the purpose of creating future users and expanding the use of archival sources. Despite efforts to take archives to the people in South Africa, it would seem that public programming methods that repositories use at schools are not effective in creating awareness and promoting public archives to attract school learners. This qualitative study utilised semi-structured interviews and observation as data collection tools to investigate schools as conduits for taking public archives to learners in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The key findings suggest that the public archives repositories in Gauteng do not use technology, particularly social media, to market their services to school learners. The main method of taking archives to learners is through invitations and participation in the annual archives week, which do not yield any positive results, as learners do not visit the archives afterwards. It is recommended that public archives repositories in Gauteng should consider using school learners who participated in the previous archives week as ambassadors to further recommend the use of archives to potential users and their peers. Furthermore, collaboration between archivists and teachers from neighbouring schools should be considered by including school projects that involve the use of “archives’’. In this regard, the repositories should be able to provide access to such learners. The study concludes that failure to adopt social media platforms to market archives would result in school learners not using archives.

Tackling inequalities in society remains a serious challenge for post-apartheid South Africa. This battle calls for a multifaceted approach that involves various stakeholders including community libraries. Community libraries are internationally recognised as social institutions that can effect social and economic transformation in society. In South Africa, this is clearly manifested by the provision of a conditional government grant for the development of community libraries in the country. The Department of Arts and Culture started this project in 2007. Despite this recognition for community libraries, their role in tackling inequalities in society is not always clear. Findings from the literature and reports from the Department of Arts and Culture suggest that community libraries are playing an important role in curbing inequalities. This article also attempts to report on the progress of the Department of Arts and Culture’s conditional grant community library project. Though there has been some progress in the project but challenges still exist and more effort and support are required. It is vital that community library services be developed and sustained as these libraries can have a positive influence on the development of society.

The National Archives are an important part of South African society because they serve as memory institutions. Fulfilling this mandate requires archivists to encourage societal engagement with the archives. This article sought to examine the role of an archivist’s knowledge and skills in promoting public archival institutions. Therefore, the perceptions and experiences of the directors of the National Archives, archivists who work at the National Archives and Executive Board members from the East and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA) were explored. This was achieved through administering questionnaires to all the directors of the National Archives in the ESARBICA region, and conducting interviews with archivists from this region as well as ESARBICA Executive Board members. The intention was to identify whether archivists from the National Archives in the ESARBICA region thought that they have the relevant skills to conduct public programming initiatives; if public programming was part of the core archival curricula in the region; and furthermore, to determine the availability and awareness of public programming training and education in the region. The study provides an overview of public programming, together with a better understanding of the significance of archivists’ skills and knowledge regarding public programming in the mission of encouraging greater use of archives.

Archives serve as society's collective memory because they provide evidence of the past as well as promoting accountability and transparency of past actions. Appreciation of the archives should therefore result in citizens linking these records with their identity, history, civic duty and cultural heritage. However, research in east and southern Africa seems to indicate that very few citizens are aware of and use the archives. Social media platforms have been utilized to raise awareness about the archival institutions elsewhere. This study sought to find out whether the National Archives in east and southern Africa used social media to raise awareness about archives. The study involved 12 national archives affiliated to the East and Southern Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA) using a multi-method research strategy. The findings indicated that social media platforms were not a preferred option in outreach strategies, even though they were recognized as useful means to reach online information seekers.