Browsing by Author "Namhila, Ellen N."
Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Archives of Anti-Colonial Resistance and the Liberation Struggle (AACRLS): An integrated programme to fill the colonial gaps in the archival record of Namibia(University of Namibia, 2015) Namhila, Ellen N.National archives inherited from former colonial regimes suffer from a distorted record that marginalised the colonised people, and ignored or misrepresented their efforts for self-determination. The Archives was further depleted by the removal of vitally important records to the colonizing metropolis. As a result, the value of the archives as the memory of the entire nation is diminished. The article describes the efforts by the National Archives of Namibia to rectify this situation through a programme of repatriating or copying migrated, displaced and shared archives, collecting private records and oral history, and popularizing the history of anti-colonial struggles. It concludes that despite considerable successes, the task at hand is far from accomplished and needs further sustained effort.Item Content and use of colonial archives: An under-researched issue(Springer, 2014) Namhila, Ellen N.Namibians often find themselves in situations of litigation where they need person-related records to defend their rights and privileges. Such personrelated records include birth, adoption, marriage, or divorce or deceased estates. It has been observed that the institution where such records should be expected, the National Archives of Namibia often cannot retrieve person-related records of persons previously classified as non-whites under colonial and apartheid laws. Many native Namibians end up losing property or have problems claiming their constitutional rights due to lack of evidence. The purpose of this paper was to explore whether the existing archival literature can guide National Archives of new and emerging African nations on how to handle challenges brought about by gaps in inherited colonial archives. Using a literature survey to explore the state of what is written on the content and usage of colonial archives in post-colonial era, this article argues that the content and use of colonial archives in Africa do not feature prominently in the literature of archival science. Although there has been a rising interest on the subject during the last decade, none of this emerging literature has systematically studied archives in depth with a view on what these archives contain for the non-academic user, what they neglect and what they lack altogether in serving the needs of all citizens in post-colonial states. It recommends that archival scholars as well as archival institutions increase research into this neglected area. Raising awareness may produce academic discourse to help archivists in newly decolonised countries to competently support users whose inquiries currently cannot be answered by the inherited colonial archives collections.Item Evidence-based librarianship as a method(Tampere University Press, 2012) Iivonen, Mirja; Namhila, Ellen N.University libraries are challenged to demonstrate the impact of their services and collections on the scientific communities they serve. They are expected to improve their performance despite limited budgets and uncertainty. For this purpose they need methods. We argue that evidence-based librarianship (EBL) can offer simultaneously both a practical and a research-based approach to the development of library practice and services. EBL is a process where the best available evidence is combined with the insights derived from working experience, moderated by user needs and preferences, and integrated into decision-making. (Booth 2006b; Eldredge 2006.) The concept of EBL was first introduced in 1997 by Jonathan Eldredge. The roots of evidence-based practice are in medical science. The term ”evidence-based medicine” was used for the first time in 1991. (Bailey & McKibbon 2006.) As early as in 2000 Eldredge demonstrated how the characteristics of both evidence-based medicine (EBM) and evidence-based health care (EBHC) can be adapted to health science libraries (Eldredge 2000). Nowadays EBL has spread to all library sectors. The first Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference was organized in Sheffield, United Kingdom in 2001. Thereafter EBL conferences have taken place every second year, the most recent in 2011 in Salford, Greater Manchester United Kingdom (see http://www.eblip6. salford.ac.uk/). The journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/index) has been published since 2006 and has included articles from all library sectors including university, public, school and special libraries. As Ryan (2012, 5) states: “EBLIP is one area where librarians from every sector can work together, sharing a common interest in evidence based professional practice.” Although EBL as a concept is quite new, university libraries have based their activities on very similar methods for years and have also compiled research-based evidence to support their decision-making. However, they have not communicated and shared this endeavour very well. Probably this inability to communicate has led to the misunderstanding and suspicions that libraries do not use researchbased evidence in their decision-making. For example, Neal (2006, 1) argues: “It is imperative that academic librarians and higher education libraries develop and carry out systematic research and development program.” He continues: “Other organizations in the not-for-profit sector, including libraries have not advanced an R&D capacity or commitment. This needs to change.” Of course there are various barriers facing EBL in everyday life in the libraries but there are also various means to overcome them (Booth 2011). In this chapter we use four case studies to demonstrate how university libraries in two quite different countries have compiled and used solid evidence to support their decision-making. Two case studies (1 and 3) from Finland were designed and carried out as EBL case studies. Two others (2 and 4) are everyday life examples from Namibia. Although these cases were not started as EBL processes, they can also show how reliable and valid evidence was needed and used in the decision-making in the library. In addition, they can also be analysed and described by following EBL principles.Item Improving human resource capacity: International partnership of University Libraries(Tampere University Press, 2012) Namhila, Ellen N.; Sinikara, Kaisa; Iivonen, MirjaItem Recordkeeping and missing "Native Estate" records in Namibia: An investigation of colonial gaps in a post-colonial National Archive(2015) Namhila, Ellen N.This dissertation explores the practical challenges experienced in user services of the post-colonial National Archives of Namibia (NAN) and the systemic trajectory of their origin. It is motivated by the observation of anecdotal evidence that many requests by Black Namibians for civic records such as divorce orders, adoption records, and estate records from the period of colonial and apartheid rule in Namibia cannot be served by the NAN despite intensive time -consuming searches, while similar requests by White Namibians can be served without problems within minutes. Further rationale originated in the observation that, while there is a substantial body of literature about the problems of archives in decolonized countries, this literature is primarily concerned with issues of current records management, maintenance, preservation, staff training, and occasionally the problem of migrated or entangled archives, while it rarely addresses the issue why and how the colonial situation affected the content and accessibility of the archives concerning the colonized persons. This study employs a historical case study design, taking an in-depth exploration of the colonizers’ records at the National Archives of the decolonized Namibia, using deceased estate records of Black Namibians (or “Native estates” in contemporary parlance) as a case study. It explores the colonial legal framework for the creation and management of the estate records, the actual Native estate files in custody of the NAN, as well as the finding aids, archives databases and the own administrative files of the NAN. It explores the relationship between the historical legal environment, the creation, management, disposal, listing, appraisal, destruction, archiving, indexing and metadata enhancement of the Native estates records over the colonial period, between1884 to 1990, and their alleged absence from the NAN. The study discovered a large but erratic corpus of 11,256 Native estate case files which had been assumed destroyed or lost, but also established substantial gaps in the holdings of Native estate records. Only few of those gaps could be explained by documented destructions, but the study traces the causes for the loss of substantial records to racially discriminatory legislation, a confusing and haphazard legislative and regulatory framework for Native estates, and an all -pervasive apart heid ideology that also affected the appraisal and the creation of discovery tools at the Archives. The dissertation concludes with a programme to “decolonize the archives”, recommending to unlock the full potential of the previously hidden “Native” records, not only by recording and indexing them in discovery tools but also by enhancing search options to alleviate the search problems caused by unstandardized name spellings and non -Western naming and kinship systems.It is anticipated that this study will raise awareness about similar gaps, stir debate and lead to further research about archival deficiencies with other types of person-related records, in Namibia as well as in other decolonised nations, in order to establish how far their national archival records are responsive to the needs of all citizens.Item Strong local archives/ library content: A mirror of society(University of Namibia, 2015) Namhila, Ellen N.Africa continues to be depicted in literature as a marginal contributor to world’s knowledge, “silent”, “voiceless”, yet the continent is host to rare and irreplaceable precolonial manuscripts in its Libraries and Archives. The National Archives of Namibia (NAN) houses remarkable and original handwritten work with high cultural, historical and genealogical research value, written before the formal colonization of the country. These manuscripts and records are largely unknown and under-researched and this perpetuates the knowledge gap in the existing scholarly work that contributes to shaping what is known about Namibia and its people. This paper describes pre-colonial writing in Namibia. It urges scholars to utilize these pre-colonial documents, records and manuscripts as valuable research resources for cultural, genealogy and local history.Item Transforming the traumatic life experiences of women in post-apartheid Namibian historical narratives(University of Namibia Press, 2015) Namhila, Ellen N.This chapter is based on the experience of interviewing five women, and writing and publishing their stories in a book with the title Tears of Courage: Five Mothers, Five Stories, One Victory.1 That book was published with the financial support of the Archives of Anti-Colonial Resistance and the Liberation Struggle (AACRLS) Project. The project was jointly funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the Republic of Namibia and administered under the auspices of the National Archives of Namibia. Published in 2009, the book brought out for the first time the hidden and untold sufferings of ordinary village women’s experiences at the hands of the apartheid military, police and prison guards, during the formative years of the liberation struggle. Namibian women played a pivotal role in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid as they fed, clothed, nursed, and acted as a shield for the freedom fighters. The women whose stories are in the book were all arrested by the apartheid police. One was beaten until she had a miscarriage, another imprisoned in Pretoria where she had to give birth in jail, another had her house destroyed and burnt to the ground and her husband killed, another was beaten and tortured when the police could not find her brother (who was on the police’s list of wanted persons), and the last was sentenced to a jail term in Pretoria along with her two brothers. In the epilogue of the book, John Otto Nankudhu, Commander of Omugulugwoombashe, SWAPO’s first military camp inside Namibia, which was attacked by the South African military in August 1966, stated: ‘It is gratifying to see the story of these women written down. They carry a history of our country we cannot afford to lose. I know some of these women very well because it was mainly due to them that we survived in northern Namibia and escaped arrest from the apartheid authority for a long time.’ As Beth Goldblatt and Sheila Meintjies argue, ‘Our society constantly diminishes the women’s role and women themselves then see their experiences as unimportant’ (1996).Item University Libraries in the arena of scholarly communication(Tampere University Press, 2012) Forsman, Maria; Iivonen, Mirja; Namhila, Ellen N.