Contemporary diplomatics of the civil and deceased estate case files found at the national archives of Zimbabwe

Published date16 March 2015
Pages107-120
Date16 March 2015
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-03-2014-0019
AuthorSindiso Bhebhe
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information management & governance
Contemporary diplomatics of the
civil and deceased estate case
les found at the national
archives of Zimbabwe
Sindiso Bhebhe
National Archives of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to discuss how the originality, authenticity, reliability and genuineness of
legal records found at the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ) are maintained. Provenance issues and
their implications in diplomatics are also discussed. It notes that the status quo at the NAZ favours the
diplomatic archiving of paper records, while electronic records are neglected.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative research approach. The data will
mainly be collected using document analysis augmented by observations from the NAZ. Literature in
regard to the Court Legal system of Zimbabwe will be reviewed and this even includes newspaper
articles. Academic research papers on the archiving of electronic records in the less developed nations
and developed nations will be reviewed also.
Findings The qualitative research approach revealed that the electronic national heritage of
Zimbabwe is being lost mainly due to the archaic legislation which is silent on the management of
electronic records. The results show again the violation of the sanctity of provenance principles in some
selected cases. It was also found that the government is now producing both paper and electronic
records, but the National Archives is only archiving paper records, the result of this being the
incompleteness of records, thereby negatively affecting their diplomatics.
Originality/value – Whereas a lot has been published about the management of electronic records in
the developing world, this paper does not try to duplicate that but tries to bring a new dimension into
this by showing how the diplomatics of these records is affected.
Keywords Archives management, Digital storage
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Records integrity and authenticity are very important in the archival world. Sproull and
Eisenberg (2005, p. 59) stated that an archive is vitally concerned with the authenticity
and integrity of its holdings. The integrity of records, which involves their reliability
and authenticity, makes them trustworthy and this gives them evidential weight in legal
proceedings. Hirtle (1992) described archives as having a:
[…] long tradition of producing authentic copies that is copies that have not been subject to
manipulation, substitution, or falsication after the completion of the process that created the
original record.
That is the essence of archives and up to this day and time, the archival institutions
strive to be the custodians of trustworthy documents. According to Miller (2001,p.1),
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-5698.htm
Contemporary
diplomatics
107
Received 27 March 2014
Revised 21 August 2014
Accepted 3 November 2014
RecordsManagement Journal
Vol.25 No. 1, 2015
pp.107-120
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-5698
DOI 10.1108/RMJ-03-2014-0019

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