Botswana - Sweden
Introduction
In 2005 three partners set up a project for capacity building for public broadcasting in Botswana:
- Botswana Department of Broadcasting Services (DBS, a department of the Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology)
- Swedish Media Development Office (MDO)
- Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
The Botswana partner was the owner of the project, which ran for three years and included several activities. In charge of the activity were MDO Coordinator Per Helgesson, in cooperation with the management at Botswana Television (BTV) and Ms Eva-Lis Green (consultant from Swedish Television). For the specific activity discussed here, which related to the archive, Ms Eva-Lis Green had Ms Tryphina Kwgadi (head of Archives, and employed by the National Library) as the major contact person.
The project, ‘Capacity building for a public service broadcaster’, covered several different areas that BTV wanted to have included, and the scope was defined by the management at BTV and the project leaders. One of the activities focused on developing media asset management at Botswana Television and strengthening the role of the television archive. The objective was to come to a systematic approach for managing media assets. This involved making an inventory of needs and use of archive materials at BTV and exploring how the current work processes could be streamlined. These were steps towards a plan for a system for digital archiving of TV footage.
To find out which criteria such a system should meet, the consultant organized meetings and training sessions in December 2005 and December 2006. These were meant to help define needs and take steps towards the implementation of a new system and new workflows. The information and ideas generated through these meetings were the building blocks for a plan on which staff of BTV continued to work in the following period. Several concrete improvements in the work processes were made in the meantime. These are not part of the system itself, but prepare the way for the final goal: a fully implemented digital archiving system that will make it possible to consult television materials on line.
Due to changes in management, the project slowed down in 2008 and in the end it was not prolonged.
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Training activities
The training activities took place on consecutive days for 4 to 6 days (three different groups). The groups were small and the setting informal. The training was set up so that participants were invited to describe and analyse their own work processes and organization, in order to identify areas for improvement. The consultant’s primary role was to structure and facilitate the discussion so that a complete picture would emerge. It had been discussed and agreed beforehand that the main purpose of the training was to come to a definition of the media asset management system. Ideally such a system is the backbone of the whole broadcasting organization, but these training sessions concentrated on the archive and its relationships with other departments.
The consultant also provided practical advice and background information on general topics selected during the preparation phase. This involved transfer of basic knowledge on audiovisual archiving and materials. These explanations as well as the hands-on training sessions were always closely related to issues that the participants brought up. The consultant’s experience at Swedish Television was used to clarify particular approaches, but the aim was not to teach a model used by another organization. It was more a matter of exploring together how methods and tools that are employed in one situation (SVT) could be used in another (BTV).
As main problem areas were identified:
- incomplete descriptions of archived materials, due to lack of procedures and a system to pass on information from one department to another
- absence of cataloguing system and rules in the archive
- suboptimal storage of materials on tape (no climate control)
Problem analysis helped to make clear where change could be brought about and who was in a position to do so. For the archive staff, there is no point concentrating on solving the problem with climate control, as the decision to install this or not was up to the management. Organizational change can be promoted, but not brought about by an archivist single-handedly, it requires cooperation of others and takes time. To come to grips with the situation in the archive, it helps to determine what you can do yourself, without being dependent on the help of others, so that you can indeed take action and achieve quick results.
An example of an issue that could be improved immediately was labelling of tape boxes (and the tapes). Devising a system for this that enables one to see particular information at a glance (e.g. distinguishing between in-house productions and licensed materials by using colours on the labels) is a low-cost solution that improves efficiency. It is expected that it will take considerable time before the content on existing tapes is converted to digital format. When an electronic information system is introduced, it will first of all be used for keeping track of programmes, footage, rights etc, and for storing new productions perhaps. So the tapes will be used for quite some time and a handy labelling system will not become superfluous with the introduction of the information system.
Similarly, matters relating to cataloguing, keywording, use of controlled terminology, thesaurus etc need to be sorted out by the archive staff in any case and are elements in the design of an information system. Experience with cataloguing was limited to library materials and in the training sessions a lot of time was spent on describing visual materials. This was done by looking at examples, working together on descriptions of actual materials at BTV, and studying thesauri and keywords. This showed that existing lists could not be used just like that: a system of keywords for television materials should fit the sociocultural context like a glove, and discussions of existing systems revealed that these do not reflect the realities of Botswana society. So they were used as a basis for a custom-built keywording system.
In the training sessions on cataloguing the need to pass on information from production and acquisition to the archive surfaced in a pronounced way. Especially because the archive is partly a responsibility of the National Library, there was a tendency not to see it as integral part of the BTV organization. This is not exceptional, for often in broadcasting organizations the role of the archive for production is underestimated as it tends to be regarded as an end station for materials that are no longer used. Such a situation affects communications with other departments: they are not aware of requirements of the archive or neglect them.
Ample attention was therefore given to involving others, both those in management positions and those at the production side. In the second year one of the training activities was developed specifically for BTV management. Both years staff from production attended some meetings and visits to other departments were included in the training programme.
Assignments with different groups helped everybody see the dependencies between the different parts of the organization. By asking individuals to list the people or departments they were working with and those they relied on for information, it became clear that the organization is a tightly-knit structure of lines going back and forth. This process showed that procedures for communication and sharing information would have to be established to make the introduction of a media asset management system successful.
If information about transmissions that is available in the production department is not transferred to the archive -whether on paper or through a database system- the materials cannot be properly catalogued and retrieved. The introduction of automated systems will in itself will not solve this problem if awareness of the need to share information is low. By looking at the whole information chain it became clear how important it is to keep information from earlier stages for easy retrieval of footage at some point in the future. The archive could obviously function more efficiently and effectively if it had the information at its disposal that is generated at the acquisition or production stage.
Talking about these processes with various groups at BTV clarified the position of the archive in the organization. It also offered an opportunity to emphasize its potential as a wonderful resource for new programmes, provided that materials were well described and easily accessible.
The training necessarily switched between different levels. The participants represented a very broad spectrum of broadcasting knowledge. The divergence in specialisms was very helpful for the initial inventories and drawing up the specifications of the information system. Some participants had academic training but none had training or experience with audiovisual archiving. Hence the discussions could be at a high level of expertise one moment, and turn to the very basics of audiovisual archiving the next. None of the participants had a real overview of all aspects involved. This is why assignments that looked at the workflow as a whole were important to help people see how the pieces fit together.
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Observations
Good preparation by all those involved definitely contributed a lot to the success of the training activities. The training activities were planned well in advance and discussed with partners in Botswana by email. The consultant was briefed by colleagues with first-hand knowledge of Botswana who also produced their own ‘Botswana handbook’ with lots of information considered useful for someone from Sweden.
Yet, in both years, in spite of extensive contacts beforehand, the training activities could not take place exactly as agreed. Participants had other duties to attend to and could not always be present. In cooperation projects like these flexibility is of the essence and any plan should be robust enough to accommodate last-minute changes.
The scope of the training had been defined beforehand, and this proved to be very important: there were many different things that came up and could have caused the group to wander off in all directions. The consultant had the role of facilitator and also of expert on audiovisual archiving, but the programme for the training was developed together with BTV.
Part of the success of the training lies in the combination of different goals. There were both practical short-term goals -like labelling of tapes- , longer terms plans for the information system, and awareness-raising in the organization, with the expectation that this would have an immediate effect on the functioning of the archive.
Long-term commitment makes it possible to define a goal at some point in the future and start working towards it in small steps. Small improvements were not presented in isolation, but as leading up to larger changes, which is more motivating. It was a pity that the consultant could not go back one or two more times to help keep this process of gradual change going.
The training activities could only scratch the surface and made abundantly clear that there is some way to go before a media asset management system can be fully implemented. There is IT expertise, but those who would have to work with the system lack experience with audiovisual archiving and basic computer skills (Word, Excel). The lack of experience with computerized systems also makes it hard to fully grasp the potential and functionality of an extensive information management system.
The commitment and enthusiasm of the staff made the project a success. It achieved very concrete results in that in response to the needs expressed during the training the management created two more positions in the archive. With the extra staff the archive can now be developed further.
The situation at BTV is favourable for cooperation projects with colleagues from North-West Europe. Botswana is a modern African country, Botswana society is open and democratic, with the usual red tape but no paralysing bureaucracy. Governance of BTV is straight from the Ministry but its independence is recognized and by and large it functions as any small broadcasting company, with some resources to invest in equipment or software. The national language is English, BTV staff are well educated and knowledgeable in their specialist field, and do not hesitate to formulate their own views, which facilitates communication. They have access to internet and email and information on the web.
The differences with North-West Europe are huge, in terms of climate, economic activity, standard of living, and the crippling presence of HIV/Aids. If the politics, the hierarchy and decision processes are mystifying to a visitor from abroad, the hospitality and relaxed way of going about things are a healthy change for those coming from a work environment obsessed with businesslike efficiency. Doing things differently in no way implies a lack of ambition, as the principles of BTV show: ‘with all our advantages of investment, the latest technology and skills, we must not be satisfied until we have created the best television service in Africa, that is admired by the rest of the world.’ It is the spirit that makes it possible to overcome obstacles and move ahead: ‘The mood of the country is upbeat, confident and forward-looking. That should be the tone of the Channel’ (BTV website, Guiding principles ).
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