The ecstatic Prof Mpho Ngoepe posing alongside his Life Time Achiever Award

The College of Human Sciences is celebrating an achievement by its School of Arts Director, Prof Mpho Ngoepe, who was awarded a Lifetime Achiever Award by the South African Society of Archivists (SASA).

Due to apathy and difficulty getting members to administer the society actively, SASA saw a steady decline between 2003 and 2008. Finally, in 2008, a conference at Unisa elected a steering committee to resuscitate the organisation. Ngoepe was one of the members of the steering committee. At the time, executive members who were in the twilight of their careers delegated most of the work to him. "I was a jack of all trades in the society, to the extent that some members saw SASA as a Unisa project, with me as the face of the project," says Ngoepe.

At some stage, Ngoepe thought the organisation would become dormant again, but he remained pragmatic. Over the years, he successfully organised the South African Society of Archivists' annual conference. He also renewed the SA Archives Journal and renamed it the Journal of SASA in 2011. As a result, the former Chair of the Department of Information Sciences was able to get it accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training in 2018. To date, it is the only one out of 18 library and information science journals to be accorded one star by African Journals Online and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).

Moreover, Ngoepe has consistently conducted research across the archives and records management field as well as on oral history, auditing and cooperative governance over the past 20 years, with a record of over 100 refereed journal articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. In addition, Ngoepe recently published a book entitled Managing digital records in Africa with a reputable publisher Taylor & Francis. The book emanates from the international research project he led as Team Africa's director for the International Project on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) (2013-2018). The InterPARES Trust was coordinated by the University of British Columbia in Canada and funded through a five-year Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; and comprised seven teams, namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia and Transnational teams.

Through the InterPARES project, Ngoepe and co-investigators conducted research on the education of archivists, culminating in the compilation of a directory for institutions of higher learning offering archival studies in 38 African countries as well as in curriculum development at universities. This research formed the basis of a dialogue for archival educators in Africa. In 2016, he was invited by the International Council on Archives (ICA) to report on archival education in Africa at the congress held in Seoul, South Korea. As a result, he was designated by ICA to convene a meeting for archival educators on the African continent. This also helped in the implementation of the ICA's strategy for Africa, especially with regard to education. The results of the InterPARES project were relevant to the African setting and geared towards the empowerment of archival repositories, with practitioners involved in this project which produced action-oriented outcomes.

In 2007, Ngoepe was recognised by the South African Human Rights Commission and Open Democracy Advice Centre for implementing access to information legislation at the Auditor-General of South Africa. In the process, the Auditor-General of South Africa won the award for best institution to implement access to information legislation.

Owing to his research, commitment to and influence on the archival profession, Ngoepe was, on three occasions (2014, 2015 and 2022), invited by the student chapter of the Canadian Society of Archivists at the University of British Columbia to present at their symposium. He was also invited as a guest speaker to deliver an Archival Landscape talk in a virtual seminar series of the International Archival Affairs Section of the Society of American Archivists. In each Archival Landscape seminar, an international guest speaker introduces participants to the issues and advancements in their local context, describing the history, operating environment and unique aspects of archival practice in their country. Recently, the Information Studies department at Queens College, City University of New York, invited him to serve on its Advisory Board to support reimagining their department and curriculum.

Ngoepe also served as the inaugural chairperson of the Gauteng Archives Council (2016-2020), advising the MEC of Sports, Arts and Culture on issues relating to archives in the Gauteng Province. In addition, he served on the National Archives Advisory Council until 2020 as the Gauteng Archives Council chairperson. 

Ngoepe was not the only Unisan who scooped an award at this ceremony. Associate Professor in the Department of Information Sciences, Ngoako Marutha, also walked away with a SASA Leadership Award.

#TheWinningSchoolofArtsTeam

* By Tebogo Mahlaela, Communication and Marketing Specialist, College of Human Sciences