SABC Media Library's best 5 tweets this month

Twitter Ads are compiling interesting Analytics with regards Timeline Activity, and this is our "Best" tweets this past month.

Best Tweets of SABCMediaLib

1. Our Video Biography via Vizify got marked as a favourite:

SABC Media Libraries Twitter Bio video via Vizify: Just made a movie of my twitter: https://t.co/e4aghsjeTy Le... http://t.co/jq6PWKmYLp
— SABC Media Library (@SABCMediaLib) June 18, 2013

2. Our daily newspaper about Knowledge Management and Knowledge Café got marked as favourite
    The Daily Knowledge Café:

The Daily Knowledge Cafe is out! http://t.co/vVgZPHMN8y
— SABC Media Library (@SABCMediaLib) June 16, 2013

3.  The blog post about The Use of Vine in Libraries and Archives also got marked as a favourite:

The use of Vine in libraries and archives: Vine is a mobile app that is available on iOS and Android. It recor... http://t.co/bn7G2AXBs2
— SABC Media Library (@SABCMediaLib) June 11, 2013

4. Another The Daily Knowledge Café got 2 Retweets.

The Daily Knowledge Cafe is out! http://t.co/vVgZPHMN8y ▸ Top stories today via @IamDdanz @coveo @LoulouVance
— SABC Media Library (@SABCMediaLib) June 11, 2013

5. The daily SABCMediaLib.li about libraries and archives got marked as favourite:

SABCMediaLib.li is out! http://t.co/ycfSzfBZ9s ▸ Top stories today via @sdeeble @EllysEyeland @SuiteBrigitte
— SABC Media Library (@SABCMediaLib) June 11, 2013

To get to these analytics, it is necessary to sign in at Twitter Ads, and to set the account to Advanced under Billing History.

It is not necessary to set up any campaigns to get the Analytics.


Blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives.

Knowledge Café newspaper publishing daily - created by SABC Media Libraries

The SABC Media Libraries' newspaper focusing on Knowledge Cafés and Knowledge Management, The Daily Knowledge Café, is a good way to get the most recent information available in social media.

Paper.li generates the newspaper automatically on a daily basis.

 As we are having an upcoming Knowledge Café by the guru himself, David Gurteen, this is one of the ways to update us again about the topic.

Please tell us what your thoughts are about the newspaper? Should the topics be more broader than knowledge café and knowledge management?


Blog post by Karen du Toit, Archivist, SABC Radio Archives


Related posts:

- David Gurteen Knowledge Cafe - background reading in preparation

- Paper.li, a great tool for link building, content curation and social networking

Paper.li - a great tool for link building, content curation and social networking

Today's SABCMediaLib.li

Paper.li is a curation tool that publishes daily on-line newspapers automatically generated by predetermined keywords and hashtags from Twitter and Facebook, as well as from RSS feeds.

The SABC Media Libraries started their own newspaper SABCMediaLib.li a month ago.
The results are very positive:

• After a month Paper.li is already the biggest referring URL for our blog.
• As referring site it comes third after Google.com and Google.co.za.
• We have gotten a lot of RTs and mentions on Twitter because of the Twitter update every day on the SABC Media Libraries twitter account: SABCMediaLib
• The online newspaper has brought a daily stream of recent events, thoughts and content in the arena of libraries and archives (keywords and hashtags that were selected) that would have gone by unnoticed.
• We are connecting with thought leaders in their fields of expertise by following and retweeting some of the valuable content.
• It does not acquire any effort on our part after it has been set up. The set-up takes about 20 minutes. From there it is only an editorial function required when unsuitable content is displayed. In this month it has only happened once that I had to delete three "adult content" articles from the paper. 

I have seen some dissenting views about paper.li, but I find the content to be extremely valuable with regards a certain niche topic. If you consider that it is an automatic process, it makes it all the more commendable. 

The most important factor seems to be the initial five selection criteria. They are the most important to ensure good quality content making its way to the newspaper. When you are not happy with the content being generated, you can also go and change your criteria. The next update of the newspaper will generate the new selection criteria results. 

We have a Knowledge Café #LibCafe upcoming in two weeks' time, and for that purpose we have started another Paper.li newspaper. The topic covers Knowledge Management and Knowledge Cafés.

The Daily Knowledge Café 

What are your thoughts on Paper.li?

Blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives.

Interview with the Librarian at the SABC Newspaper Cutting Section

Themba Mtshali
SABC Newspaper Cutting Section

This is an interview as part of a series of blog posts to gain a better understanding of the SABC Media Libraries and what we do in the different sections that we belong to.

The interview this week is with Themba Mtshali, the Information Librarian who works in the Newspaper Cutting Section of the SABC Information Library.

This section has a collection of 3200 000 newspaper articles. The following newspapers are ordered for this section: Beeld, Sowetan, Business Day, Star, Citizen, Mail and Guardian, Rapport, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Sunday World and the City Press. Every day articles are scanned in on the Newbase System and then electronically get cut, pasted and indexed.

Themba, please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Information Library)

Answer: My name is Themba Mtshali. I was born in Soweto. I studied and passed my matric in KZN during the 1976 unrest. In 1981 I joined Standard Bank and worked as a Clerk. After that I worked at a NGO Company in Braamfontein as project coordinator for 5 years. In 1995 I joined the SABC as Desk Help Officer for late Dr Ivy Matsepe Cassaburi’s office. In 1996 I joined the SABC Media Libraries at the Cutting Service Section.

Please tell us about a normal day in your office. What newspaper articles do you give priority to?

Answer: My normal day in office starts with fetching newspapers from the security office at ground floor in the morning. I look through the papers for SABC articles to be scanned first and start scanning other newspapers thereafter. We give priority to current affairs news mostly form politics, sport, health etc. I also give attention to information requests that come to our office and cut, paste and index sports articles.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve in the library.

Answer: Our collection consists of newspaper articles that are scanned as well as newspaper articles that were cut and pasted and filed into files before we got the digital system. The focus is mostly on politics of the past and present government; SABC collections from when the SABC was established to present date. The newspaper collection is very vast and varied in its scope.

Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

Answer: Not much, but when we do have problems with our system server, we have BIT to assist us.

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting information, please share it with us.

Answer: As I am a sports fan, particularly soccer fan, I would like to preserve the history of soccer in South Africa.

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.

Answer: The job keeps me well informed about what’s happening around me.

Related posts:
Interview with the Librarian at the SABC Information Library: Newspaper Cutting Section
Interview with the Information Librarian at the SABC Information Library

Questions and post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives.

Interview with the Librarian at the SABC Information Library: Newspaper Cutting Section

Thelma Hlapolosa
SABC Information Library

This is an interview as part of a series of blog posts to gain a better understanding of the SABC Media Libraries and what we do in the different sections that we belong to.

The interview this time is with Thelma Hlapolosa, the Information Librarian who works in the Newspaper Cutting Section of the SABC Information Library.

This section has a collection of 3200 000 newspaper articles. The following newspapers are ordered for this section: Beeld, Sowetan, Business Day, Star, Citizen, Mail and Guardian, Rapport, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Sunday World and the City Press. Every day articles are scanned in on the Newbase System and then electronically get cut, pasted and indexed.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Information Library)

Answer: My name is Nonhlanhla Thelma Hlapolosa, a mother of three. I grew up in Soweto (Mzimhlophe to be specific). I am currently studying Human Resource Management through UNISA. I did not have any experience when I started here in the SABC. I was fresh from school with my Matric and employed as a temp.  (That was 1994). I was employed as a library assistant. Then my contract was extended from six months to a year from a year to permanent post in May 1995.

Please tell us about a normal day in your office. What newspaper articles do you give priority to?

Answer: My normal day starts on my way to work with news post on the road of headlines from different newspapers. By the time I am in the office I already know what the requests are going to be, from scandals of celebrities to politics and sports and current affairs. Newspapers are scanned by Themba Mtshali. Then we select what we view as important topics. Information requests from clients come by email, telephone or otherwise (internally/externally). Data cleansing is done while indexing. We search information on Sabinet, Newbase, Media24 and other search engines; export articles to the intranet; monitor the Newbase server; update topic list on the system and administrate and correct minor mistakes done during indexing and scanning processes.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve in the library.

Answer: The cutting section has a backlog of manual files of about a million articles (not currently scanned or indexed on Newbase). The Newbase system has a backlog from 2006 to date. Last year we managed to put all TRC collection on the system. However, the Mandela collection and the ANC, SABC and Elections collections still need to be scanned and indexed.

Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

Answer: Some days we do experience technical difficulties, the server would just act up and we need to reboot our system, wait for BIT to assist us but we manage. It needs to be said that we have a good system (Newbase).

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting information, please share it with us.

Answer: I can say all the collections, especially articles from the files. However I came across the ANC and NNP files and there is a lot that needs to be preserved. If it were up to me I would say every file in cutting service should be scanned and indexed immediately.

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.

Answer: The satisfaction on the faces of all our clients and learning the history of the country on a daily basis is fascinating!



Related post:
Interview with the Information Librarian at the SABC Information Library

Questions and blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives

Interview with the Information Librarian at the SABC Information Library

Abel Thulare
SABC Information Librarian

The SABC Media Libraries consists of five sections, the SABC Information Library, the SABC Radio Archives, the SABC Record Library, the SABC Music Library and Audio Restoration. This is part of a series of posts of interviews to gain a better understanding of the work that we do. We work in silos and are not always aware what our colleagues are doing on a daily basis.

The interview is with Abel Thulare, an Information Librarian who works in the Newspaper Cutting Section of the SABC Information Library. He works very close with SABC Television and Radio journalists and producers in ensuring that they get the most up-to-date information about any requested topic that they are working on.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Information Library)

Born in a small town called Sabie, in Mpumalanga Province. I moved to Tembisa at the age of two.  After completing my matric I studied B.Bibl. at the university of Pretoria which I completed (Former Rand Afrikaans University) now known as University of Johannesburg. I conducted my in-service training at the Kempton Park Public Library in 1998. In 2000 I worked as a Professional Library Assistant at St John’s College Library. I then went on to further my studies at Havatech-Pretoria where I studied IT (Programming) which I found very exciting & challenging. In 2002 I worked as a Junior Librarian at Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA). In 2004 I moved to the Council on Higher Education where I managed the Resource Centre. Between 2007 & 2008 I worked for two different companies Spar North Rand (Dry Goods Receiver/Checker) and ABI Midrand (Supervisor). I then moved to the SABC in June 2008 and to tell the truth I’m here to stay!

Well-well-well! I’m a good cook, baker and mechanic.

Please tell us about a normal day in your office. What material do you give priority to?

Scanning SABC Radio Bulletins dating back as far as the mid 1950’s.

Electronic cutting and pasting of current newspapers for preservation.

Providing efficient information to internal & external stakeholders as fast as lightning.

I sometimes man the book & magazine section if my colleagues are not around.

I try by all means to keep a balance of my chores.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.

The Newspaper Cutting Section in the SABC Information Library has a collection of 3 200 000 newspaper articles. The following newspapers are ordered for this section: Beeld, Sowetan, Business Day, Star, Citizen, Mail and Guardian, Rapport, Sunday Times, Sunday Independent, Sunday World and the City Press. Every day articles are scanned in on the Newbase System and then electronically cut, pasted and indexed.

We select the articles which are newsworthy, broadcast related or important to keep for our heritage.

Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

Of course yes! First of all it’s our email. I always use more of it to send information requests to internal & external stake holders.

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting information, please share it with us.

“We will make sure the men in blue end up in orange if they commit crime” Gen Bheki Cele. That’s a good one for me.

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.

It keeps me busy and up to date with what is happening around us.



Questions and blog post by Karen du Toit, Afrikaans Archivist in the SABC Radio Archives

Newbase software for press monitoring services

The Newbase system is a software that conducts inhouse internet and press monitoring services.

The Newbase system helps us import, capture, assess, archive, research and output media information in the form of print, Internet articles, e-clips and PDF.

The newspaper articles can be accessed on the Newbase web and also directly from the Cutting Services in the SABC Information Library.

Abel Thulare, Newspaper Cutting Section, Information Library