The Weekly Archivist interview: Sport Archivist

The SABC Radio Archivists specializes in specific areas of expertise with regards the audio collections being kept in the Archives. This is part of a series of weekly interviews where I am posing the same questions to each of the Archivists. The SABC Radio Archives is part of the SABC Media Libraries in the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The Archivist answering the questions this week is Johann Greyling. He is the Sport Archivist.
He has been with the Radio Archives for 15 years, and he is the Team Leader as well as the Database Manager for the Cataloguing team in the SABC Radio Archives.

1.       Johann, please tell us about where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Radio Archives.  
  

I grew up in the Eastern Cape, in a small town, Alexandria. From the Eastern Cape I migrated to the Boland for my high school years at the Pioneer School in Worcester. From there I found my way to UJ, then known as RAU, where I completed my B.Comm. degree in Sports Management. I joined the Radio Archives straight from varsity on 01/12/1995. I at least moved office once since then...

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

Well, I come in, check my mail, then go for coffee, then check my mail again, then morning tea... LOL!
No, what I try to do is prioritize all sport commentary. All matches broadcasted by the SABC. The three main stream sports normally take centre stage. After that I comb through all the sport magazine programs scavenging for interesting and valuable audio. Radio Services I look after includes Radio 2000, RSG, SAFM and Metro FM.
I also keep an eye on the Radio Archives database, NDM (Natural Document Management) to ensure quality cataloguing and I look after the control fields, cataloguing standards etc.

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

All our collections are basically divided into two groups, a backlog and a permanent collection. The backlog is usually sorted only by service, program and date. Not fully accessible.
After we've appraised and evaluated the content, processed and catalogued it, it moves to the permanent collection. Here it stays for ever and ever and ever...
Like I previously mentioned, commentary is prioritized. Where any of our national teams are involved we keep everything, With regards the local competitions we might decide to only keep semi-finals and/or finals as the situation demands. I also keep an eye open for any audio on our 'lesser/smaller' sports as well; it is so easy to forget the non-main stream sports.

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

Fortunately I enjoy the technical part of our work a lot. Being blind I do sometimes need the assistance of my fellow archivists and they are great! Never complaining... to me anyway... Thanks very much all of you!

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

This is difficult. I'd rather make mention of legendary commentators I have the privilege to listen to on a daily basis: rugby commentary by Gerhard Viviers (Spiekeries) and Heinrich Marnitz, cricket commentary by Gerald de Kock and Neil Manthorp and soccer commentary by Kevin Evans and Mogamad Allie.

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

I never enjoyed history at school but now it is amazing being able to actively contribute to our audio history and heritage. I truly believe what we are doing is writing our history in audio.

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

Related post: The Weekly Archivist Interview: Channel Africa collection

Archiving 2010

As the SABC Radio Archives Sport Archivist in Johannesburg I have the responsibility to look after all English and Afrikaans radio sport programming after the fact.

With the 2010 FIFA World Cup happening and Radio 2000, SAFM and RSG broadcasting all the matches live, as it happened, it brought a few challenges.

1. Recordings of all the matches had to be made;
2. it had to be available almost immediately after each match and so,
3. real time recordings were not an option.

For the recordings we used a program called Netlog, which log the entire broadcast of a Radio Service for 24 hours. To isolate each soccer match we used a scheduling function. So, immediately after a match the audio, according to a predetermined schedule, was downloaded onto a hard drive. All journalists and producers who needed it, was given 'read only' access to these audio files through mapping to their PC's to a 'shared folder' on the SABC U drive. Strict access control applied.

This meant that any sport journalist, commentator or producer could have access to the entire match within minutes of the final whistle.

All audio files were saved with clear and accessible file names to avoid any confusion.

Most of the matches ended 'after' normal working hours and having an archivist on duty 24-7 was not an option. Using the above approach all commentary was available on-line almost without any human intervention at the time of the match.

Up to this time a match was just available on a file name. Proper metadata still needed to be added to ensure maximum accessibility.

This happened first thing every morning. Each match was catalogued in full onto NDM 'Natural Document Management,' the Radio Archives Database.

A duplicate double CD (1st and 2nd half) copy of each match was also burned, both in English and Afrikaans.

Using this method all matches, in two languages, was available on the Radio Archives database, on CD and on a shared drive shortly after the end of each broadcast.

This assisted largely with the editing of highlights and the production of special programming during and shortly after the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

No backlog from the World Cup exists and the focus immediately could be shifted onto the other national and international sports in and around South Africa and its sports teams and individuals e.g. the Springbok rugby team playing in the 2010 Vodacom Tri-Nations and Louis Oosthuizen winning the 2010 British Open Golf Tournament at St. Andrews.

A few interesting figures:

In total 113 broadcasts was catalogued with an average of 1:45:00 per match.

- Johann Greyling, Archivist: Sport, SABC Radio Archives

Soccer in the SABC Radio Archives

The audio material on soccer within the SABC Radio Archives dates back to the 40’s. We have commentary and interviews from South Africa’s 1947 soccer tour to Australia. The Springboks, as the South African national soccer team was known then, won all the tests on that tour. The audio quality is not good at all but the historical significance outweighs the quality issues by far.

One of the most interesting interviews is with the former South African soccer player, Steve Kalamazoo Mokone. This interview was done by the RSG soccer commentator, Johann Russouw. Mokone was the first black South African soccer player to play for an international soccer club in the late 1950’s.

Those who can still remember the Castle Cup can also listen to the 1964 final between Durban City and the Jewish Guild.

These days the Radio Archives soccer collection has grown a lot and matches are broadcast each weekend. Every match that is broadcast by the SABC is available in the Radio Archives collection shortly after broadcast.

All 64 of the 2010 FIFA World Cup matches will be broadcast by Radio 2000 and most of the PBS Radio Services, and Radio Archives will be preserving each and everyone.

Johann Greyling, SABC Radio Archives