Save your Archive: Rivonia trials soon available online
Since 2013, FIAT/IFTA member INA collaborates with the National Archives of South Africa (NARSSA) to digitise the audio recordings of the 1963-1964 Rivonia Trial in which the leaders of the anti-Apartheid movement were condemned to life-long imprisonment. The recordings of the trial were made on more than 50.000 so-called Dictabelts, grooved plastic foil rolls applied to a dictation device particularly popular in the fifties. The digitisation process of a first sample of 550 carriers was thoroughly encouraged and supported from the beginning by FIAT/IFTA’s Save Your Archive programme, thus stressing the importance of the preservation of this unique audiovisual heritage collection. At the end of November, the South African National Archives acquired the digital file versions of the recordings of the Rivonia Trial in their collection, to make them available for the South African audience. More information about the background and history of this project is available on the NARSSA website and in this clip.