ESAT is not an archival facility

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Please note: ESAT is not an archival facility, it cannot accept and permanently archive any materials on the arts.

Despite the fact that the term ESAT Archives is used in the entries on occasion, this is done simply to refer to any material being used in writing the item. In this case the term refers to a transient facility for storing materials that have been lent to or donated to the ESAT team for processing (at this point mostly the studies and garages of participating researchers!). However, once processed and the data uploaded, the material is forwarded as a donation to one of the existing cultural archives and libraries, wherever seems appropriate.

The term "temporary" is significant here, since ESAT is a digital encyclopaedia, i.e. a database of processed information, not an archive of written and/or published material - digital or otherwise. In view of this, the project does not consciously solicit and/or collect physical materials on the various art forms, nor can it accept donations except on loan in order to write up the date. ESAT quite simply does not have the physical capacity to store and preserve such artefacts and documents.

However, given the immense concerns of, and actual problems faced by, collectors and researcher with the preservation of valuable materials on the arts in South Africa, the ESAT the project leader and the team members are constantly in consultation with various projects seeking to set up archival facilities (physical and/or digital). Prominent in seeking our such facilities have been former senior librarian Miriam Terblanche and researcher and film-maker Amber Fox-Martin, who - along with the rest of the team - have been commissioned to put together a comprehensive set of entries on such facilities over the course of 2023-4, to write up as a separate section of the encyclopaedia.