South African Studies is the title given to this collection of 11 databases all relating to South Africa. This vast resource, stored on one CD‐ROM, allows the user to interrogate these databases using one search interface. The databases, which vary in size, type and quality, are:
Index to South African Periodicals (1987‐present) from the South African State Library ‐ 159,000 records covering 440 periodicals.
South African National Bibliography (1988‐present) from the South African State Library ‐ 55,000 records in the 11 official languages of the Republic.
Select Index to South African Literature in English ‐ Critical Writings from the National English Literary Museum ‐ 11,745 records: articles, books, bibliographies and book reviews.
Select Index to South African Literature in English ‐ Creative Writings from the National English Literary Museum ‐ 36,000 records: poems, plays, essays and short stories.
NELM Main Catalogue from the National English Literary Museum ‐ 11,000 records: bibliographic series of famous South African authors;
NELM Manuscript Holdings ‐ 9,400 records including literary manuscripts, letters and recorded interviews.
Literary Awards from National English Literary Museum ‐ 286 records: contests, prizes, winners and rules.
Investors’ Guide (database creator not indicated) ‐ 640 records of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Knipkat from the Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkundige Museum en Navorsitigsentrum (NALN) ‐ 13,000 records: books, play, poetry, manuscripts and sheet music relating to Afrikaans culture.
Index to South African Theses and Dissertations from the University of Potchefstroom early 1900s to present ‐ 58,000 records.
Witwatersrand University Management Research Reports (1970 to present) Wits Library of Management ‐ 1,800 records.
To access this varied and large amount of information, a reliable searching facility is needed. There are three modes of search: novice, advanced and expert. The novice approach is rather crude and indeed would seem superfluous. The advanced is suited best to browsing and the expert search is sufficiently powerful, employing full Boolean logic with truncation commands. The search screen is well designed, listing commands and options in easily accessible formats.
The idea of appending databases of different types is fine in theory ‐ in practice it proves rather tricky. While it has to be said the result is generally successful there are some problems with the search facility. The nature and diversity of the information mean that there is no subject index. There is a basic keyword index that searches title, abstract, key terms, literary award and manuscript fields. Twenty‐eight fields from the 11 databases form the basis for 29 (one index of 11 databases) searchable indexes. However, this is not a foolproof method of imposing a uniform search criterion. For example, a record in the Literary Awards database erroneously has in its language field a set of information from the award winners field. This is a relatively small mistake; however it is compounded because the language index, automatically derived from the language field, now includes languages such as “best supporting actress”, “Jimmy” and “cinematography”.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. Indeed, there are many variations in the standard of data entry. For instance, in the Theses and Dissertations database the “degree” field has generated these six different terms: clin, clin psyc, clin psych, clinical, clinical psychology and clinpsych. Not only is there a lack of consistency, but the level of award is not deemed to be relevant. The argument that the keyword index in this case highlights data input errors may hold some water; however, it is surely not acceptable to perpetuate these errors. To produce a product such as this, more than just technological skill is needed; a genuine interest and knowledge of the content are required. The user has an immense body of knowledge on a country whose recent social and political developments have been of great interest. With a little labour, it would be possible to iron out the problems with the index terms. This CD‐ROM is unique in bringing together useful resources and as such will gain favour despite the shortcomings of the search facility. Data integrity, in an era of determined digitization is an issue to which readers will need no introduction.
