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were involved in the digitization project belonged to technical and information services, even though they had been part of the digitization project for a long period) equipped with staff who have experience in the digitization processes and understand the procedures.
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the study were somehow involved in the digitization project and therefore eligible for inclusion according to the selection criteria that were used, as indicated in Chapter 3, sections 3.3.7 and 3.3.8.
Regardless of the fact that most of the respondents were directly or indirectly involved in the digitization project, there were different responses concerning whether or not the library has a digitization section. Most of them, from both the questionnaire and interview responses, said that the library has a dedicated digitization section, even though most from the interview responses indicated that there are people seconded to work in the digitization, not as a department per se, and that there are proposed plans for a digitization section in the future. There was, however, a that small percentage from both groups that indicated that there was no dedicated digitization department. These contradicting responses were confusing and of concern, more especially coming from the Digitization Committee members and library management. One would expect at least a uniform response from this group, rather than completely contradicting responses, as one believes that that is where management and digitization related planning and decisions were made, then spread and discussed with other staff members, particularly those involved in the project. From these contradicting responses, the researcher is of the opinion that not much liaison was happening with regards to the digitization project, for staff members to know whether or not they have a digitization section, or to understand the organization of the digitization project.
By implication, the researcher assumes that respondents were aware of the poor communication, planning and control of the digitization process. This was gathered from their responses when they were asked how having a dedicated digitization department helps to improve digitization processes. Those who responded indicated that having a dedicated department would help improve on communication, planning and control of the processes.
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The two theories, Communication and Conversation theories, guiding this study refer to the exchange of information between at least two people and further indicate that individuals, organizations and even societies build knowledge through conversation;
specifically, by interacting and building commonly held agreements.
Lack of communication within the digitization project was further revealed by the responses in relation to the concerns they have regarding the digitization progress with other departments within the library and with other campuses within the university. As indicated in Chapter 2, under Communication Theory in relation to this study, section 2.2.1.1, Levy and Marshall (1995:77) pointed out that dialogue engagement is the most crucial element in a library digitization project. The issue of no communication and proper planning were raised as some of the concerns which affected the digitization processes, both in the different libraries and on the five campuses. These concerns relate to duplicate scanning of theses and workflow, due to lack of teamwork and transportation of theses and dissertations from one campus to another because there were no clear communication lines as to who to refer issues to whenever there were queries.
The fact that most respondents felt positive about a dedicated digitization section (department) having a great impact on improving digitization process makes one believe that a lot of issues, such as better control and planning that were identified or pointed out throughout the questioning, would improve. The assumption is that, with the existence of a fully-fledged digitization department, the digitization processes of theses and dissertations would have been completed within the period that was stipulated, or would have been completely finished not far from the indicated deadline of two years. This is supported by the number of hours spent by each of these respondents at a time. Time spent obviously indicates that respondents from other sections spend less time in the project, as they have other responsibilities to attend to, than those who are in the digitization section.
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The respondents were asked to indicate what functions they perform in the digitization project. Looking at their responsibilities and considering the overlapping of functions, the results showed that, out of the 20 responses from the questionnaires, four selected theses and dissertations to be digitized, three prepared them for digitization, two scanned theses and dissertations, 16 submit or upload the theses to the database, six create metadata, five archived the theses and dissertations, one did not explain what he or she did, and three carried out quality control.
Based on these results, the researcher was of the view that the digitization project had uneven and unclear distribution of some tasks, especially taking into account that the respondents working on the project are mainly from other sections. It is assumed that if roles were distributed evenly, there would have been better output on the digitization processes instead of having one or two people with more responsibilities than others, and yet the project seemed to be an additional workload for all of them, except for the two based in the digitization section.
The results of the study show that there was much overlapping and imbalance of roles for the UKZN digitization project, whereby some staff had to either upload, archive, do quality control or perform more than one of the digitization roles, in addition to their daily duties as subject or metadata librarians. The Library Digitization Committee was aware of this issue as a concern, as it was recorded in the minutes of the Institutional Repository meeting, held on 23 November 2011, that “there is an imbalance in terms of the number of submitters and archivers”. This needed to be addressed as it resulted in delays when it came to the archiving process (UKZN Library Institutional Repository Committee Meeting, 2011).