Faith-based collections at African Enterprise: a case study of the Michael Cassidy collection.

Abstract

This study investigated the management of African Enterprise's (AE) faith-based collections and Michael Cassidy's (MC) personal papers. It explored the scarcity of literature on faith-based organisations as well as looked into challenges experienced by AE in managing and preserving its collections. It tackled issues of privacy, copyright, and ethical issues in private papers. The collection of data was conducted through semi-structured interviews and was analysed inductively. Moreover, this study revealed that the AE building is not suitable for the preservation of archival materials. The National Archives et al (2010) recommended then that repositories of faith-based collections should ensure that personal papers survive from other religious traditions where individuals do keep material of a personal nature without there being any obvious long-term homes for them. It is therefore incumbent as noted by Choi and Nilson (2019), that archivists and religious leaders should develop strategies on how to preserve these hidden and endangered materials and make them accessible when needed. As AE does not have standard systems in place to effectively manage archival collections, it therefore found AE to not have a system guarding the privacy, legal, and ethical matters that affect access to and use of Cassidy's personal papers. There are no resources in existence to guide the identification of sensitive materials. It also revealed his wish to have his private papers to be housed at AE. In addition, this study then made recommendations for a purpose-built archive building and the development of policies. It also advocated for further research on faith-based collections to contribute to scholarship.