National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System NAAIRS (National Archives of South Africa)

Overview

The National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS) is South Africa's primary online finding aid for archival materials held by the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA) and affiliated provincial and institutional repositories. NAAIRS does not contain the actual texts of documents, but rather serves as an integrated catalogue enabling researchers to identify and locate archival records across the country.

History and Development

NAAIRS was established in 1974 by the then-National Archives of South Africa, making South Africa a world leader in archival automation at the time. The system was mandated under the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act (No. 43 of 1996 as amended), which requires all provincial archives services to participate. By the time the Act was promulgated, NAAIRS had grown to contain over six million records. The database selection interface known as the NASA Database Selection, hosted at national.archsrch.gov.za, allows users to search across multiple archival databases simultaneously. As of recent counts, NAAIRS contains over 8.3 million entries covering public records and private (non-public) collections held by repositories throughout South Africa, with approximately 250,000 new records added each year.

Collections and Holdings

Each record in NAAIRS refers to an individual archival unit such as a correspondence file, photograph, audio-visual item, or collection group. Holdings include records of all spheres of South African government, private papers (manuscripts), photographs, and audio-visual material. The system is searchable by creator, subject, date range, and repository, and includes a National Register of Manuscripts (NAREM) in which each record refers to a collection or group of papers rather than individual items.

Access and Usage

NAAIRS is freely accessible online and does not require registration for searching. Users who identify relevant material through NAAIRS must subsequently arrange to visit the holding repository or request copies where available. Enquiries about the use of NAAIRS may be directed by email. NARSSA is in the process of migrating records to an updated database while maintaining parallel access to both the old and new systems during the transition period.