How to navigate SAJM Archives

Browse by:

The browse by links on the left of the home page.
“Collections”: click to all the collections containing various photographs, documents and films available in the archive.
“People and Organisations”: Discover the people and organisations who feature in the archive.
“Places”: Find geographical locations featured in the various collections
"Digital objects": Return results of all digital objects

Where to begin your search:

At the top of the home page you will find the search field. Here you can search names, places, subjects and dates.
In order to retrieve the most from the search function please use all synonyms you can think of e.g. town or city or shtetl, try alternative spellings and spacings, e.g Barmitzvah/Bar Mitzvah.
Please note that in order to access a collection from the top level, i.e. to view the whole collection you will need to add the word 'collection' following a name, so for example if you wish to see the full set of Mendel Kaplan images and film, please put 'Mendel Kaplan Collection' into the search bar.
In order to refine your search please make use of the advanced search option. This you will find once you click through the search box.

Advanced Search Options:

Here you will find the “Find results with” function. The button “Add new criteria” allows you to employ AND/OR/NOT in order to create a narrower search. For example, if you search Bar Mitzvah AND Cape Town, you will retrieve all results of Bar Mitzvahs that have taken place in Cape Town. The OR option allows you to search alternative spellings and synonyms, for example Bar Mitzvah OR Barmitzvah and yarmulke OR kippah.

Here you may also search to refine fields using “Filter results by”. For example, if you would like to search through the types of items in the archive, you may click the “General material designation” drop down to find photographic material/textual material/video material.

If you would like to look at the different hierarchical levels in the collections, you may click the “level of description” drop down.

You may also wish to limit your date searches in the “Filter by date range” option. For example, if you would like to find all items with the date range of 1950-1960, you would search here.

Viewing film clips:

In order to view film clips you will need to install and enable Adobe Flash Player, please follow this link for instructions https://helpx.adobe.com/africa/flash-player.html
You may notice the text "Download Video" when you first view a film clip, please note that this does not mean a film clip will be downloaded, this is the text Atom uses to view a film a clip.