International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives Internationale Vereinigung der Schall- und audiovisuellen Archive Association Internationale d' Archives Sonores et Audiovisuelles Asociacion Internacional de Archivos 1- Contents c_" __ " ___ -==--='."' ==-'~]- Editorial 2 President's Letter 4 Articles 6 Latvia:The Current Status of Archive and Library Digitisation Andris Vilks, Director of the National Library of Latvia 06 How to Steer an Archive through Neoliberal Waters. .. Questions of Financial Sustainability Exemplified by the Osterreichische Mediathek Rainer Hubert, Osterreichischer Mediathek, Austria 28 A New Species of Sound Archive? Adapting to Survive and Prosper Simon Rooks, Multi-Media Archivist, British Broadcasting Corporation, UK 33 Who Jailed Audio? Richard Green, IASA President, Ottawa, Canada 40 Integrating Av Archival Materials into the Curriculum: The Cave Hill Experience Elizabeth F. Watson Learning Resource Centre Bridgetown, Barbados 45 Recordings in Context:The Place of Ethnomusicology Archives in the 21 st centrury janet Topp-Fargion, British Library, UK 62 Towards Integrated Archives: The Dismarc Project Pekka Gronow, YLE Radio Archives, YleisRadio, Finland 66 VideoActive - Creating Access to Europe's Television Heritage johan Oome, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Alexander Hecht, Osterreichischer Rundfunk, Austria and Vassilis Tzouvaras, National Technical University af Athens, Greece 71 Janus Attitude How should a national audiovisual archive handle both past and future? Isabelle Giannattasio, Departement de I'Audiovisuel, Bibliotheque nationa/e de France 78 Preservation of Lithuanian Audiovisual Heritage: Digitisation Initiatives juozas Markauskas, Head: Digitisation Department, DIZI, Lithuania 81 Audiovisual Collection in the Occupation Museum of Latvia Lelde Neimane, Museum of Occupation, Riga, Latvia 86 Tribute 89 Manifestazione 80 anni Carlo Marinelli - 24 November 2007 Giorgina Gilardi, IRTEM, Italy 89 ERRATUM IASA Journal No. 29 Ouly 2007): The author of the Review, West Indian Rhythm. Trinidad Calypsos on World and Local Events Featuring the Censored Recordings - 1938-1940, George Brock­ Nannestad, wishes to state that the review refers to ... Some of the songs are frightening in their comment on the general political situation that Jamaica was on the fringe of ..... "; it should read Trinidad, CI>-- ~- . -,- -------- , -~--,-,--------.- --. ,.---- iasa Journal no30 - January 2008 Editorial - ----~ Digital migration has opened doors to exciting initiatives that never existed before: we can stream audio & audiovisual material as part of service delivery and information sharing to introduce our archive content; websites offer a new platform to introduce our collections to the world; and, in addition, we are able to reach more people and create an even bigger awareness of the value of our collections and content by utilising the growing range of New Media, including mobile phones. Despite the exiting opportunities, it is important to understand that digital migration or transfer of our collections is no longer optional - it has become essential, and in some instances urgent. It would be wrong to assume it is only analogue formats that are impacted on by obsolescence. Recent digital formats such as the minidisk are no longer manufactured and as such, minidisk collections have become critical to preserve. The convergence of broadcast media and computer technologies also impact critically on preservation strategies, and the ever-increasing range of distribution channels and platforms allows for interactive possibilities that never existed before. In addition, the production, distribution and maintenance of new content are becoming less expensive, whereas our analogue collections are becoming extremely costly to maintain. The analogue collections also make access complicated, tedious and time-consuming. Until now our workflows were linear as the asset lifecycle was influenced by the fact that content was stored on a physical carrier.The result was the development of a linear, sequential life cycle with processes supported by separate "stand alone" systems. Distribution of content was thus based on a "push" model with archiving as an "end of pipe" process. But with the digital revolution, new opportunities sprang to life which impacted on this lifecycle: the asset lifecycle will increasingly rely on computer-based systems with the advantage of existing content that may be re-purposed, re-formatted and re-packaged to enhance new productions or to save costs by rebroadcasts. For us to maintain the edge in the midst of these new opportunities, we will have to look at new means of organising, retrieving and selecting content worth keeping, and providing easy access to that content. The future lifecycle model that will meet archival requirements places media assets (formerly the archive) at the centre of a non-sequential lifecycle. For us, as archivists, it means that content can be made available, anytime, anywhere, in any format. Broadcast business processes and workflows will be developed around a central repository with content distribution being based on "push and pull" models. Media Asset Management will move to the core of the cycle, replacing traditional archiving. We have entered an exciting phase in managing assets - the new archiving. We need to embrace these opportunities to save our collections and need to respond enthusiastically to the changing broadcast environment. We need to overcome the inefficiency of analogue and already obsolete digital content management. The recent IASA Annual Conference that was held in Riga, Latvia focused on Building an Archive for the Future. Various digitisation projects were discussed. It is interesting to see how various archives tackle the challenge. But it is not only the analogue environment that is changing. We are being forced to become financially independent, as Rainer Hubert writes in his article How to Steer an Archive through Neoliberal Waters ... 'Now things look entirely different, the new approach being that cultural institutions are Qysiness enterprises like all others'. His tongue-in-the-cheek look at the changing environment poses serious questions which we have to face in order to survive. Richard Green, our president, recently delivered a paper at the British Library seminar 'Unlocking Audio' and counters with his paper 'Who jailed ----- ---------------{D iasa Journal no30 - January 2008 audio?' He warns that if we resist the changes we may be in danger of being left behind, or perhaps being left out and uses their The Virtual Gramophone project where they were able to make some of the National Library of Canada's 78rpm disc collection available through the Web. Thought the project was successful, political noises were ignored. And so Richard warns that sound archives need to redefine their 'turf and set out to protect and project it within their institutions and to the world at large. On the other hand, Simon Rooks takes a cheerful and optimistic look at the changes that took place at the BBC and how the archive took a bold step in making its catalogue public. The development of projects such as VideoActiv web sites offering online video material from various European archives have managed to become extremely popular.The Video Active Portal will provide access to broadcasting heritage material from archives across Europe. Exciting times, exciting changes. We need to take advantage of the changes and we need to ride the wave, as Rainer Hubert put it. And speaking of waves. Next year's conference in Australia promises to ride the biggest wave ever with the conference theme No Archive is an Island and the venue in Sydney. For more information visit the iasa website (~.iasa-web.org) . ----------- --------.~~~- ----- - - -- -(3)---- - ------ -~-- iasa Journal no30 - January 2008 ~j President's Letter [ Time goes by quickly. As I write, winter is coming to Canada, with the first hint of snow in the air. This September's conference, co-hosted with our colleagues from the Baltic Audiovisual Archives Council and hosted by Latvian Television, seems like a long time ago but the memories of it are lasting. Building an Archive for the Future was the theme and it provided a wide range of papers, provoked stimulating discussion, and gave us an opportunity to meet, socialise, and charge our batteries for another year. Thanks to all who made the conference such a great success. Each conference gives your Executive Board a chance to get together, gather feedback from members, and set the direction for the next year. Topics that came up include: • Our translation process, the decision being that we now have good procedures in place and that no changes need to be made • The possibility of IASA creating an executive director or office manager position. The decision was that such a position, while nice, was not necessary at this point but that interested members with time on their hands could approach the Board about special projects. One such offer came from the recently retired Albrecht Hafner. Albrecht will be assisting IASA by monitoring the European Digital Library process and helping raise awareness of AV issues at the 2008 ICA conference, where two of the sessions will be dedicated to sound and moving image. Thanks to Albrecht for his kind assistance • A new edition ofTC-04 was discussed and the Board has set aside money to publish it in 2008. Simultaneous editions in French, German and Spanish were also discussed • The Board