April 12, 2020 Andrea Leigh ______

Taking a New Perspective While Flattening the Curve

Today is Easter Sunday and, like most of you, I am at home in community isolation doing my part to flatten the curve to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. In my home state of Virginia, we are under a stay at home directive until June 10. Individuals are permitted to leave their homes for allowable travel, including to seek medical attention, work, care for family or household members, go out for groceries and prescriptions, and get outside for exercise as long as social distancing requirements are followed.

As an avid movie and theater aficionado, I’ve been taking more time watching online, as I’m sure most of you are doing. Along with getting caught up into the murder, mayhem, and madness that is Netflix’s Tiger King, my binge watching this weekend centered fittingly on watching not one, but two staged iterations of the rock opera arena spectacle Jesus Christ Superstar and then catching the 1971 version directed by Norman Jewison. I followed that up with a crowd-pleasing Zoom sing-along of one of the songs from the show “Hosanna” with graduates from both staged versions underpinned by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber playing piano at his home. I shared the Zoom sing-a- long on my Facebook feed where it became evident I was not alone in my Superstar obsession.

At the Library of Congress National Audio Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) where I work as a supervisor, all staff have been on telework for a month now with no clear end in sight. The first two weeks were particularly stressful as supervisors were suddenly tasked with finding meaningful work for staff to do that did not require handling fragile film, video and audio collections and access to specialized equipment. Some of our staff already had formal telework agreements in place and it was easy enough to extend their ongoing telework assignments. It became more of a challenge for those who were not immediately telework ready or capable, particularly staff in our film, audio, and video labs or staff without Internet connectivity at home. Still, there were manuals to review, standard operation procedures to write, and online crowdsourcing transcription projects. Other staff were assigned data entry and catalog

remediation projects, editing video on Final Cut Pro, and involved in preparation work for processing both analog and digital collections. Queries from researchers and the public continue to be answered online, essential meetings continue on WebEx or Skype, online training classes are being taken, and blog posts written. I give credit, praise, and gratitude to the professionalism, flexibility, and patience of NAVCC staff in adapting quickly to this abrupt turn in events. A positive outcome of telework is that more staff have become available to prepare files and metadata for the National Screening Room, a free online video collection capturing a broad range of American life, which got a boost recently in the New York Times in an article by Manohla Dargis on April 3. The work staff are doing now will result in more content online in the near future.

Beyond the Library of Congress, I think of colleagues and archives across the country and globally who are under the same type of stay-at-home directives due to the novel coronavirus. I am both heartened and inspired by the inventive and creative ways archivists are reaching out and staying connected online. Plans are underway to launch an online version of the bi-annual Orphan Film Symposium, which was recently cancelled from its original planned in-person gathering at the EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam in late May. The Museum of Modern Art accompanist/historian Ben Model and film historian Steve Massa have launched a weekly Silent Comedy Watch Party Sunday afternoons at 3 pm EDT. The George Eastman Museum recently provided an online tour of its nitrate vaults at the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center presented by Collections Manager Deb Stoiber. The American Archive of Public Broadcasting is reaching out to teachers, caregivers, and students with its educational exhibits and online streaming of 52,000 items. UNESCO’s Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations is viewing the global pandemic as an opportunity to advocate for greater support to documentary heritage. And AMIA’s Continuing Education Advisory Task Force is gearing up to identify topics and presenters to provide members with more continuing education webinars. So watch out for announcements when these webinars become available.

During this time of safe-at-home measures, I encourage you to reflect on new and innovative ways for AMIA to extend its online presence. We are all connected during this extraordinary time

where it has been made evident that the work of moving image archivists is more relevant than ever, as evidenced from a whopping increase in Zoom video calls, the plethora of home video performances posted on social media platforms, and time spent binging on favorite and video.

We want to hear your creative ideas on getting the word out more broadly about the critical role moving image archives and archivists play in the historical, cultural, and artistic fabric of society- at-large. There still remains work to do advocating for ourselves and the moving image archive profession at large.

Most importantly, stay safe, stay healthy, be well, and informed. We will be together again.

Andrea Leigh AMIA Director of the Board and Moving Image Processing Unit Head Library of Congress National Audio Visual Conservation Center April 12, 2020