1/24/13 Video At Risk: Strategies for Preserving Commercial Video Collecons in Research Libraries A partnership between New York University, UC-Berkeley, & Loyola University-New Orleans Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundaon “Life Span” by Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro @ 2009 Venice Biennale 195,774 tapes hp://www.nyu.edu/Nsch/preservaon/research/video-risk/ VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 1 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 2 Video At Risk • Video At Risk Project: Background & Overview Video At Risk Project: • Scarcity & Replacement Research IniQal Findings Background & Overview • Intellectual Property & §108(c) Guidelines • ReformaXng: technical issues, RFPs to vendors • Further Issues VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 3 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 4 NYU Mellon Video At Risk Grant: Sample VHS Titles Video replacement issues • “Strawberry Fields: Dolores Huerta & the United Farm Workers” (People’s Video Network, 1997) • Expands on our “Preserving Digital Public Television” grant – NYC-based collective organization’s video interview with labor rights workers • “Live from Europe: the Blind Boys of Mississippi” (Gospel Jubilee Video, 1999) findings that public television distribuNon rights o`en – Long-running Chicago television program (1963-84) release expire aer 6 or 12 years, either reverNng to another • “ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Networks” (1985, Bell Communication) distributor, or rendering the work legally undistributable – AT&T subsidiary technology educational video (the “Eyes on the Prize” problem) • “Coital Alignment Technique: the Key to Simultaneous Orgasm” (2001, Marriage Science) • Sex education researcher’s self-release • Expands on our previous Mellon grant findings that many • “Ice Cream in Glym” (Pyramid for Cinema and Video, 1992) distributed VHS tapes had become both rare and difficult to – Feature-length music video of Egyptian singer Amr Diab replace (Circulang collecNons become preservaon • “Amas de casa [Housewives]” (Colectivo Cine Mujer, 199?) collecNons) – Short by Mexican 1970s women’s filmmaking collective • “Léon-Gontran Damas: ce pays de Guyane à mon coeur accroché” (C.R.D.P Antille-Guyane, 1991) • It’s almost always more efficient to replace than to treat or – Documentary on black French intellectual, writer, and founder of the 1930 Négritude movement reformat • “Fabulous Rio & Carnival” (Rio Productions, 1987) – Independent release from southern Ontario company • Examine rouNne maintenance, preservaon, and © issues in circulang video collecNons- VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 5 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 6 1 1/24/13 NYU Mellon Video At Risk Grant: Examine rouNne maintenance, preservaon, and How to help librarians make © issues in circulang videocollecNons decisions • Research “scarcity” of videos originally purchased by libraries • When to look for a replacement video, and how in commercial market (examine OCLC records) to prioriNze those “at risk” • Research “replaceability” of videos (test several procedures for determining out-of-printness) • Where to go to find a replacement video • Develop checklist procedures for determining whether • How to legally raonalize reformang/digiNzing replacement copy can be legally obtained (Orphan Works type “at risk” videos procedure), and explore legal jusNficaon for digiNzing without prior permission (secNon 108) • What file formats, compression schemes, file size, • Develop a model procedure to follow and idenNfy trade-offs metadata, etc. to use for reformaed video files in preservaon reformang of library videos into digital • How to deal with vendor outsourcing for (quality, file format, CODECs, QA/QC, line 21, …) reformang and technical metadata VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 7 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 8 Partners and Origin of Partnerships Leveraging w/IMLS grant • Don Waters @ Mellon • We already had an IMLS grant to examine job • Laurie Phillips @ Loyolla-NO impediments for managers of academic library media collecNons (primarily aimed at improving • Gary Handman @ Berkeley (& later Barclay training) Ogden) • Leveraged focus groups convened for that grant • OCLC—from top of Research down to Eric in 2010 to engage in discussions of VAR Childress • One interesng discovery—universies were • Academic Librarians w/circulang video rapidly removing video players from classrooms, collecNons (VRT members) and their causing serious problems for viewing anything in Conservators videotape collecNons- VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 9 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 10 ConfronNng a campus wide VHS Deadline [Videolib], Oct 10, 2012 • “...I certainly understand the IT department’s point of view, especially considering our cash-strapped state of late. They are looking for ways to not pay for or maintain “unnecessary” equipment. VHS is a likely target.” Scarcity and Replacement Research • “However, you can imagine the effect this announcement has had IniQal Findings on our faculty when they were suddenly told that that “if you have VHS tapes that you show in your classes, you will need to find replacements by May 6, 2013.” IT also menNoned the coming “analog sunset,” which has evoked memories of the dreaded Y2K of earlier Nmes (remember that apocalypse?). VHS death went from a lingering, gradual one (to which we seem to be slowly adapNng) to a quick bullet to the head. Actually, it’s more like a bomb tossed into a crowd at the moment.” VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 11 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 12 2 1/24/13 Scarcity--iniNal Methodology Scarcity – Duplicate Records With media, duplicate records for the same material are very common. • OCLC delivers cataloging/holding records • We load them into our own system and do further de-duping • We take holdings from each of the 3 partners (NYU, UCB, Loyolla) and match them against the OCLC corpus, looking for our holdings that are only held by few (or no) other libraries • For each video on our 3 collecNons, we can determine how narrowly-held it is VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 13 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 14 Scarcity – Cataloging Display Issues Scarcity – Cataloging Issues Confusing and ambiguous display of format informaGon without delving into the When trying to copy-catalog, some catalogers find it easier to create a actual MARC fields. What are these? Why do these appear as different items? new record rather than correct an exisGng bad record. But if the mulGple records don’t get de-duped, this can cause commonly-held Gtles to appear as ‘scarce.’ OCLC’s data pull told us that the following NYU Gtles were ‘scarce’: • Seven Samourai • Breathless • Last Year at Marienbad • Simon of the Desert •Birth of a NaGon VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 15 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 16 Scarcity – Problems with Scarcity–InsNtuNonal Holding Code Problems Foreign Language Titles WorldCat insGtuGonal codes are imprecise. TranslaGon, transliteraGon, and region-coding differences create mulGple records for the same Gtle. • CUY code includes Ntles held by MRC, but also many Ntles held by Bancro` • ZYU code includes Ntles held by Bobst Library (AFC Ntles and Special Coll. Ntles), as well as Ntles held by consorNum partners like The New School and Fashion InsNtute of Technology VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 17 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 18 3 1/24/13 OCLC’s own indexes vs search criteria for VHS/Beta/Umac/laserdisc OCLC-Generated Data Pull: April 2011 • OCLC--2,201,725 • Indices revealed 1,763,004 total records for video in WorldCat • Normal search criteria--1,157,736 • 69,682 of these records cataloged as Locaon=ZYU, CUY, or LLM • PRIMO FRBR and de-duplicaon algorithms applied to these records • “we think it's likely there's a presence of older- pracNce records, terse/spartan records, and other • AddiNonal filtering for Holdings=1 cases that will either lack a 007 or have $e coded as "n" (it took a while to get $e defined for the • UC-Berkeley: 4,489 Ntles • NYU: 2,122 Ntles various formats) might reasonably account for • Loyola, New Orleans: 31 Ntles this magnitude of difference” VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 19 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 20 InteresNng Replaceability Issues Replacement IniNal Methodology • Step 1 • How to handle replaceability of works that Searching for new, unused replacement copies at a “fair price” via: usually appear only in anthologies/ * Amazon.com (Amazon.co.uk; Amazon.ca; etc.) compliaons (shorts, silents, animaon, …) * Web searches (Google; etc.) • Step 2 • Many works that are unavailable in the US are Direct email & registered mail inquiry to original distributor: available from other countries. How do we * available online contact informaon; * forwarding info from catalog purchaser/company; deal with a variety of issues those raise: * via Secretary of State registry of business address • Legal to import and use? (Costco decision) • Step 3 • O`en not viewable without foreign equipment (PAL) List serv database & community inquiries • How do we tell whether or not they’re bootlegs? * VideoLib • If replacement is DVD, what about region coding? VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 21 VAR--Besser-PAIG, Jan 26, 2013 22 Replacement Methodology— Replacement Methodology— Issues & Problems Issues & Problems • Market availability is ever-shi`ing • As Gary Handman pointed out—in spite of the • Will courts of law approve of merely searching project’s focus on the metric of ‘scarcity’ for Amazon.com? (US only, or other countries?) discovering important material—is a Ntle Should we also check E-Bay for unused copies? necessarily in-need of preservaon if it is What is the “marketplace”? uniquely-held but no one has ever