Audiovisual Archives

Original:
English
cm-97lwSl4
Paris, March 1997
AUDIOVISUAL
A PRACTICAL
ARCHIVES
READER
edited and compiled by
HELEN P HARRISON
General Information Programme and UNISIST

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Recommended catalogue entry:

Harrison, Helen P.
Audiovisual archives : a practical reader / edited and compiled by Helen P. Harrison [for the ]
General Information Programme and UNISIST. - Paris : UNESCO, 1997. - xi, 429 p. ; 30 cm. (CII-97/WS/4)
I - Audiovisual archives: a practical reader
II - UNESCO, General Information Programme and UNISIST
0 - UNESCO, 1997
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CONTENTS
LIST
Contents List - Source Materials

Foreword
SECTION I INTRODUCTION
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
1.1 Audiovisual archives

Helen P Harrison.
1
1
1.2 Nature of the AV Media

Ray Edmondson et al.
10
1.3 Worldview and Paradigm of Av Archiving

Ray Edmondson et al. Philosophy of A Vdrchiving.
18
1.4 Audiovisual Records as Archival Material

Wolfgang Klaue (I 989)
23
1.5 General Principles of Audiovisual Archiving

Curriculum Development Working Party, 1990
28
1.6 A Typology of Media Archives 1993

Grace Koch, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies,
32
Canberra, Australia 1993.
1.7 The AV Archive: Definition and Typology
Ray Edmondson et al. Philosophy of A V Archiving (Draft 2)
40
LEGAL ISSUES IN ACCIOVISUAL
43
ARCHIVES
1.8 Legal Issues Facing Audiovisual Archives

Birgit Kojler
43
1.9 Legal Issues in Av Archives: an Introduction

Catherine F Pinion
55
1.10 Copyright, Neighbouring Rights and Film Archives

Michael Henry 1994
61
1.11 UNESCO AV Copyright Meeting Report. December 5-6 1994

Helen P Harrison, rapporteur of meeting
68
ETHICAL ISSUES
73
1.12 Ethics
Ray Edmondson et al
73
1.13 Ethics and New Technology

George Boston
77
SECTION Il COLLECTION:
MANAGEMENT
HISTORY, DEVELOPMENT
and
80
2.1 Approaches to the National Organisation of Sound Archives

80
Rolf Schuursma
2.2 History and Organization of Moving Image Archives

86
Sam Kula
2.3 Records Management in Sound Archives

93
Helen P Harrison
2.4 Guidelines for Establishing and Maintaining Television Programme Archives

Anne Hanford, Chairman History and Archives Specialist Group April 1992. The
98
Royal Television Society

SECTION III ORAL HISTORY: COLLECTION
AND MANAGEMENT
103
3.1 Oral History

103
David Lance
3.2 Oral Tradition and Oral History

Peter Mazikana and William Moss
113
SECTION IV SELECTION AND APPRAISAL
126
4.1 Archival Appraisal

Helen P Harrison
126
4.2 Selection and Audiovisual Collections

Helen P Harrison, Media Library Consultant, Open University, UK
144
4.3 Archival Appraisal of Moving Images

Sam Kula
153
4.4 Selection Policy and Selection Standards for Television Archives

Sam Kula (Director, National Film, TV and Sound Archive, Canada)
157
4.5 Recommended Standards and Procedures for Selection for Preservation of

Television Programme Material
FIAT Programming and Production Commission,
SECTION V DOCUMENTATION
AND INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL
5.1 Introduction to FIAF Cataloguing Rules

Library of Congress
Harriet W Harwon,
5.2 The Special Problems of Cataloguing Moving Images in an Archive

Harriet W Harrison
5.3 Final Report on the Minimum Level of Description of a Sound Recording for an
entry in a Catalogue or a Discography August 18, 1988
Mary McMullen
ii
162
177
177
184
192
5.3.1 IASA Cataloguing Rules for Audio-Visual Media Cataloguing and

Documentation Committee Publication Project
Mary Mliano, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia
5.4 Intellectual Control.
194
200
Helen P Harrison
5.5 Towards Standards for Audiovisual Materials
210
Helen P Harrison
5.6 The Cataloguing of AV-media
217
Rainer Hubert, Osterreichische Phonothek, Vienna
SECTION VI USE OF COMPUTERS IN AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
221
6.1 Evaluating Computer Cataloguing Systems

A Guide for Audiovisual Archivists
Roger Smither, Keeper of Film and Television, Imperial War Museum
221
SECTION VII STORAGE, HANDLING
244
AND CONSERVATION
7.1 Film Archives
244
Henning Schou
7.2 The Care of Grooved Recordings
250
Gilles St. Laurent et al 19%
7.3 Magnetic Tape Deterioration: Recognition, Recovery and Prevention

Gerald D Gibson, Library of Congress
259
7.4 Permanence, Care, and Handling of CDs including CD-ROM, Writable CD, and
Kodak Photo CD
272
Kodak Imaging in Action, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester 1995
7.5 Preservation of Audio and Video Materials in Tropical Countries
Dietrich Schtiller, Phonogrammarchiv, Vienna
7.6 Data Density Versus Data Security

Formats Suitable for Archival Purposes
281
Dietrich Schiiller
288
7.7 Strategies for the Safeguarding of Audio and Video Materials

in the Long Term
Dietrich Schiiller, Phonogrammarchiv, Vienna
292
7.8 Photographic Conservation

Susie Clark, Photographic Conservator.
298
SECTION VIlI TECHNICAL
303
PRESERVATION
8.1 General Definitions used in Preservation
303
Henning Schou
8.2 Television Archives
304
Brian Jenkinson
...
111
_.
_-..^..
~... --.
8.3 Audio Archives

Dietrich Schuller, Lloyd Stickells and William Storm
313
SECTION IX TECHNICAL
324
EQUIPMENT
9.1 Film Specific Practices and Procedures and Equipment

Harald Brandes a:jd Eva Orbanz
324
SECTION X FIN.4NCE
333
10.1 Costs of Storage in Sound Archives

333
Cor L. Doesburg NOB, Hilversum
10.2 Format-specific Preservation Costs - A First Attempt

Dietrich Schiiller, Phonogrammarchiv, Vienna
340
SECTION XI FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
343
11.1 NEW TECHNOLOGY
- FRIEND OR FOE?
342
George Boston
11.1.1 What New Technology Can Be Recommended?

348
George Boston
11.2 Long Term Strategies foi Elect .Qnic Documents - Report from a Swedish Study
11 Augus: 1995
Mats G. Lindquist, Consultant
SECTION XII EMERGENCY
REPAREDNESS
12.1 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Recovery in Audiovisual Collections
358
Gerald D Gibson, Library of Congress, Washington DC
358
SECTION XIII EDUCATION
364
AND TRAINING
13.1 New Media Require Specialized Archivists

Wolfgang Klaue, Staatliches Filmarchiv der D.D.R., Berlin
13.2 Training Needs For AV Archivists
363
371
Curriculum Development Working Party
13.3 Organisation and Harmonisation of Education Programmes.

13.4 Recommended Standards For Training

135 Curriculum Development for Archive Technicians

Technical Co-ordinating Committee
13.6 Training for Audiovisual Archivists
378
384
398
Helen P Harrison
402
Further Reading
The Audiovisual Archive Associations and Contacts
409
415
iv
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351
AUDIOVISUAL
CONTENTS
ARCHIVES:
A PRACTICAL
READER
LIST
Foreword
SECTION I. INTRODUCTION
1.1
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
Harrison, Helen. Audiovisual archives. 1996.
1.2. Edmondson, Ray. Nature of the AV Media. In: A Philosophy of Audiovisual

Archiving (Draft Two), by Ray Edmondson and members of AVAPIN (Audiovisual
Archiving Philosophy Interest Network) unpublished, Canberra, 1995
1.3 Edmondson, Ray. Worldview and paradigm. In: A Philosophy of Audiovisual
Archiving (Draft Two), by Ray Edmondson and members of AVAPlN (Audiovisual
Archiving Philosophy Interest Network) unpublished, Canberra, 1995
1.4 Klaue, Wolfgang. Audiovisual records as archival materials. In: Proceedings of
the 1 lth International Congress on Archives, Paris 22-26 August 1988. Archivum vol.
XXXV, 1989. pp 69-74
1.5 Curriculum Development Working Party. General principles of av archiving. In:
Curriculum development for the training of personnel in moving image and recorded
sound archives. PGI-90/WS/9. UNESCO, Paris, 1990. pp. 14-18
TYPOLOGY
1.6
Koch, Grace. A typology of media archives. Paper presented in 1993.
1.7 Edmondson, Ray. The AV archive: definition and typology. In: A Philosophy of
Audiovisual Archiving (Draft Two), by Ray Edmondson and members of AVAPIN
(Audiovisual Archiving Philosophy Interest Network) unpublished, Canberra, 1995
LEGAL
ISSUES IN AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
1.8 Kofler, Birgit. Legal issues facing audiovisual archives. PGI-91/WS/5. UNESCO,
Paris, 1990 (extracted).
1.9
Pinion, Catherine. Legal issues in audiovisual archives. 1996
1.10 Henry, Michael. Copyright, neighbouring rights and film archives. In: Journal of
Film Preservation, FIAF no. 49, October 1994. pp. 2-9
1.11 UNESCO Minutes of AV copyright meeting report. December 5-6 1994.
ETHICAL
ISSUES
1.12 Edmondson, Ray et al. Ethics. In: A Philosophy of Audiovisual Archiving (Draft
Two), by Ray Edmondson and members of AVAPIN (Audiovisual Archiving Philosophy
Interest Network) unpublished, Canberra, 1995
1.13 Boston, George. Ethics and new technology. In: IFLA Journal, vol. 2 1, no. 3, 1995
pp 211-212
V
SECTION II. COLLECTION:
HISTORY,
DEVELOPMENT
AND MANAGEMENT
2.1
Schuursma, Rolf. Approaches to the national organisation of sound archives.
In: Sound archives, a guide to their establishment and development, edited by David
Lance. Vienna, IASA, 1983. pp. l-9
2.2
Kula, Sam. History and Organisation of moving image archives. In: , Sam.
The archival appraisal of moving images: a RAMP study with guidelines. PGI83/WS.18. UNESCO, Paris, 1983. pp. 5-18
2.3
Harrison, Helen. Records Management. In: Harrison, Helen P. The archival
appraisal of sound recordings and related materials: a RAMP study with guidelines.
PGI-87/WS/l. UNESCO, Paris, 1987.
2.4
Hanford, Anne.
Guidelines for establishing and maintaining
programme archives. London, Royal Television Society, 1992.
SECTION III.
television
ORAL HISTORY
3.1
Lance, David.
Oral History.
In:
Sound archives, a guide to their
establishment and development, edited by David Lance. Vienna, IASA, 1983. pp.
177-192
3.2
Moss, William W and Peter C Mazikana. Archival management of the record.
In: Archives, Oral History and Oral Tradition: a RAMP study. PGI-86/WS/2.
UNESCO, Paris, 1986. pp. l-3,48-61
SECTION IV. SELECTION
AND APPRAISAL
4.1
Harrison, Helen P. Archival appraisal. In: The archival appraisal of sound
recordings and related materials: a RAMP study with guidelines. PGI-87lWSll.
UNESCO, Paris, 1987. pp (extracted)
4.2
Harrison, Helen P. Selection and audiovisual collections.
Vo121, No. 3, 1995 pp.185-190
In: IFLA Journal,
4.3
Kula, Sam. The archival appraisal of moving images: a RAMP study with
guidelines. PGI-83/WS. 18. UNESCO, Paris, 1983. pp. (extracted)
4.4
Kula, Sam. Selection policy and selection standards for television archives.
In: Panorama of audiovisual archives, FIAT, BBC Data Publications, 1986. pp. 7377
4.5
FIAT Programming and Production Commission. Recommended standards
and procedures for selection and preservation of television programme material. In:
FIAT Handbook, FIAT, 1997.
AND INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL
5.1.
Harrison, Harriet W. Introduction to FIAF Cataloguing Rules and preliminary
notes. In: FIAF Cataloguing rules. Munich, K G Saur, 199 1. pp. ix- , 1- 11
5.2
Harrison, Harriet W. The special problems of cataloguing moving images in
an archive. In: Four tasks of film archives - records of the International Film
Symposium. Tokyo 1990. pp. 103-l 08
vi
-._-.
l.---.
5.3
McMullen, Mary. Final report on the Minimum level of description of a
sound recording for an entry in a catalogue or discography. August 18 1988.
5.3.1 Miliano, Mary. IASA Cataloguing rules for audiovisual media cataloguing
and Documentation Committee Publication Project. 1996.
,,Harrison, Helen P. Intel,lectual control: Introduction and;conclusion to session.
5.4
In: Documents that move and spe.ak: audiovisual archives in the new information age.
Proceedings of a Symposium held by National Archives of Canada, April 3d --.May 3,
1990. K.G. Saur, Munich, 1992:~~. 122-126, 152-164.
Harrison, Helen P. Standards for audiovisual materials. In: Standards for the
5.5
International Exchange of Bibliographic Information, edited by I C McIlwaine.
Seminar held at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University
College, London 3-l 8 August 1990. Library Association, London, 1991. pp.44-5 1
5.6
Hubert, Rainer. The cataloguing of av media.
November 1993. pp. 22-26
SECTION VI USE OF COMPUTERS
In:
IASA Journal, no 2
IN AV ARCHIVES
6.1
Smither, Roger. Evaluating computer cataloguing systems: a guide for
audiovisual archivists. FIAF, Brussels, 1989.
SECTION VII
STORAGE HANDLING
AND CONSERVATION
FILM
Schou, Henning. Film archives. (The handling and storage of film) In:
7.1
Guide io the Basic Technical Equipment required by audio, film and television
archives, edited by George Boston. TCC, Milton Keynes, 1991 pp. 9-l 5
Aurxo
7.2
St. Laurent, Gilles et al. The Handling and Care of grooved recordings.
Report for the Technical Co-ordinating committee. TCC, Milton Keynes, 1995
7.3 Gibson, Gerald D. Magnetic tape deterioration:
prevention. In: IASA Journal no. 8 November 1996.
recognition,
recovery and
Kodak Imaging in Action: Permanence, care and handling of CDs. Eastman

7.4
Kodak, Rochester, NY, 12/1995. Reprinted with permission from Eastman Kodak
Company.
Schtiller, Dietrich.
Preservation of audio and video materials in tropical
7.5
countries. In: IASA Journal, No. 7 May 1996. pp. 35-45
Data density versus data security. In: Archiving the
7.6
audiovisual heritage: a joint technical symposium of FIAF, FIAT and IASA. Stiftung
Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, 1988. pp 85-88
Strategies for the safeguarding of audio and video
7.7
materials in the long term. In: IASA Journal, no.4 November 1994, pp. 58-65
vii
PHOTOGRAPHS
7.8
Clark, Susie. Photographic conservation. Booklet produced by the National
Preservation Office, British Library, London, 199 1
SECTION VIII
TECHNICAL
PRESERVATION
8.1
Schou, Henning. General definitions used in preservation, In: Guide to the
Basic Technical Equipment required by audio, film and television archives, edited by
Georgti Boston. TCC, Milton Keynes, 1991 pp. 7-8
8.2
Jenkinson, Brian. Television archives. In: Guide to the Basic Technical
Equipment required by audio, film and television archives, edited by George Boston.
TCC, Milton Keynes, 1991 pp 27-37
8.3
Schtiller, Dietrich, Lloyd Stickells and William Storm. Audio archives. In:
Guide to the Basic Technical Equipment required by audio, film and television
archives, edited by George Boston. TCC, Milton Keynes, 1991 pp 39-62
SECTION IX TLCHNICAL
EQUIPMENT
9.1
Brandes, Harald and Eva Orbanz. Film specific practices and procedures and
equipment. In: Guide to the Basic Technical Equipment required by audio, film and
television archives, edited by George Boston. TCC, Milton Keynes, 199 1 pp 16-26
SECTION X FINANCE
10.1 Doesburg, Cor. Costs of storage in sound archives.

Bulletin, no. 54, July 1989. pp 4-14
In: Phonographic
10.2 Schtiller, Dietrich. The costs of storage and preservation.

Bulletin, no. 54, July 1989. pp. 15- 19
In: Phonographic
11.1 Boston, George. New Technology - Friend or foe? In: IFLA Journal vol 20,
no, 3 1994. pp 331-340
11.1.1 Boston, George. What New Technology can be recommended? 1996.
11.2 Lindquist, Mats G. Long term strategies for electronic documents - report
from a Swedish study. In: IASA Journal, no. 6 November 1995. pp. 33-39
SECTION
XII
EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS
Emergency preparedness and disaster recovery in

12.1 Gibson, Gerald D.
audiovisual collections. In: IASA Journal, no. 4 November 1994. pp. 13-l 8
...
Vlll
SECTION
XIII
EDUCATION
AND TRAINING
13.1 Klaue, Wolfgang. New media require specialised archivists.

XXXIV. 1988 pp. 113-124
Archivum
13.2 Curriculum Development Working Party. Training needs for archivists. In:
Curriculum development for the, training of personnel in moving image and recorded
sound archives. PGI-9OIWSI9. UNESCO, Paris, 1990. pp. 5-12
\ ;
.
13.3 Curriculum Development ,Working Party. Organisation and harmonisation of
education programmes. In: Curriculum development for the training of personnel in
moving image and recorded sound archives. PGI-90/WS/9. UNESCO, Paris, 1990.
pp. 40-47
13.4 Curriculum Development Working Party.
Recommended standards for
training. In: Curriculum development for the training of personnel in moving image
and recorded sound archives. PGI-90/WS/9. UNESCO, Paris, 1990. pp. 19-39
(extracted)
13.5 Technical Co-ordinating
technicians. 1995.
Committee.
Curriculum
development for archive
13.6 Harrison, Helen P. Training and the conservation of audiovisual materials. In:
Handbook of Library Training Practice vol 2, edited by Ray Prytherch. Gower,
Alczrshot, 1990. pp. 141-177
ix
FOREWORD
The material in this Reader has been compiled under a UNESCO contract by a
working group of the Round Table on Audiovisual Records - a group of NGOs
comprising IASA, FIAF, FIAT, and the audiovisual sections of ICA and IFLA.
In 1990 another working group on Curriculum Development for Sound and Moving
Image archivists consisting of the same associations identified several areas for
improvement in the education and training of these audiovisual archivists. One very
clear and gaping hole was in the provision of literature, advice and guidance of any
sort. The literature may be there, but it is scattered and not all of us can afford or
obtain all the literature which might be of help. The aim of this collection of material
is to provide in one volume some, but only some, of the most accepted literature
already published.
The Reader is not meant to be definitive or exhaustive - that would take up a very
large volume, but it is aimed at the practical rather than the theoretical aspects of
audiovisual archive work. It aims to provide access to existing published information
for archivists working at a professional level in developed and developing countries,
promote the education and professional training of audiovisual archivists in all
countries and serve as a reference tool in daily work.
Some of the papers appear in full, but many are extracted or edited down from
lengthier booklets. The Editor has had to make some hard choices and provides some
linking comments between the sections.
Material specific archives such as film archives, sound archives, television(video)
archives and photograph archives have been in existence for many years. Audiovisual
archives, where there is a combination of materials, are a more recent phenomena, but
more and more frequently audiovisual archives collecting more than one of the
materials are being established or additional materials are being introduced into the
existing archives. This might be of necessity where resources are few and one
archive, often the National Archive, has to take responsibility for all materials.
The literature reflects the former situation and much of it concerns one or other of the
audiovisual materials rather than the integrated situation. Many of the sections of the
Reader are divided into material specific chapters.
As the Reader is aimed at professional archivists the technical sections although
extensive has been kept on a suitable level. The aim is simply to ensure that what we
have, or can obtain, we keep in decent conditions designed not to damage and to
conserve the material for some time to come - optimistically as long as possible.
Technical details are designed to show what we are dealing with, how to store, handle
and conserve and when to intervene to restore or preserve . Technicians need not look
here except perhaps at the bibliographies or references for further reading. A further
Technical Manual is needed for the archive technician, or he can already depend for
much information on the series of Joint Technical Symposia which are run regularly
to update technical knowledge.
Layout and Coverage
The Reader consists of a mixture of contributions.
A few are original to this
publication, and some were in process of publication when the Reader was compiled.
The main content is of existing papers or sections of publications as indicated in the
Contents List.
The Reader begins with an introductory section dealing with the major ethos of the
audiovisual archive - its make up and constitution, definition, typology and other major
concerns such as those of legal issues which pervade all archive work, let alone that of
audiovisual archives. The particularities of audiovisual legal concerns are indicated,
especially the perceived conflicts between preservation and access. The ethics of the
audiovisual archives are explored, both personal and collection ethics; responsibilities
to donors and users and the technical ethics - responsibility to the material. This is a
special extension of the concept of ethics.
A section on collections management, the establishment and direction is followed by
others on other aspects of the work of audiovisual archives such as selection and
information retrieval or intellectual control of the content. Computers are a fact of life
and a useful section on the use of them in information retrieval is included.
A specialised branch of audiovisual archivism exists in oral history archives. Oral
history collections have their own special collecting policy, management and ethic and
have been included here for those reasons.
Photographic archives are rather neglected here, but many av archives contain
photographs whether these are related to the other collections eg. stills of film and video
material, photographs of sleeves or covers of CD and recordings, all genuine historical
documents capable of re-use to reconstruct original artifacts.
The technical section has been kept to an awareness level for the archivist. Storage,
handling and conservation policies are included in some detail and a short foray is made
into preservation as well as an investigation of the basic equipment required by
audiovisual archives.
The impact of new technology on audiovisual archives and others brings its own
complications. Data density versus data security is particularly pertinent to the magnetic
world and digitisation and papers are included on these topics - mainly in the audio world
as this is where most of the investigations have taken place to date. The finances of
storage are also touched upon again from the audio archives as these were the published
papers available.
Emergencies and disasters are an ever present hazard and an initial attempt to draw up
a plan for preparedness and recovery appears.
Finally although the Reader is supposed to be a tool for education and training in itself,
papers on this topic are included.
The Reader emphasises the common problems faced by the three main fields, film, audio
and video. The Editorial group agreed that the main emphasis should be on sound and
moving images, but should also include still images where relevant, without overloading.
Acknowledgements
Without the assistance of the editorial team the whole conception would have impossible.
I am most grateful to my colleagues from IASA, FIAF, FIAT, ICA, IFLA and the TCC
for suggestions concerning the content and to the members of the associations for their
generosity in allowing me to use and even edit their precious work. However
responsibility and culpability for errors outside the contributors control remains with the
editor.
Helen P. Harrison
xi
1.1 AUDIOVISUAL
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES
Helen P Harrison.
Archives exist for the preservation and continuation of the cultural heritage and that
heritage is made from a variety of cultures, past and current civilisations, artefacts,
manuscripts and printed materials and the more recent phenomena of audiovisual
materials and electronic documents.
Human endeavour has long been transmitted by images and the oral tradition: cave
paintings, hieroglyphics, ancient scripts and the passing on of legend and tradition by
word of mouth. Next came the written records - clay tablets, papyrus, manuscripts.
The invention of printing made material more widely available, providing the
recipient could read, and more recently the materials could be recorded on to a visual
or audio format for widespread transmission and distribution.
The audiovisual
materials had arrived.
All these elements are part of the record of the cultural heritage and if they are to
continue to exist require saving, gathering, preserving and/or conserving and they also
need to be accessible to encourage the spread of knowledge.
But who will hold all these treasures - who will be responsible to others, past present
and future, for the collection and safeguarding of the materials? Archives, museums
and libraries all bear responsibility.
Archives exist for the preservation and continuation of the cultural heritage.
Audiovisual media contribute to culture, especially of the nineteenth century, and
even more so of the twentieth and therefore archives for audiovisual materials are
being developed.
What is an archive?
Archives are not just random collections of materials but rather collections which
have been selected for a particular purpose because they represent business, legal or
cultural aspects of life in a certain period of time. Certain archives are spoken of as
state or government archives, or perhaps even business archives. These are paper
archives, but film and video, sound recordings, photographic archives are not always
necessarily official archives in the same sense. There are the State Archives and the
Government Archives, but many were first established independent of a state even
Given the technology involved in
though they had a national responsibility.
audiovisual archives and the material which results, this cultural heritage is mainly
that of the twentieth or the late nineteenth century.
Archives are normally defined as non-current, but permanently valuable records. The
material may be valuable as evidence of legal and administrative transactions and I
obligations, or because of the information it contains which is of value beyond the
reasons for its original creation. This is a traditional view of archives but, as a
prominent archivist has said, the new technology is having a profound effect on
archives and the concepts of archival preservation. Photography, both still and
moving, has had its effect. There is widespread use of sound recording. The
computer had its effect on record keeping and collections management policies. Until
very recently most of the audiovisual archives were in effect single media archives:
film, television or video, sound and photograph archives. Increasingly the archives
are combining their interests. Some take responsibility for all recorded materials
moving image, sound and photographs, others take smaller bites and combine one or
two of the materials.
What is an audiovisual archive?
A first reaction is instinctively that it is different from a conventional archive. It may
have the same policies and philosophy and similar aims in the preservation and
collection of a particular slice of human activity. This slice may be the large one of an
era, century or decade, reflecting the cultural and social life of the times, or it may be a
smaller slice which records on one or more materials a particular aspect of a special
place or a restricted time.
But the collection policies - the principles of arrangement, organisation, access,
security, conservation and preservation of audiovisual materials, are different, or at
least require something of a rethink for the archivist as conventionally seen especially
if the material is to be included in an audiovisual archive.
The differences between the archival principles of print and audiovisual, of
manuscripts, books and audiovisual materials, can be demonstrated in several areas of
concern.
There is also the question of the differences between the various collecting agencies of
archive, museum and library. All can make use of the technical considerations and
guidelines, not all will have the same collection policies. The differences between the
three professions are no longer so clear as the differences in the agencies involved
may well be.
But even then with the development of audiovisual archives in the only past 10 years
there has been an awareness of the need for specialised archives to deal with
specialised materials.
Audiovisual materials do require different policies and
practices, which although they can build upon existing archival principles and
practices have to develop their own. Technical considerations in particular will have a
profound effect upon the audiovisual archives - it is not just a question of preservation
of materials, it has to be a question of continual transfer, copying and restoration of
the originals.
Although the professions are drawing together there is still a difference of degree
rather than a fundamental one. The emphasis may be on exploitation or preservation,
but even this gap is closing as archives realise the value of their material and the
means for exploitation become easier in the form of video or audiocassette or CD
Rom. It is essential to archives that their material is made available if only because
this gives a higher profile to their work which can in turn reap a certain financial
reward to be ploughed back into the archive finances. Archivists can no longer afford
to be philanthropists and must be seen to be economically viable if they are to survive.
But economic gain must be matched with ethical responsibility to donors, users and
material.
Audiovisual
archives in existence
Few audiovisual archives have until now claimed to be archives according to the
conventional definition. Where they exist and have been developed independently
they may make just claim, but the world is moving on and the audiovisual archive has
had to fight for recognition - not so much with other archives, who very often
incorporate the new materials in any case, but with government and national bodies
who either ignore them or treat them as upstarts. Areas in which archives have been
widely recognised are those of film and audio, but the struggle has been long and
difficult and dependent upon some very dedicated people. Audiovisual archives are
only in their infancy - single media archives have been more prominent to date, but
the situation is changing rapidly as technologies merge and finance for new projects in
national archives for single materials decreases. Most single media archives find it
necessary to attach themselves, for better or worse, to existing archives/institutions in
order to survive the financial storms.
They may not hold master materials or original stock and they are seldom, even as
national archives comprehensive even within a particular format or subject area. For
example, national sound archives may be fortunate to obtain a large proportion of the
published material as does the National Sound Archive in the UK, but be relatively
short on unpublished materials unless they have a policy to generate the material
themselves. National film archives are certainly not comprehensive in their coverage,
nor would they claim to be so. And finally, no one would claim to have a
comprehensive archive of photographic material. The collecting policy may have all
the right intentions, but the market and the available material dictates otherwise.
Material may be unobtainable, unknown, beyond redemption or destroyed. It is a fact
of all audiovisual archivists lives.
An Audiovisual
Archive
Audiovisual archives can be as varied as the materials themselves.

The materials can be roughly classified into what we can term visual materials - the
moving visuals of film and the still visuals of photographs - and the sound
recordings. But having said that we are not a great deal further forward, for moving
visuals can be divided into film and videograms, that is videotape, cassette and even
disc. We cannot ignore videograms as much of the present material which will
become of archival value is only available on a videorecording of some sort. Still
visuals can be expressed as photographs, slides, and further into microforms,
postcards, posters, etc. Not all these materials are necessarily archival and we restrict
ourselves to the photographs in this book. The videodisc or CD-ROM can also be
considered as still visuals or optical recordings, especially when it is used as a
catalogue to a collection of art works or museum objects such as the prints and
drawings collection of the Library of Congress. There is even a confusion in terms
and definition is an uneasy field at the present time.
Film material has been with us for 100 years, 1996 is its officially designated
centenary year. The first films were produced in the 1890s. Photographic material
has been with us for longer, since the 1830s. Archives of film and photographs are
therefore fairly recent phenomena in terms of many other archive materials, but this
does not mean that they are less of a problem. Far from it.
There are three main types of av archive specializing in a single medium: moving
images, still visuals and sound recordings.
Sometimes we get a combination of audiovisual materials in one setting. Examples of
combined archives are the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia, the British
Library and the National Sound Archive, and the broadcasting companies like
Stiddeutscher Rundfimk in Stuttgart where sound and film archives have recently been
brought under the one administration. Unlike SDR, the BBC has archives of separate
materials under different heads of department and scattered all over London and
beyond, although they are now being brought under one department, they are not
intermingled in one and the same environment. In Canada, the National Archives
cover, as their title suggests, the government archives including film, TV, sound and
paper. The central administration is there, with other heads of department for the
audiovisual materials. There are similar cases in the Library of Congress and the
National Archives in Washington DC. Most of these archives are developing into
function-based archives rather than material or media based archives.
The larger archives could not possibly combine materials together in one department,
the physical functions dealing with each material such as storage, handling and
restoration need separate expertise to deal. with them and therefore have to be split on
this parameter alone. But there are other functions of collection management which
can be administered throughout all materials, or at least all audiovisual materials:
documentation and information retrieval, and selection, to name but two. Audiovisual
archives however may not be in a similar position - sometimes their stocks are
smaller, but of more materials and the parameters for collection, storage, selection and
documentation may be grouped more closely together. Storage vaults may have to
accommodate more than one material and the resulting environmental considerations
will be different to those more stringently applied to individual materials. Or, of
course the archive may decide that is incumbent upon them to use the optimum
storage and environmental values as applied to each material. In some ways the
archive dealing with single media is in a more fortunate position in these cases - other
may have to make compromises in order to accommodate all its materials in the same
storage area and environment.
So far we have been talking of archives, but because of the nature of the materials
involved we could be drawn more and more to a second type of collection which
could also be appropriate to consider as an audiovisual archive. This is the collection
of last resort. Audiovisual archives are so often in this category that we should begin
to merge the two types. Collections of last resort represent the attempt to conserve
copies of material in usable condition - at least for reference purposes - and they
seldom retain archival originals or masters in the accepted sense. They may also be
regarded as the access points for the archives themselves. There are two aspects to
this question. In the first place archives may be in a position to provide their own
access facilities, but that is not always the primary purpose of the archives. Their
main r&on dhe is the preservation of the original product providing access when
no other copies exist in similar condition. The collection of last resort on the other
hand provides more accessible viewing and listening opportunities, using cassette
copies taken from the originals before deposit.
Preservation considerations
This is the main concern of archives - the conservation of the material in their care.
The nature of the audiovisual materials means that all too often the information has to
be transferred from one material or format to another. Videotape is certainly in this
category. Audiotape may have to be rerecorded or a tape produced from an
unplayable format. Nitrate film has to be transferred to safety stock or it will blow
you, your collection and the surrounding countryside into the next century without
problem or so much as a by your leave. Colour film has to be separated and probably
transferred to more stable stock at intervals. By their very nature, therefore, archive
materials in audiovisual formats are rarely masters or originals. But what do you do
with the material you have carefully restored and copied. The increasing tide of
opinion of audiovisual archivists is that wherever possible you should copy material
for use but keep the original in the very best possible conditions in order that as
technology advances and restoration techniques improve you still have the original to
return to when such a circumstance arises. This does mean more storage space - but
the universal panacea for preserving and copying archive material have not yet been
attained.
Other Archival Dimensions
The archival dimension heightens and adds to the usual concerns of audiovisual
collection policy.
Acquisition
This may be the deposit of collections or individual items. It could be purchase, but
this is a special purchase - sometimes at auction (with photographs, for instance).
Archive material is seldom taken off a shelf or paid for over a shop counter.
Evaluation is an important aspect of archival acquisition. The material has to be
evaluated against material in stock, the purpose of the archive, the subject of the
archive and so on.
Selection
The archivist is seldom given a choice of what comes his way. He may receive
material by deposit within the broadcasting companies, or from government
departments for example, or by donation or even purchase. Selection aids are few and
far between; archive material is much more likely just to turn up. Once material is in
a collection, selection becomes a major facet of an archivists job in both film and
photographic archives. You can seldom keep everything and treat it effectively and
you have to apply criteria of selection to control the material. Quality, provenance and
quantity are all important criteria. Have you already got plenty on a particular topic,
or must you keep every last scrap of film on a subject which you can lay hands on?
Archives do have some very stringent archival selection policies - they have to! It is
quoted widely that archives select only about 2% of the material presented.
Audiovisual archives should they do that would be shortly out of existence.
Audiovisual archives do not have a huge selection of material but most of the material
is of unique value. Selection ratios for audiovisual archives are much higher than
those for other archives. Nevertheless the sheer volume of audiovisual material means
that pre-selection is essential. A well known film archivist, when faced with a legal
deposit possibility, however much he would appreciate it, said yes, but I would like to
make the choice of what to receive rather than have the pantechnicon at the door.
Other Considerations:
Accessioning
This has to be relatively detailed as accessions records will need to have information
about ownership and copyright, as well as the conditions under which the archive
acquires the material and, subsequently, the conditions, of use. Any restrictions of
copyright or contracts have to be entered in an accessions register. And all these
conditions may alter over a period of time,
Storage
In archives the problems are safety of stock and security of the master rather than a
question of will we allow people to borrow the material.
Storage conditions for archives are necessarily more stringent than those for reference
and access collections. In order to provide access and research materials a master
must be preserved or at least a master copy for the production of further reference
copies. Also, storage conditions have to be more stringent for the archive material,
which has to be kept for permanent.
Whatever posterity has or has not done for you or me, some record of our passing will
be of interest to some terrestrial or extraterrestrial being.
Storage conditions are a lively debatable issue in the audiovisual archive world. They
can be very stringent and costly, or less stringent but allow relative accessibility to the
material.
There are several conflicting views about storage conditions.
For long-term
preservation only the costliest and most inaccessible conditions may be of use. For
example, film has to be stored to preserve both the image and the colour. Colour film
should be stored at 0C and/or in separation negatives - that is three negatives, one for
each of the primary colours. This inevitably is expensive and it takes a great deal of
time to acclimatize the material to a usable temperature or to produce it in a suitable
format. As for videotape, no one is very sure about either its optimum storage
conditions or its expected life.
Many audiovisual archives, especially if they contain mixed materials and formats,
may have to decide upon a compromise solution, e.g. 12C and 40% relative
humidity, or 16C and 50% RH. The most important point is to keep the material at
the chosen values and not to allow cycling of environmental conditions. Several
papers in this book address these problems far more knowledgeably than I and I
commend them to you.
Access
Access and archives or preservation may appear at first to be contradictory terms.
Part of the archives developing role is to increase access to unique (and by that I do
not mean master material). Most audiovisual archivists would like to provide access
services for current use, education and research purposes. A perfectly reasonable
goal. The producer does not make material with archives in mind - he would be
foolish to try and live on archival potential.
Access is a problem for av libraries because playback damages the material.
Videocassette is protected by its casing to some extent, but ask any TV engineer how
much use a 2 broadcast tape is which has been subjected to 20 transmissions and the
answer could be interesting. The more technically perfect the tape the more dropout
and damage can be caused.
Copyright
may also provide a deterrent to access of materials.
There is another aspect to access. It is well known that I personally prefer a film
record to a videotape record. I can see film; all right, I cannot view it as it was meant
to be viewed, but if I hold a piece of film up to the light there is a visible record in my
hands of the content recorded on the material. If I hold a piece of videotape, brown or
black, I have no immediate clue as to what it contains, if anything. An archivist may
well encounter similar problems. He is preserving on an invisible format material he
expects to be replayed in the next century on a machine which no one in that century
may have the slightest idea about. There are considerable problems of replay on
existing technology. But what about the poor soul who comes along in the year 2050,
looks at a piece of blank brown tape or, indeed, an optical disc, videodisc, CD or CD-
ROM - equally blank - and wonders at the curious people of the twentieth century
who produced all this apparently useless material.
Just what do we think we are preserving for posterity? That is the main obsession of
the audiovisual archivist; or if it is not, it should be.
Bibliographic
control
Once again bibliographic control of audiovisual archive material is an extension of

normal bibliographic control.
Bibliographic control of archive material meets
problems in the volume of the material encountered, usually in the backlog mode; the
necessity for detailed cataloguing, especially of the unedited, unpublished material
which abounds in archives; and the necessity to catalogue from the copy in hand.
Volume of material
Film material includes feature film, documentary or non-fiction, educational material,
newsfilm and so on. Television includes the same variety. Who is to say what will be
of worth to the future film historian? Sound archives have an equally wide variety
and volume of material. When we come to consider photographs it is virtually
impossible to estimate the number of photographs housed in archives, libraries and
special collections.
Just to stretch the imagination a recent survey of holdings in archives of audio, film
and video archives was carried out by the Library of Congress on behalf of Eastman
Kodak. The figures were alarming. Even with the most stringent selection criteria
and limited collection resources the results of the holdings of 500 archives
(extrapolated from those answered the survey) amounted to 11 billion 175 million feet
of film, 8.5 million hours of video, and 44.5 million hours of audio. And this was
only from 500 archives. There are many more archives out there. A recent survey of
audiovisual archives in Europe alone Map-TV - Film and Television Collections in
Europe indicated some additional 1900 archives only of film and television.
When we consider photographic material the figures may be even greater.
Photographic collections vary in subject and nature. There are the large collections of
art reproductions, news material and general interest items. One million items is a
relatively small collection, Only consider the different types of national collections.
There are collections of photographs of art objects which are themselves scattered
throughout galleries and museums; press photograph collections which are huge;
aerial, space or other specialist scientific collections, and architectural records like that
of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Who is to say what is going to be of worth
to the historian or publisher of tomorrow out of these items? They could all be
considered to have some historical or archival significance, whether they record
people who have died, places which have been lost or destroyed or events which will
never be repeated.
What bibliographic
control exists, and what tools are available?
Archive film is a backlog problem for the archivist.

Detailed cataloguing
It takes time to catalogue archive material adequately. Archive cataloguing cannot be
cheap and dirty - if it is, one could suggest that there is little point in doing it at all. In
considering archive film there are usually problems of identity which require research
to uncover the relevant details. Newsfilm, for example, may depict events and people
unknown to the cataloguer. It has been estimated that to catalogue an archive film of
30 minutes adequately could well use some 4 hours of a cataloguers time. The film
has to be viewed. There may be no external clues as to its contents, or the clues may
be positively misleading.
Why do you need such detail? Looking at the apparently endless credits we get on
modem film and television, you begin to wonder if it is worth it. But to wear an
archivists hat you have to realize that the apparently obscure, unknown third unit
sound recordist of today may become the award-winning director of tomorrow.
Film should always be catalogued from the copy in hand, and it must be viewed for
archival cataloguing purposes. Detailed cataloguing is required and the following are
some of the essential elements.
Title Film is known by its title in most cases, especially fiction film. However, the
title may be a catchy and misleading one. Fiction film is often released under
different titles in different countries. Some film does not have a title as such newsfilm and stockshots have to be provided with an objective content description.
Production
details
These, as already indicated, can be very lengthy.
These also can be lengthy. However, todays bit part player may become
Credits
tomorrows megastar.
It is vital in an archive to know the state and status of the
Technical specifications
copies held. You need to keep a watching brief on the physical condition for
conservation purposes. This should be included in the catalogue entry.
This, too, is vital for the film researcher. Some (in fact, many) archival
Summary
films are incomplete for one reason or another. A detailed content summary may be
needed, and there is always the danger that the cataloguer may not know that the film
is incomplete.
Location number This is to indicate where the film is housed in the archive, and is
an important finding tool. Film is not shelved in classified order, rather by title for
complete television programmes or feature and documentary films, or even by can
number where several short pieces of film are housed in one can.
A notes section is also needed to indicate where a copy is faulty, its generation, state
of repair, missing sections, etc.
Should bibliographies be based on archives.3 You will have realized some of the
reasons why audiovisual archives cannot, in their present form and based on their
current collections, produce bibliographies:
1 They are not comprehensive in their coverage.
2 The detail of the cataloguing means that any catalogue of holdings takes a long
time to produce.
3 It is not 32 to date.
-+ How much use is it if there are restrictions of access?
Lists of holdings are all that an archive can achieve and they are difficult enough.
New technology
The new technology may not provide the final solution for many archivists, but it is an
interim answer for the archivist who believes access to be important.
But technology is always progressing and the problem for the archivist may not
always be the material. The machinery can become obsolete and unusable far more
quickly. What is the point of our preserving material on, for example, videotape or
videodisc if there is no means, or no evident means, of replay available to our
successors and future users?
These are just a few of the starting points for a consideration of audiovisual archives
and their special nature.
Finally audiovisual archives deserve attention from specialised audiovisual archivists.
Many have already come from the ranks of film and audio archives, archivists
themselves have taken on the concerns of their expanding collections and audiovisual
librarians have provided not a few of the personnel of the archives but there is a
profession here which requires education and training in the particular art and craft of
archivism. Policies and practices in av archives will relate to the materials themselves
which are best understood by audiovisual specialists with an archival background and
psyche. Audiovisual archives are here to stay and what the audiovisual archivist
needs to do now is extend his knowledge of archive principles and adapt both them
and the accepted archive, museum and library practices to the growing number of
audiovisual archives which are appearing.
This has been at best an overview of the current situation and the concerns of the
audiovisual archivist. The papers in this Reader have been chosen to provide more
detailed analysis of the specialised aspects of audiovisual archive management.
SECTION I
1.2 NATURE
OF THE AV MEDIA
Ray Edmondson et al.

1 BACKGROUND
1.1 During the 1990s the development of a codified philosophy has become a more
urgent concern, for several reasons. First, the obvious and increasing importance of the
AV media as a part of the worlds memory has contrasted ever more starkly with the low
profile and low resourcing of its preservation. Decades of accumulated practical
experience in AV archives had by now provided a foundation from which to signal more
strongly, by codifying this experience, the consequences of the contradiction.
1.2 Secondly, individual practitioners in AV archives lacked a clear professional identity
and recognition. They also lacked the critical reference point - a theoretical synthesis of
the values, ethics, principles and perceptions implicit in the field - vital to achieving that
recognition. This made them both intellectually and strategically vulnerable. It also
detracted from the public image and status of the field, and resulted in an apparent
vacuum at its core. Even though the various AV archive Federations which operate
within the AV spectrum, FIAF, FIAT and IASA as well as individual archives had
developed policies, rules and procedures, there had traditionally been little leisure to step
back and ponder the theory on which these were based. The emergence of organisations
such as the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Philippines Society
of Film Archivists (SOFIA) aimed at meeting these individual, professional needs was
a sign of change.
1.3 Thirdly, the lack of formal training standards and courses for practitioners had
emerged as a significant issue, and had prompted UNESCO to set up processes resulting
in publications on the role and legal situation of AV archives, and the development of
training curricula for their staff. Such courses, as they emerged, would need theoretical
texts and reference points as well as the means of assimilating practical skills.
1.4 Fourthly, rapid technological change was challenging old assumptions as the
information superhighway advanced. The multiple - media archive (sometimes called
multimedia archive - as distinct from multimedia (a new term usually meaning an
interactive laser disc containing sounds, moving images, text and graphics) was
increasingly supplementing, and sometimes evolving from, the older film archives and
sound archives, and the field was showing an increasing diversity of organisational
formats and emphases. Currently IASA and FIAF are reassessing their roles and futures.
1.5 This concern crystalised in, among other things, the setting up of AVAPIN in early
1993, as well as the increased visibility of theoretical and philosophical discussion in the
professional literature. Although the first AV archives (c/f. the definition in this section)
came into existence nearly a century ago, and the field may be said to have developed
self-awareness from the 1930s onwards, sustained growth is basically a phenomenon of
the second half of the century. It is therefore a young field, underfunded and
under\ ~iued, preoccupied with the pressing practicalities of doing a complex and
demanding ; ob with limited resources.
10
1.1.6 The vision of the pioneering generation that established the concept of the film
archive and sound archive has been enriched, modified and developed by time and
experience, trial and error. Todays AV archivists are a much larger circle, pioneers
still, facing more complex tasks, and with new needs that time and circumstance have
added. The challenge is to meet those needs in a vastly changed and changing AV
environment on the eve of the 21st century.
2 BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
AND ISSUES
2.1 The preparation of this document has occurred under particular circumstances
and is necessarily based on some assumptions. It is important to make these clear at
the outset.
2.2 This document is a synthesis of the views of many individuals speaking as
individuals, not as representatives of institutions or of the Federations. It therefore
has no official status in the sense of representing the formal views of this or that
organisation. Its purpose is simply to provide a focus for discussion, structured in
what seems to be - at this stage - a logical order.
The document follows the same stance as UNESCO in conceiving of AV
2.3
archiving as a single field, within which several federations and a variety of
institutional archive types operate, and which it is valid to regard as a single
profession with internal plurality and diversity*
2.4 AV archiving is considered to be in practice, if not in formality, a profession in
its own right. It follows that it is not seen as a specialised subset of an existing
profession, such as the collecting professions of archival science, librarianship or
museology, though it is closely related to them.
The relevant federations and other NGOs are the appropriate fora for the
2.5
discussion and pursuit of a philosophy of AV archiving. However, it is the case that
many AV archives are ineligible to, or choose not to, join a federation for various
reasons: this makes a philosophy no less relevant to such institutions and their
employees, and so their views are no less valid.
2.6 The discussion on philosophy is developing at a time when the federations are
evaluating their future direction. The development of further stages of this document
is an appropriate project on which representatives of NGOs could be productively
brought together to deal with issues of common concern.
2.8 The intention is, as far as possible, to document what is actually the case, rather
than invent or impose theories or constructs: to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.
The philosophy of AV archiving may have much in common with other collecting
professions, but it is suggested that it should arise from the nature of the AV media,
rather than by automatic analogy from those professions. Similarly, the intent has
been to try and describe the AV media in terms of what it is, rather than what it is not,
and hence avoid phrases like non-book , non-text or special materials.
2.9 It is difficult to compile a shared terminology, since terms like film, cinema.
AudioVisual, program, recording, etc. mean different things to different people.
Equally, however, a shared professional terminology facilitates clarity of
communication and concept.
11
3 DEFINITIONS
AND TERMS
3.1 At the outset some key definitions are essential as a foundation for subsequent
discussion.
3.2 Definition of A V media
3.2.1 There are many definitions of, and assumptions about, this term, which is
variously seen to encompass (a) moving images, both film and electronic (b) audioslide presentations (c) moving images and/or recorded sounds in various formats (d)
still photographs and graphics (e) video games (f) CD ROM multi-media (g) anything
projected on a screen (h) all of these. Some examples of definitions are given below:
no doubt there are many others. They are offered as examples purely to illustrate the
range of perception; no endorsement or comment is given.
[audio visual media are:]
.- visual recordings (with or without soundtrack) irrespective of their physical base
and recording process used, such as films, filmstrips, microfilms, slides, magnetic
tapes, kinescopes, videograms (videotapes, videodiscs), optically readable laser discs
(a) intended for public reception either by television or by means of projection on
screens or by any other means
- sound recordings irrespective of their physical base and the recording process used,
such as magnetic tapes, discs, soundtracks or audiovisual recordings, optically read
laser discs; (a) intended for public reception by means of broadcasting or any other
means (b) intended to be made available to the public.
All these materials are cultural materials.
The definition is intended to cover a maximum of forms and formats.......movin g
images ......constitute the classical form of audiovisual material and are the principal
form explicitly included in the Unesco 1980 Recommendation ...... in reality, [they]
necessarily include sound recordings as well.
(From Kofler, Birgit: Legal questionsfacing AV archives [UNESCO, 1991)
- [ An audiovisual work is one] which appeals at the same time to the ear and to the
eye and consists of a series of related images and accompanying sounds recorded on
suitable material.
(From World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Glossary of Terms of the
Law of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights)
- [The audiovisual heritage] comprises films produced, distributed, broadcast or
otherwise made available to the public .....[film is defined as] a series of moving
images fixed or stored on a support (whatever the method of recording and the nature
of the support used initially or ultimately to hold them), with or without
accompanying sound which, when projected, gives an impression of movement .....
(From an early draft for a proposed European Community convention to protect the
audiovisual heritage.)
3.2.2 The spectrum seems to range from anything with images and/or sounds on the
one hand, to the moving-image-with-sound or the audio-slide-show on the other. In
12
their respective contexts such definitions may be useful, but in philosophical and
practical terms AV archives need a definition which accords with working reality and
positively asserts the character of AV media in their own right.
3.2.3 Accordingly,
media:
the following
is, advanced as a professional definition of AV
AV media are works comprising reproducible images and/or, sounds embodied in a

\ .:, *
carrier, whose
- recording, transmission,
technological device
perception
and comprehension
usually requires a
- visual and/or sonic content has linear duration

- purpose is the communication of that content, rather than use of the technology for
other purposes
3.2.4 Accepting the likelihood that a sharp definition is impossible, this definition is
meant to decisively include conventional sound recordings, moving images (sound or
silent), videos and broadcast programs, both published and unpublished, in all
formats. It is meant to decisively exclude text material per se, regardless of the
medium used (whether paper, microform digital formats, graphics or projection slides.
etc.) The distinction is conceptual rather than technological, although to a large extent
a technological divide exists as well.
3.2.5 Sitting between these two groups, of course, is a spectrum of materials which
are less automatically the preoccupation of AV archives, and which, depending on
your perception, may or may not fully meet the above definition. these materials
include video games, multimedia, piano rolls and mechanical music, and the
traditional tape-slide audiovisual. They also include still photographs, which many
would regard as an AV medium, whether the photographs are collected in their own
right, or as material relating to the AV media (see the definition of AV heritage and
other sections)
3.3 Definition of AV heritage
3.3.1 The AV media, as defined above, may be perceived as the core of a larger range
of material and information collected and comprehended by AV archives and
archivists. This larger range is the AV heritage. The following definition is
proposed:
The AV heritage includes, but is not limited to, the following:
(a) Recorded sound, radio, film, television, video or other productions comprising
moving images and/or recorded sounds, whether or not primarily intended for public
release
(b) Objects, materials, works and intangibles relating to the AV media, whether
seen from a technical industrial, cultural, historical or other viewpoint; this could
include material relating to the film, broadcasting and recording industries, such as
literature, scripts, stills, posters, advertising materials, manuscripts, and artefacts such
as technical equipment or costumes.
13
(c) Concepts such as the perpetuation of obsolescent skills and environments associated
with the reproduction and presentation of these media.
3.3.2 Clearly, from this definition- the AV heritage includes both text material and the
in between materials mentioned above, among other things, which relate to the AV
media. For example, scripts are part of the heritage because they are scripts of radio or
TV programs or films: not becaasc they are scripts per se.
3.3.5 lt follows that most if net all, archives would define their scope by placing their
owr perspective on such a definition - for example, from a subject, geographical or other
viewpoint.
3.4 Definition of AV archii e
3.4.1 There is no succinct definition of an AV archive in general use. The constitutions
of FLAT, FIAF and IASA describe many characteristics and expectations of such bodies
as members, but provide no such definition for the institutional type itself.
3.4.2 The use of the term archive, while common parlance, is itself problematic
because of its multiple associations. In popular use, it has wide and non-specific
connotations as a place where old or non-current materials are kept. Within the
profession of archival science, however, it has come to have quite precise professional
and legal meanings. When coopted by the first AV archives it probably had the former
association; now it often connotes both, accurately or otherwise. Lacking a unique
international label which could readily define them as an institutional type, AV archives
have resorted to a range of labels, including phonotheque, cinematheque, videotheque,
museum, or library. However, since the word archive is historically embedded in the
titles of IASA, FIAT and FIAF, the term AV archive seems to be the closest match
presently achievable.
3.4.3 The following definition is therefore proposed:
An AV archive is an organisation or department of an organisation which is focussed on
collecting, managing, preserving and providing access to a collection of AV media and
the AV heritage.
3.4.4 The key aspects are (a) that an AV archive is an organisation - i.e. not a private
individual or collection (b) that collecting/ managing/ preserving/ providing access to AV
media is its focus - i.e. not just one incidental activity among many. The operative word
is and, nor or: it does all, not some, of these things, and this in turn implies that it collects
material in the range of formats suitable for both preservation and access.
3.4.5 The typology of AV archives (see section C) shows that within this definition
there are many types and emphases. For example, some AV archives concentrate on
individual media - such as film, radio, television, sound recordings - while others cover
several media. Again, some cover a wide range of content while others are highly
focussed or specialised in their subject interest.
3.5 Definition of AV archivist.
3.5.1 While terms like film archivist, sound archivist and AV archivist are in
common use in the field and its literature, there appear to be no agreed definitions of
these terms adopted by the Federations or UNESCO, or indeed attracting a consensus
14
among the practitioners. Traditionally they are subjective and flexible concepts which
evidently mean different things to different people: a statement of personal identity or
perception, rather than a formal qualification.
3.5.2 Further, and unlike the sister fields of librarianship, museology and archival
science, there is little in the way of formal training, and no internationally accepted
formal qualification or accreditation, by which one may be professionally recognised as
an AV archivist. Recommended training standards have been devised (see: 26
Curriculum development for the training of personnel in moving image acid recorded
sound archives. UNESCO, 1990) but, at this stage, are far from practical implementation.
AV archivists come from a variety of backgrounds and it may be that the best beginning
would be to develop a corpus of accepted opinion and principles which they could
assimilate into their current qualifications and experience. Perhaps a similar approach
is possible in grafting an AV archiving corpus into existing course structures in the
collecting professions.
3.5.3 Against this background, the following definition is proposed:
An AV archivist is a person occupied at a professional level in an AV archive, in the
building, refining, control, management or preservation of its collection; or in the
provision of access to it, or the serving of its clientele.
3.5.4 In the long run, it would seem logical that a formal qualification or accreditation,
based on completion of university level training at least comparable to those of the other
collecting professions, should provide the minimum eligibility. Pending this, the term
and its variants will have little obvious or reliable meaning unless it is anchored to a
reference point. One approach could be that the term be applied to persons whose
experience, skills, knowledge, responsibilities or standing in the relevant international
fora are judged to broadly match the standards set out in the above UNESCO document.
It is open to the Federations and associations to establish accreditation mechanisms.
3.5.5 Like archivists, librarians and museologists, AV archivists would be able to follow
whatever specialisations suited their opportunities, preference and subject knowledge,
and identify themselves accordingly. So they might for example, share a common
grounding in theory, history and technical knowledge, but elect to pursue careers as
sound, film, television, broadcasting, multi-media or documentation archivists - or as
administrators, technicians, managers or whatever.
4 IS AV ARCHIVING
A PROFESSION?
4.1 Profession is a much misused word, but in this case the real question is: is AV
archiving an aspect of one of the existing collecting professions, or is it sufficiently
distinct to be a profession in its own right? That the answer is yes has already been
asserted. How can this be demonstrated?
15
4.2 As a test definition, it is suggested that a profession. in our context, exhibits its
own distinctive:
code of ethics.
principles and values.
terminology and concepts.
worldview or paradigm.
a written codification of its philosophy.
skills, methods, standards and procedures.
forum - for example, literature and professional society.
training and accreditation standards
This document asserts that it essentially meets, or is moving to meet, all these tests,
albeit with significant qualification on the last two. Before discussing these, some
points of history and perception should be noted.
4.3 AV archiving originated in a variety of institutional environments. Lacking any
alternative, it was, and still is, natural for its practitioners to see and interpret their
work from the viewpoint of their own mother disciplines and parent institutions.
These disciplines variously include formal training in librarianship, museology,
archival science, history, physics and chemistry, administration and the technical
skills of audio, broadcasting and film. They also include no formal training at all - the
background of the self-taught and the enthusiast. Pressed to state their professional
affiliation, AV archivists may fall back on their formal qualification - if they have one
- or identify with the epithet of sound/ film/ AV/ television archivist, or similar.
Some may cite their links with one or more of the Federations as evidence of
professional status.
4.4 AV archivists - collectively or in their specialist callings - are far from having a
Yet many university-educated
clear and unambiguous professional identity.
practitioners in responsible positions have a strong perception that they are not
librarians, (conventional) archivists or museologists, including those who hold formal
qualifications in those fields. The frequent identification with phrases like film
archivist or sound archivist- even if they cannot be defined and are not self
explanatory - is a way of stating perceived identity.
4.5 Clearly none of these existing professions can fill the vacuum to the satisfaction
of most participants. Nor, in the writers opinion, would this be desirable if the
profession is, indeed, a separate one.
4.6 Returning to the tests of professional status (para 1.2), it can be noted that a
growing professional literature in AV archiving does exist, in which issues of theory
and practice are debated. It includes the journals of the Federations. However, while
they provide forums for debate and cooperation and give some shape to the AV
archiving field, none of the Federations functions as a professional society - in the
sense of providing formal accreditation and support to individuals, or representing
and advancl,Tg a clearly defined profession. Such a professional society seems an
essential characteristic of a profession. There seems no reason why one or more of
16
the existing federations could not develop along these lines: alternatively, a separate
society could be established to perform this role.
4.7 At this stage, adequate formal training is a theoretical hope rather than a reality.
The draft standards exist, but the means to implement them is elusive.
4.8 These qualifications suggest that AV archiving is an emergent profession: it
exists in fact but still lacks the formal mechanisms which would make this visible and
unequivocal. This is probably no longer a matter for leisurely contemplation. There
are practical needs to be met. Further, the dangers of relying on a non-codified
philosophy, with the attendant risks of intuition and idiosyncrasy, are many.
It is interesting to ponder why, after a century of AV archiving activity, questions of
professional identity, formal training and accreditation are only now becoming issues.
Perhaps in a field pioneered by passionate individualists, generational change towards
a greater reliance on formal theory and structures has been slow. Herein lie some
fascinating prospects of enquiry into the history and character of AV archiving.
17
SECTION I
1.3 WORLDVIEW
and PARADIGM
of AV ARCHIVING
Ray Edmondson et al. Philosophy of AV Archiving.

1 Introduction
A defining feature of the various collecting professions is the particular
1.1
perspective, paradigm or world view which they bring to bear on the vast amount of
material of potential interest to them, and which allows them to select, arrange and
provide access to material in meaningful ways. They have much in common: the
disciplines of collection building, the management and conservation of collection
material, the provision of access to users are standard elements. There are cultural
motivations and ethics which transcend the mechanical or utilitarian; there is the
management of competing demands on slim resources. Differences arise in the way
these functions are addressed.
1.2 Although influenced by tradition and history, th;se worldviews are not essentially
determined by the physical format of the material: libraries, archives, museums and
AV archives all collect paper based formats, AV formats and computer-based
formats, for example. At the risk of gross over-simplification, some comparisons are
suggested. Beyond the comments given here, they warrant further examination.
2 Libraries
2.1 Libraries, traditionally the repository of the book (hence their name), the written
and printed word, are also information providers in all formats. They deal with
material that is for the most part published and/or designed for dissemination, created
with conscious intent to inform, persuade, move, entertain. The basic unit of the
library collection is the discrete published book, periodical, program, recording, map,
picture, video etc. Although a given book may be included in the collection of
hundreds of different libraries, each collection is unique in character, reflecting its
clientele, responsibilities and governing policies, and the quality of the iibrarys
selection skills. The disciplines of cataloguing and bibliography provide for control
and accessibility, significant information fields being the publisher, author, subjects,
date and place of publication.
3 Archives
3.1 There are various definitions of archival terminology, and as an example the
following are quoted from the International Council of Archives Dictionary of
archival terminology, ed. Peter Walne, 1988: Archives is defined as: (1) Noncurrent records preserved, with or without selection, by those responsible for their
creation or by their successors in function for their own use or by an appropriate
archives because of their archival value (2) An institution responsible for the
acquisition, preservation, and communication of archives: also called archival
agency, archive(s) service and records office. Archives are also called after the type
of institution whose archives they collect, e.g. college and university archives,
press/radio, television archives, church archives etc. (3) A building or part of a
building in which archives are preserved and made available for consultation: also
called archive(s) repository or archival depository.
3.2 Archives deal largely with unpublished material - accumulated records of social
or organisational activity which have been judged to be of continuing value. Rather
18
than stand-alone works consciously created for publication, their interest is the
collective residue of activity. This material is selected, managed and accessed in
context - the linkage to its creator, activity, or other related records are the prime
considerations and collections are developed, managed and accessed in accordance
with these concepts. For example, an archived correspondence file may be part of a
particular series created by a particular government body in particular circumstances
or at a particular time.. Knowing this and using the material within that context is
essential to a full and proper understanding of it. Finding aids, not catalogues.
provide the user entry point.
4 Museums
4.1 Museums may be said to deal in objects rather than documents or publications
per se: collecting, researching, documenting, displaying. Conservation is a central
skill and discipline, and the skills of public display under controlled conditions for
educational purposes are a fundamental raison detre. The use of AV technology for
display purposes is increasingly characteristic.
5 AV archives
5.1 It is evident that the totality of AV archives, of necessity, embrace aspects of all
three concepts. For example, the material they deal with may be published or
unpublished though the distinction is not always obvious or important; the concept
of an original (a film negative or a master recording) is also meaningful. The skills
of cataloguing and inventory control are equally essential. Because they deal with a
technological media it is conceptually impossible to separate the technology from its
product, so the disciplines of museology are relevant. The mechanics and avenues of
access, whether to individuals or groups of various size. are manifold. In addition,
there are distinctives which arise from the nature of the media.
5.2 Equally, within this amalgam, there are aspects of each of the older professions
which are not so relevant. For example, the archival science concepts of the record,
original order and respect desfonds can be confining ones for the AV archive and not
always relevant to its needs. The library science concepts of information and
collection management have limitations. Access services can be very costly, so the
ethic of free public access traditionally common in archives and libraries can be
impractical.
5.3 The comparisons are instructive and would repay study. A hypothetical example
will illustrate. The same television program might legitimately find a place in all four
types of institution. Within a library, it may represent information, historical record
or an intellectual or artistic creation. Within an archives, it may comprise part of the
records of a particular organisation. Within a museum, it may be a displayable work
of art. Each concept is legitimate, but the same work is viewed from different
perspectives - from the worldview of the profession involved. AV archives see this
differently. The great Russian film maker and theorist, Sergei Eisenstein, considered
film to be the synthesis of the arts. One way of viewing AV archiving is to see it as
a synthesis of disciplines.
6 The AV archive paradigm
6.1 The AV archive is, instead, in a position to view the hypothetical program in its
own right and not as an aspect of something else. It does not need to see it primarily
as information, or historical record, or art, or organisational record. It can see it as a
television program which is all these things, and more, at the same time and organise
19
itself around that fact. The character of the AV media and its products are the first
reference point for AV archives: just as, centuries ago, the character of the printed
book, as a phenomenon, gave rise to libraries as we now know them.
6.2 To amplify this, one can consider - for example - how AV archives perceive
paper materials in their collections - periodicals, posters, photographs, scripts and the
like. These items are mostly not perceived in their own right - but in that aspect
which serves to amplify the value of the recordings, films or programs to which they
relate. A film poster has value in an AV archive because of the film to which it
relates. It may have quite different value, as art in an art gallery.
6.3 The extent to which this paradigm operates in practice varies according to the
circumstances and choices of the AV archive. Autonomous AV archives - be they
single or multiple-media - which have independence and status comparable to major
libraries, archives and museums are in the best position to exhibit it, for in such cases
the AV media are seen to have the same cultural status as their older cousins. AV
archives which are essentially departments of larger entities find an accommodation
between this paradigm and the worldview of their parent institution. Obviously AV
media, like other media, retain their whole character regardless of their organisational
context: the question is how far that context can, or should, reflect that whole nature.
7 Other perspectives of AV archives
7.1 The worldview of AV archives contains many other elements which, to a greater
or less extent, are characteristic or defining features. The following are illustrative.
7.2 Industries and the AV media: AV archives are part of the world of collecting
institutions, conscious of the social responsibilities and ethic of public service which
characterise that world. But they are also, to varying degrees, part of another world:
the international AV industries and their culture. They recruit staff from it. They
speak their language, they service their needs. As stable points in a volatile milieu,
they preserve their corporate history and identity. They reflect their entrepreneurial
spirit and passion for the media. They represent a strong and emotive part of the
public memory and identity, an affirmation of the growing importance of preserving
popular culture as well as high culture.
7.3.1 Corporate Culture: The fragility and fugitive nature of the AV media. the
pioneering flavour of AV archiving, the lack of resources, the rapid development of
the technology, and their relatively small numbers give AV archives and archivists a
sense of mission and urgency. So much to do, so little time: they are constantly
confronted by the implications of their own actions, inactions and limitations: they
need to convince, change attitudes and mould their environment. A sometimes
passionate advocacy for their field is characteristic.
7.3.2 So is versatility. For example, having a basic general technical knowledge, and
a historical knowledge of the AV media and AV archiving, regardless of ones area of
specialisation. A sensitive and scrupulous approach to ethics is essential in a field
where commercial-in-confidence
information is constantly handled, access or
acquisition transactions may involve considerable sums, judgement is constantly
needed and many important suppliers (such as private collectors) prefer to trust
individuals rather than institutions. The commitment required to operate successfully
in this environment tends to exclude those who lack personal enthusiasm for the AV
media and its archiving.
20
7.4.1 Preservation: The potential contradiction between preservation and access

impinges on most collecting institutions. Because AV media are technologically
based, the realities of preservation impinge on all the functions of an AV archive in a
particular way: they are integral to day-to-day operation, rather than an adjunct.
Preservation shapes perceptions: access to material always has technological and cost
implications and the mode of access must be such that it does not put the survival of
the work at unacceptable risk. If the cost cannot be met - for example, of making an
access copy from a preservation copy, or having the appropriate equipment available then access may not provided until it is.
7.4.2 Indeed because of their technological base, AV archives are often distinguished
by their character as centres of specialised technical expertise and equipment: as
places where obsolete technology and processes are, of necessity, maintained and
nurtured so that material in all AV formats can be restored and reproduced. How far
this will always be the case, as image and sound recording becomes increasingly
digitised, is a matter for debate: although the inertia effect of storing, maintaining and
copying ever increasing quantities of AV materials in obsolescent formats will keep it
so for the foreseeable future. Further, the aesthetic skills, historical knowledge and
ethical judgements involved in preservation work are integral to the character of the
AV media and will always be needed.
7.5 Technical perspective: A related characteristic is the technological mindset of AV
archivists: the capacity to think constantly in technical terms, to operate a variety of
technical equipment, to understand the direct consequences for collection material of
inappropriate storage, mishandling or misusing equipment in a variety of
circumstances. It is an order of magnitude beyond that which one might expect as the
norm in other collecting professions.
7.6 Evidential approach: Logically and validly, AV archives use methods and
principles of acquisition, collection management, documenting and service provision
that arise from the nature of the AV media and its context - physical, aesthetic and
legal. These may therefore differ, in degree or in kind, from the corresponding
approaches of the other collecting professions. While this statement may seem self
evident, the fact that AV archiving has grown out those professions means that their
differing (and sometimes mutually incompatible) assumptions have been applied, by
automatic analogy, to the practice of AV archiving. The need to work back to first
principles has sometimes become apparent later, and for many is still in the process of
emerging. For example, the differing approaches to collection organisation and
documenting of archival science and library science have both been applied to AV
archiving.
Many AV archives have developed other approaches which, while
drawing signals from both, have different base assumptions and are different in
practice.
7.7.1 Collection development: Like libraries, many AV archives acquire material
(depending on their circumstances) by voluntary or legal deposit, purchase and gift,
and like them they develop and apply selection or appraisal policies and mechanisms.
But collection development has additional and characteristic dimensions. These
include, for some, systems of voluntary deposit (where the AV archive has custody
but not legal ownership of material), off-air recording of broadcasts, the creation of
recordings, and the skills of detecting and chasing fugitive materials whose
commercial shelf life may be a matter of weeks rather than decades. AV archives
need to be active and selective seekers rather than passive acceptors. The pattern
depends on the organisational setting of the AV archive and the policy of the parent
21
body. Some may exercise little selection and may need to be less active in their
approach. Official Government archives, for example, may receive the compulsory
transfer of materials from other government entities.
7.7.2 Private individuals, including collectors, are a major source of material and
relationships with them are very important. The AV industries themselves rely very
much on person-to-person contact. The capacity to develop and sustain personal
relationships and inspire trust is essential in a field where sensitivities can be acute
and trust is easily damaged. Ethical questions arise frequently and require careful
judgement.
7.8 Collection management: By their nature, many AV materials are both costly and
environmentally vulnerable. Within the economic resources available to them AV
archives maintain a variety of humidity/temperature controlled storage environments
and regimes for periodically checking out the condition of their stock. Inventory type
control systems which allow each carrier to be uniquely identified, and division of
material by form, status and size are aspects of AV archive housekeeping systems.
The building up of detailed technical information on individual carriers is necessary
to permit monitoring of condition over time, and to inform correct conservation
treatment if it is necessary. In this setting, the key unit is the individual carrier linked
to a work identified by a title. In its concept and application, the approach grows
out of the nature of the AV media, both physical and conceptual.
7.9.1 Access: Because of the nature of the media, access has many levels - actual
and potential - ranging from the one-to-one enquiry, to product marketing, to
telecasting and public presentation. The skills and knowledge required are also of
considerable range: entrepreneurial skills, knowledge of the collection, technical
skills, product development skills, legal knowledge, presentational skills - to name
some. Certain AV archives may specialise in particular parts of this spectrum.
7.9.2 One can browse a book or a set of manuscripts. One does not browse a sound
recording, film, videogram or even artefact in the same way. Catalogue entries,
sometimes highly detailed, are often the most efficient entree for the user. Since
cataloguing is labour intensive and expensive, and many collections are therefore still
poorly catalogued, the collection knowledge of the AV archivist is the alternative.
Since the use of auditioning/viewing equipment, and the retrieval of material for
viewing, can be expensive, free access is often not possible.
7.9.3 Limited access information may be the current reality, but is certainly not the
aim- for AV archives. New technology, such as CD ROM and the Internet, are
rapidly opening up new possibilities for browsing catalogue data bases and browsing
the images and sounds themselves. This in turn will create new demands on AV
archives. It may even change the nature of cataloguing, allowing icons, images and
sounds to become part of the catalogue entry itself.
7.10 Context linkage: The preservation and accessibility of moving images and sound
recordings sooner or later involves copying. Copying is not a value-neutral act; a
series of technical judgements and physical acts (such as manual repair) determine the
parameters of the resulting copy. It is possible, in effect, to distort, lose or manipulate
history through the judgements made and the quality of the work performed.
Documenting the processes, and the choices made, from generation to generation is
essential to preserving the integrity of the work: the AV equivalent, perhaps, of the
archival concepts of respect du fends and original order. The same logic applies to
the restoration and reconstruction of AV media: only if the choices are documented
can the new version be judged fairly, in context.
22
1.4 AUDIOVISUAL
TO AUDIOVISUAL
RECORDS AS ARCHIVAL
ARCHIVES
MATERIAL
Wolfgang Klaue (1989)

There have been films since 1895, radio since the twenties and television since the
thirties of our century. There have been facilities for the recording of sound for over a
hundred years and for the magnetic recording of pictures for about fifty. The majority
of audiovisual documents made in the preceding decades have been lost or destroyed.
The further we go back in history, the bigger are the gaps in our inheritance of films,
sound and video recordings. Without wishing here to analyse the reasons for this or
to investigate the question of the responsibility and guilt for this loss of human values,
one thing must be said: it is high time that audiovisual media were viewed as
archivable materials, to be accepted and conserved in archives. The process of the
mass destruction of audiovisual records must be ended. Audiovisual media have
become one of the most essential forms of human communication in the twentieth
century. Not to treat them as books in libraries, manuscripts in archives, works of art
in museums, can be justified neither scientifically nor morally.
This 1 lth
International Archive Congress, after its beginnings in 1972, should play a pioneering
role in the process of extending the recognition of the historical value of audiovisual
materials.
I do not believe that at an international forum of experienced archivists the case for
the necessity of audiovisual material conservation needs to be made. Audiovisual
documents exist in great breadth and colourful variety, whether we subjectively like
them or not. Audiovisual media and, alongside them, new archivable material are a
reality which no one can ignore.
As long as there is no internationally recognised definition of audiovisual materials,
one must perforce, for the sake of intelligibility, define ones own concept. My
definition lays no claim to general recognition, it is for me no more than a working
hypothesis: audiovisual materials include both still and moving pictures and sound
recordings together with all combinations of storing these no matter what recording
process or carrier medium is used. For me, the term audiovisual records is a
comprehensive designation for photographic, film , sound and video recordings.
There are already today a considerable number of film, television and sound archives.
The memberships of the specialised NGOs are impressive by themselves: FIAF Federation Intemationale des Archives du Film - over 70 members and observers.
FIAT - Federation Internationale des Archives de la Television - about 50 members,
IASA - International Association of Sound Archives - over 400 members. And it can
be taken for granted that each of the bigger radio and TV stations has access to an
archive. Broadcasting stations without an archive are almost unthinkable. According
to the Latest statistics on radio and television broadcasting (Unesco, 1987), there
are over 6100 sound broadcasting institutions in 197 countries and 1200 television
broadcasting institutions in 139 countries. Can we assume from these figures that the
continuing conservation of our audiovisual heritage is really secure? No, this
conclusion is not justified. A more profound analysis of the position reveals that the
situation is not merely disturbing but highly alarming. The process of the mass
destruction of audiovisual material, whether as film, video or sound recording, is
continuing. All our powers of discernment must be brought into play in order to
change this. In 1986/87 FIAF and FIAT conducted a worldwide survey on the
23
position of radio and TV archives. The results of this survey have been published as a
UNESCO document and to a certain extent the findings can probably also be related to
photographic and sound recordings. The following problems are especially apparent.
1. Lack of appreciation
of the audiovisual heritage
In 1980 the General Assembly of UNESCO unanimously passed the Recommendation

for the safeguarding and conservation of moving images. The acceptance of this
document was of historic importance: for the first time the heritage of moving pictures
was declared to be part of the cultural heritage of each nation and the responsibility of
governments for the care and conservation of this heritage was defined. It might have
been thought that this recommendation would have stimulated a real movement towards
the conservation of audiovisual materials, but unfortunately this breakthrough has not
taken place. The aforementioned survey showed that in many countries the
Recommendation was insufficiently known and had had only slight effect on already
existing audiovisual archives. It was reported that in only one country had the
Recommendation led to the founding of an audiovisual archive.
If audiovisual materials are to be safeguarded, the first and most important task is to
establish everywhere the recognition that photographs, films, video and sound recordings
represent archival material worthy of preservation. All administrative, legal, material and
financial consequences for the existence and development of audiovisual archives begin
with the realization that audiovisual materials are part of the national culture of every
people and belong to the testimony of the twentieth century as proof of cultural identity.
There remains a great deal to be done if governments, public opinion, makers of
audiovisual materials and all decision-making bodies which contribute to the financing
of audiovisual archives are to recognise the historical and cultural value of these
materials. Experience shows that today audiovisual archives are still very far from being
ranked alongside libraries, other archives or museums. All forces, especially those of
archivists, which have the most experience in the onward transmission of historical
sources must be brought into play to positively influence this process of recognition. In
many countries more can be effected with the authority of public archives than with the
enthusiasm of specialist institutions.
Television exists in 139 countries and films are produced in over 100 countries. It has
been established that archives exist in about 80 countries. There remains a sizeable gap
between countries which produce audiovisual materials and countries which also archive
these. Even if there is a film, TV or sound archive, we should not assume that a
functioning system for the deposit of audiovisual material also exists. Because of their
physical condition and their legal basis, there are extraordinarily big differences between
present-day archives.
2. Legislating for audiovisual archives
Whether or not an audiovisual archive is integrated into a state archive or exists as an
independent institution, its function must have a legal basis. In many countries, this
problem has not been solved.
- audiovisual materials are not defined as archival goods and incorporated into
appropriate laws.
- there is no functioning system to ensure the deposit of audiovisual materials both from
official sources and from the private sector.
24
- with the increasing internationalisation of the manufacturers of audiovisual

materials, there is increasing difficulty in defining the area of national interest.
- audiovisual materials are covered by most of the provisions of the copyright law.
Essential archive functions such as acquisition, duplication - including for the purpose
of preservation - and use are covered by it. The rights and powers of archives in
relation to audiovisual materials are scarcely defined and in consequence not
contained either in international legal conventions.
The survey of film and TV archives showed that in an astonishingly large number of
countries, copyright deposit for films and partially also for other audiovisual materials
did exist. But experience shows that the legal requirement is practically never
enforced. Either the mechanism for the implementation of this principle is lacking or
the requisite material preconditions do not exist in the archives. It has been shown
that rules designed for the deposit of manuscripts in archives or the copyright deposit
of books in libraries can be made to fit audiovisual materials only to a limited extent.
In many cases there must be supplementary repairs to audiovisual materials before
they are archived and the costs of this can be considerable.
I think the time has come to bring together all legal problems of audiovisual archives
in co-operation with other NGOs within the ambit of a working party. This working
party would be given the job of making recommendations to individual countries on
their legislative programme and on an international level to effectively support the
interests of the archives.
3. Conservation
of audiovisual materials
Carriers of audiovisual information exist in great diversity: films in colour and black
and white, on nitrocellulose and acetate bases, in 8mm., 16mm., 35mm, and 70mm
formats; videotapes from half-inch to two inches, in VHS, Umatic, Betamax and
Sound cylinders, records of very different sizes and
many other configurations.
speeds, compact discs, video discs - the list could be extended as long as you wish.
The conservation of this material imposes completely new demands on traditional
archives; storage must have other parameters than those for paper; maintaining the
material demands a technology adequate for the carrier. There are completely new
requirements for technical and personnel provision. Rapid technological changes
compel the technical base to accommodate new formats, processes, technologies.
Because of chemical and physical properties, audiovisual materials are subject to
rapid wear or decay. Nitrocellulose films disintegrate, colour films fade, acetate film
is found to be less stable than it was hitherto thought to be. Magnetic recordings
demand regular inspection and maintenance. All these technical problems - and a
good many more might be mentioned - could be reasons for withholding audiovisual
materials from being archived. But there can be no audiovisual inheritance, unless all
the technical problems associated with this are recognised and overcome. It is
obvious that not every country can provide for itself alone all the material and
technical preconditions for the conservation of audio-visual materials. Regional cooperation, especially when it comes to maintenance, will be essential. Unesco is
striving, in co-operation with specialised NGOs, to develop regional centres for the
maintenance of audiovisual materials and this effort should be intensified. This step
would be an important precondition in the prevention of further losses.
Can new technologies, new carrier materials have a revolutionary influence on the
future of audiovisual archives ? There is a future-orientated technology fetishismwhich looks towards both miniaturisation as a solution for the problems of mass, and
carrier materials which are totally maintenance-free, but archives cannot wait for that.
25
Archives must act today, must conserve and maintain audiovisual materials today. Any
waiting for future technologies means further losses must be reckoned with.
One archival principle must also be applied to audiovisual materials - archives must be
handed on in the form in which they were produced. Films should be conserved as films
not as videocassettes, records as records not sound cassettes. This may sound very
conservative and could certainly be contested. But is not the archivist duty bound to the
original? Nobody could possibly compare even the most superb microfiche of a
medieval document with the original.
4. Education of audiovisual archivists
One issue of Archivum was specially devoted to this subject and I have given my
opinion there at length. Here I should just like to limit myself to a few basic remarks:
it is obvious from the FIAF/FIAT survey that one of the real reasons for the delays in
this field is the lack of knowledge about the handling of audiovisual materials, about
the legal and administrative problems of audiovisual archives, about the conservation
and exploitation of these. But further training provision alone at national, regional or
international level cannot meet the need for specialist archivists and technicians for
audiovisual archives. We must create an academic course in existing educational
institutions for these specialist archives. And here too I make an urgent appeal to all
those who have responsibility for the training of archivists to rise to these new
demands. UNESCO has allotted praiseworthy support for the educational programmes
of audiovisual archivists and a working party made up of representatives of the ICA,
FIAF, FIAT and IASA is working on this.
5. Financing audiovisual archives
The institutions surveyed by FIAF/FIAT named three main problems that were
hindering the development of audiovisual archives.
- lack of awareness that audiovisual materials should be preserved
- lack of specialist staff
- insufficient financial support.
No audiovisual archive can exist without subsidy, just as no library, no museum, no
manuscript archive can fulfil its task without financial assistance. Everywhere whether in developed or developing countries, socialist or capitalist states - it needs
considerable and constantly increasing funding both to establish and maintain
audiovisual archives. However difficult it may be, there is no other solution than to
include the financial needs of audiovisual archives in state budgets. Apart from a few
exceptions, there are no other sources of finance. There are considerable expenses in
creating and maintaining a controlled environment, in buying technical apparatus for
the use, checking and maintenance of audiovisual material. In many countries only
gradual solutions are possible. Again and again it will need the arguments of
archivists, historians, media experts, sociologists and other scientists and journalists
to carry out possible measures on a national scale. Additional funds must be allocated.
The development of audiovisual archives cannot and must not be at the expense of
existing archives, libraries and museums.
26
..--
_ _..--
In my opinion, the development of audiovisual archives leads to a further

differentiation of archive science. In many areas there are completely new theoretical
problems, which up to now have not been exhaustively answered either by archive
science or any other scientific discipline. Headings of some subjects are listed below:
- methods of deposit and collection
- administrative problems, centralisation or decentralisation, relationship between
the production archive and the deposit archive
1
- audiovisual materials as contemporary historical documents and works of art,.
- physical value of audiovisual materials and selection
,.
- value of supplementary documents (materials arising during production or
distribution)
- legal problems of audiovisual archives
- access and use, new demands, new user categories
- index of audiovisual materials
- critique of the sources of audiovisual materials
- handling, conservation and maintenance
For two decades there have been valuable contributions towards a theory of audiovisual
archives. But the spasmodic development of new media technologies has led to a
situation in which in archive practice more problems have been thrown up than have
been answered by theory. A reversal of this situation - theoretical advance preceding
practice - is much to be desired.
In conclusion, a comment on the institutionalisation of audiovisual archives. Should
they be independent or integrated into the national archive? Should all audiovisual
materials be collected into one archive or should photography, sound recordings, video
recordings and film be separated? In my experience there is no universally applicable
solution. The most favourable variant for the onward transmission of audiovisual
materials will depend on national conditions. In each case, the experiences and
authority of the traditional archives are an essential factor in the promotion of practical
solutions. In such solutions we should care for what is already in existence and strive
for a effective productive co-operation of all those who are concerned with and have
a part to play in this work. The recognition of a problem is the first step towards its
solution. We must be in a position in all countries, at the beginning of a new
millennium, to ensure the onward transmission of those mass media which have arisen
in the twentieth century. It is a complicated task, a challenge to all who are involved
in it, but it lies in our hands to pass on to the coming generations the evidence of the
audiovisual age.
1 Wolfgang Klaue, Training and education for audiovisual archives, Archivum 34
(1988) pp. 113-123 (See Section XIII, 13.1 for this paper)
27
TO AUDIOVISUAL
1.5 General Principles of Audiovisual

Curriculum
ARCHIVES
Archiving
Development Working Party, 1990
1 An archivists historical approach and relevant professional knowledge and the

principle of provenance in conjunction with the factual and logical principle (principle
of pertinence) as a result of this, has met with the approval of pragmatic historians and
theorists in a variety of countries and regions. It can be concluded that the general
archive theory does not represent a mere theory on paper, it is also applicable in av
media archives.
2 It has furthermore been agreed that the dialectical principle of continuity and
innovation is to be found in archive history as well as in current archive practice. A
continuity of technical processes of traditional and av archives is revealed in the
formats and carriers reflecting changing innovations in their outer appearance.
3 A further general principle of av archiving is the necessity of general and subjectspecific terminology. No science or profession can dispense with a terminology of its
own, and this applies to archives and av archives alike. Manuals, dictionaries,
encyclopaedias and standard definitions are required.
4 Archival science and archive practice are inter-disciplinary orientation as far as
content is concerned and an archivist should be able to recognise and concern himself
with references relating to content and method in the relevant field. Archive science
is beginning to converge with documentation science and librarianship, especially in
methodology.
5 The syllabus taught at archive, library and documentation schools can harmonise
provided the sovereignty of each profession is observed. The variety of technical
professions eligible for the practical archiving of av materials in archives, libraries,
and museums requires special curricula, manuals and teaching aids. An archivist needs
to combine different vocational requirements although he is hardly likely to be faced
with archive stock from the 9th century to the 20th century av media in the same
situation. But if a specific task set to an individual may overtax his abilities and skills,
the whole vocational group of archivists should be able to cope with it. It has been
suggested that an archivist is a documentalist in the first instance, and a historian in
the second. According to the life-cycle concept of the sources he has been holding
one and the same function since the inception of comprehensive archive history, 5000
years ago. An archivists efforts have been concentrated on reflecting the contents of
documents by employing specific finding aids and techniques. Emphasis should be put
on the skills required for general archives as well as specialised archives, including the
media archives. Guidelines, rules, and standards can be applied for a routine approach
involving form and content alike. They assist in finding documents, entries, motives
and sequences which can be interpreted in various ways. An archivists mental agility
will, however, continue to be required, even if assisted by computer databases.
6 New theoretical issues originating from the activities of av archives have already
been discussed at the ICA Congress in Paris and published in Archivum vol. XXXV.
In addition to common features shared *with traditional archives, av archives show
differences and a need for specialisation. This raises new theoretical concepts and a
number of methods can be derived.
28
Like traditional archives, media archives can acquire stock through legal deposit,
collection, purchase and donation.
Cinematheques, videotheques and other av
archives may possess will probably have a multi-media stock.
7 Technical considerations are often more important in AV archiving than in
traditional archives. The as yet unsolved problem of long-term archiving means that
archives, libraries and museums are constantly faced with the serious problem of
finding technical, financial andhuman resources to safeguard authenticity and data
protection of their various carriers and formats. In addition to employing recording
and playback techniques for research and use-of the documentation of their stock, av
archives are also using EDP databases and interactive systems and applications.
8 Appraisal of archive stock has been adapted from the work processes of traditional
archives. Based on spontaneous or considered decisions, av media archives also
endeavour to employ the minimax principle, ie. to acquire a minimum of documents
supplying a maximum of information. With increasing miniaturisation of sources it
may be that tv archives which are motivated to serve programming and cultural
policies, will be able to stock up to 90% of master material. The remaining radio
broadcasting archives, picture archives, cinematheques and historical film archives
tend to store greatly reduced quantities of archival material constituting 5-10% of the
originally available material. It has been estimated that, either due to lack .of
judgement on an owners part or for reasons of economic gain in the re-use of av
material, mankind has lost a far greater number of documents than by erroneous
decisions taken in favour of disposal. Nothing much will change in av archives in the
foreseeable future: long-term storage - which has already been considered safe for
paper archives, cannot be guaranteed for technical reasons, and the constant copying
required will prove too costly for many archives, and so mankind will continue to be
deprived of valuable sources.
Video stock is currently accumulating at a faster rate (over 22% p.a.) than film stock
(only 1.7% in archives). There is reason to believe that in the future new techniques
may help to record documents for posterity much better than has hitherto been
possible thus increasing this ratio in favour of video.
9 An av archives working procedures can be listed in the following order.
1. Safeguarding
2. Documentation
3. Use of av materials
The safeguarding and preservation of av material thus take priority over use. This
principle applies to both internal use of production archives, cinematheques,
videotheques, historical film archives, archive sections of libraries and museums and
use by external parties.
Photographs, films and sound recordings all ideally require back-up copies to
safeguard by multiple documentation of source material. Since the transfer and
reproduction is carried out under the observance of technical standards supervised by
experts (photographers, sound engineers etc.), authenticity of aural and visual
information is preserved. The copy should meet the demands of researchers,
scientists, students, journalists, film producers, etc. Although in the production
archives attached to radio and tv broadcasting, internal use for programming takes
priority over external bona fide users, the activities of cinematheques and historical
29
film archives (eg. in the DDR or FRG) are predominantly geared to serve external
users. User statistics of historical film and sound archives indicate a tipping of the
balance in favour of commercial use by journalists, press publishers, film producers
and tv establishments. Since av media involve aspects of copyright, multiplication
and re-use, national laws have to provide for the protection of rights. At a time when
av piracy is on the increase, the protection of intellectual property becomes part of
audiovisual archiving, and less than 10% of the patrons have a non-commercial
concern for source material. Although a production archive can satisfy over 90% of
research demands within 24 hours (often within minutes), more research time (several
days, sometimes weeks) has to be allowed for historically orientated av archives,
cinematheques and attached library and museum sections, where the nature of
research is often linked to long-term commissioned documentation and this should be
charged realistically to the user.
10 An archives existence is based on the safeguarding of cultural heritage and its
identity, and this requires financial resources for preservation. In addition to a
moderate income for their annual budget from fee-paying users, av media archives,
just like traditional archives, depend on government funds, communal grants and
other financial aid. Only tv archives in their capacity as archive terminals are liable to
make a theoretical profit which may exceed annual administration, personnel and
overhead costs, through the re-use of film (an archives own productions and coproductions), compilations of sequences from existing stock and through the sale of
av archive material to third parties. It is difficult to compare the expenditure of
production and preservation archives due to the fact that a preservation archive
normally has its own separate budget whereas in a production archive so many costs
are hidden in the larger production unit, and not directly assigned to the archive.
11 Av archives have to maintain their own organisational structure. If approximately
7% of a given nationalarchives fund is represented by media archives which in turn
store 3-4% of the national archival record among them, an av arc,hives relevant av
material (sound, picture, film, video) will dominate over the existing traditional
carriers of a historical archive (radio and tv drama manuscripts, scenarios, scripts,
programming schedules, internal schedules and statistics).
12 One of the general principles of audiovisual archiving concerns the extent to
which av archives can lay a claim to, or realise public effectiveness and awareness.
The public relations work of an av archive is closely linked with the degree of
accessibility to external users. This has been covered earlier in this report in
conjunction with the differentiation between independent av archives like film
archives, cinematheques, videotheques or av divisions in traditional archives, in
libraries, museums and those which are mainly engaged in providing material for
making new programmes. The future trend is to increase participation in mass
communication which both archive types will follow by safeguarding and preserving
the specific cultural heritage entrusted to them, whether they have a detached
independent or integrated dependent status.
13 After the invention of the silent cinema in 1895, the birth of sound film in 1928
and the rapid development of television after World War II, video has been regarded
as the fourth revolution of moving images. Compared to its predecessors, video
technology has often been ascribed the function of a catalyst, inasmuch as it
represents a new type of distribution of film information through individual playback
of video copies, with reduced use of raw film stock, and a reduction of manufacturing
cost by at least ten times that needed for making a conventional cinematograph film.
30
Meanwhile the sale of videocassettes exceeds the turnover of books and box-office
revenues, in the USA, Japan and the EC countries; the record being held in the UK.
Annually the sale and lending services fetch several thousand million dollars. For
1990, the number of cassettes hired by the public is estimated to reach approximately
20,000 film titles including more than 12,000 feature films.
14 The newer forms of reception, above all those with an individual orientation offer
widespread potential to enhance the propagation of knowledge and experience to a
greater degree than ever before.
It is incumbent upon av archivists to preserve historic sources, and to encourage their
future use for the benefit of all.
31
Section I INTRODUCTION
1.6 A TYPOLOGY
TO AUDIOVISUAL
OF MEDIA
ARCHIVES
Grace Koch, Australian Institute of Aboriginal

Canberra, Australia 1993.
ARCHIVES:
TYPOLOGY
1993
and Torres Strait Islander Studies,
When we talk about media archives, we must make sure that we have a careful
understanding about what they actually are; therefore we must begin with some
definitions. We shall start with the word, archives. In the Macquarie Dictionary of
English (Delbridge 1981: 129), the word, archives is defined as a place where
public records or other historical documents are kept. Surprisingly enough, the word
itself comes from the Greek arkheia, meaning public office rather than, as might
be expected, from arkaikos which means ancient. (Roberts 1984: 116) This very
etymology attacks the concept of an archive as a final resting place or perhaps a
graveyard of material. A public office, merely by the use of the word, public, is
highly visible and responsible. Archivists, as a group, are working hard to advertise
their collections and make them available for public use. Such action is held in
balance with the responsibility to maintain and preserve these collections.
The Working Group from the Round Table on Audiovisual Records, involving
experts in sound, film and video media, has assembled a comprehensive Glossary of
. terms related to the archiving of audiovisual materials. Their three-part interpretation
of what archives can be is:
1. Non-current records preserved, with or without selection, by those responsible for
their creation or by their successors in function for their own use or by an appropriate
archives because of their archival value.
2. An institution responsible for the acquisition, preservation, and communication of
archives; also called archival agency, archives service, or record office.
3. The building or part of a building in which archives are preserved and made
available for consultation; also called archives repository; archival depository.
Now that I have nearly exhausted the term, archives, I shall move on to the term,
media. Media are carriers of information. Again I quote the Glossary:
A material or base upon which information is stored or transmitted.
This material or base can be in any number of forms: paper or print, magnetic tape,
film. Significant philosophical differences exist between written, or printed, and
audiovisual media. Some of these have been described by Rainer Hubert:
Writing is a recognised way of preserving speech, and..speech is intelligible
thought..therefore..the print media contain, above all, human thoughts. They are the
ideal storage medium for abstract, ..verbal information.
Audiovisual media can
also..contain [verbal or written] information.. [but their unique] capability lies in the
fact that they can store non-verbal information,...the
[visual] and acoustic
environment...The [basic function] of the print media is [to individually translate
thoughts into writing] while that of the audiovisual media is the recording by machine
of [actual] visual and audio proceedings.
In this paper I shall deal with these carriers of audio and visual information; these
media of direct experience. Therefore, a media archive will be one which contains
32
one or more of the audiovisual media: sound, video, film, and photographs, which
seeks at least in a small way to publicise the collections, and which arranges for the
acquisition, classification, preservation/ conservation and dissemination of the
holdings. Print material is held by most media archives as well, but their primary
focus is upon audiovisual media. Because most of my experience has been with
sound archives, I shall apologise in advance if I emphasise sound media more than the
others.
When we look at media archives, we find that their operations have been heavily
influenced by practices of print libraries. Many of the rules of registration (or
accessioning) and cataloguing have been adapted to the needs of media archives;
however, such practices are not standardised enough to allow for computerised access
to the extent that print libraries allow. Cataloguing committees of such organisations
as IASA, FIAF and FIAT are presently working towards developing international
standards, but such work requires extreme diplomacy, creativity and flexibility!
Each audiovisual medium has its own special features that must be considered. A
film cannot be handled in the same way as a photograph; a sound recording responds
differently to multiple playings than a video.
However, media are growing together technically. The advent of the CD ROM has
allowed storage of all media, print and audiovisual, on one type of carrier. The
question remains as to how stable that carrier is, but the fact remains that media are
moving together. The Joint Technical Symposia of the Round Table on Audiovisual
Media are held for the express purpose of examining the impact of new technology
and its effects upon the work of media archives. The entire role of media archives is
being re-examined in the light of these developments. We live in exciting times.
Today I hope to guide you through the existing types of media archives. In discussing
them, I want to examine five of the basic functions that they perform and see how
each type of archive ranks them in importance. The functions are:
collection
creation
classification
dissemination
preservation/conservation
Basic tasks of media archives
Collection
For the purposes of this analysis, collection shall be defined as developing archival
holdings by obtaining material that is already available in audiovisual format. This
can mean either published or unpublished recordings, films, videos, or photographs.
These items can be obtained by such means as purchase, exchange, or donation. The
archive will have a policy for collection, defining which items are suitable for its i
purposes. This definition corresponds to Huberts concept of collecting passively.
Creation
This means the actual generation of audiovisual material. Some archives carry out an
active policy of making items. They may send out teams of documentalists and
recording technicians to capture a specific event, such as a television crew rushing to
the scene of a fire. This is more expensive than passive collection. Broadcasting
33
archives do this all the time. Specialist archives often carry out such active collection
when there is no material available anywhere else.
Classification
All audiovisual material must be registered (accessioned) and catalogued or listed in
some way. Documentation of some sort must be provided with the material. As I
mentioned earlier, the international associations dealing with audiovisual materials are
working towards the standardisation of cataloguing; however, each audiovisual medium
requires specific treatment.
Classification also must include information on how the collection may be used,
copyright regulations, and firm contracts between the depositor and the archive. Such
regulations make possible the next function, which is becoming increasingly more
important.
Dissemination
This refers to making the contents of the archives available to users. It may involve
making copies of archival material, either edited or unedited, or publishing the holdings
in some way. Dissemination provides income for the archives; with the difficult financial
conditions facing the world today, funding cuts are affecting all sorts of major
institutions. Archives are being asked to justify their existence; often this means
responsibility to and accessibility by the public as well as an active publications
programme. Schools are an obvious target for archival publications.
Preservation/conservation
I am using the two terms, preservation and conservation, as one task because they both
deal with physical treatment of the media. The definitions for each process are:
Preservation
Media archives require technical specialists to maintain the collections. Certain
standards of preservation have been set by the international media archiving
organisations for storage and maintenance procedures. Each medium requires special
treatment; for example, the optimum temperature for storage differs for film and for
audio tapes. Also, we live in a time where formats for audiovisual carriers are changing
rapidly, especially since the advent of digitisation. Technical specialists must ensure that
the carriers of audiovisual materials are stable; that they will last as long as possible
either on a secure format or that they will be transferred to one which is. The format
must also be accessible; for example in the case of recorded sound, wax cylinders
containing valuable historical material are being copied onto more playable formats.
Conservation
Conservation, or restoration of carriers falls to the technical expert. Many ethical issues
come up here; should a recording of a singer, for instance, be restored to sound like it did
to the hearers of the original recording or should it be restored to sound like the original
performance?
These definitions are very basic, but they should serve to identify the major tasks carried
out by media archives.
34
Typology of media archives

The typology that I shall use is based upon a classification of sound archives that I put
forward in 1991. It takes into account the origins of the archives and the general
subject content of their holdings. I suggest it as a starting point only, and hope that
future discussion will generate different points of view as seen by media specialists in
fields other than mine. Some of the types overlap; however, I will concentrate on the
unique aspects of each sort.
Let us propose the following five-part typology:
Broadcasting archives
National archives
Research archives, usually but not always part of other institutions
Audiovisual collections within libraries
Commercial production archives
Broadcasting archives are, perhaps, the easiest to define. In English they are actually
often defined as the media. Their holdings consist of audio, film and video material
used for radio and television programmes.
There are some archives holding
broadcasting material that exist more or less independently of particular broadcasting
stations, such as the Museum of Broadcasting in New York, the Deutsches
Rundfunkarchiv in Frankfurt, and the Centre audiovisuel in Paris; however, most of
my comments will deal with archives attached to specific broadcasting organisations.
These archives may be a part of large national corporations, such as ORT, CBS, or the
Finnish Broadcasting Company, part of regional branches of these national
broadcasting organisations, or small public media stations. The purpose of these
archives is to build up and to maintain a collection of audiovisual material that will be
held as sources for programme use. These broadcasting archives often exist in two
parts; programmes and past broadcasts, and source material, such as sound recordings.
Print documentation, such as scripts or musical scores, may be held in both parts of
the archive.
Newscasts need to draw upon recordings of past events to fully illustrate political
situations; documentaries need pertinent background music as well as the major
content. These archives must supply this source material very quickly to programme
makers; therefore the archivist must work under pressure more than other types of
media archivists.
National archives
National archives, while they may have subdivisions by media, almost always hold all
types of audiovisual media. Their purpose is to systematically collect and maintain
the audiovisual heritage of a nation. Some of these archives originated as media
collections within another national institution, such as the Australian National Film
and Sound Archive which separated from the National Library of Australia. Some of
these still exist within a larger organisation, such as the Motion Pictures,
Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress in the United
States.
If the archives exist within another institution, staff will be required to have the same
qualifications as those in other sections of that institution.
This means that
librarianship or archival qualifications may be necessary. Also, because of the great
35
-----.---
size and diversity of the collections, staff may be required to have some form of
academic subject specialisation, such as music or oral history.
Certain countries have a policy of legal deposit, where all phonograms, videograms and
films published in a country are required to lodge one such publication with the national
archive. France and Sweden were amongst the first in Europe to have this policy.
Because of legal deposit and the variety of a nations audiovisual heritage, these
collections may be extremely large; also, they will have the largest subject diversity of
any other type of archive.
Research archives
These archives can be loosely described as having specific subject interests. Some of
these may be:
a) events or periods in history (Imperial War Museum in London)
b) regional interests (Landesmuseum Joanneum here in Graz)
c) specific cultural groups (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies)
d) academic disciplines or research fields (Dansk Folkmindesamling, various archives
of the worlds music)
e) specific organisational archives (United Nations, Recording for the Blind)
Several of these archives have developed within institutions which fund researchers and
serve as repositories for field collections. Video and audio recordings are becoming more
and more important for anthropologists and ethnomusicologists.
Staff are often hired for their subject expertise and they may be called upon to spend
much time guiding users in the proper selection of materials. Because much of the
material is in the form of field recordings, the cataloguing system may be designed for
the special needs of the archive rather than holding to formalised cataloguing rules. I
would like to mention here the excellent work in cataloguing standards being done at the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris for field recordings.
Audiovisual
collections within libraries
These collections cannot be classified strictly as archival because they are in constant use.
Some of their holdings may also be in national archives. University libraries hold video
and audio tapes of lectures and source material for a variety of subjects. For example,
relatively few language courses are taught without the use of audio cassettes and videos.
Local municipal libraries are enlarging their collections of tapes and videos. Much of the
material is available for borrowing, unlike the, other types of archives. Staff will usually
hold professional qualifications in librarianship or will hold formal technical certificates.
Commercial production
These exist
corporations
organisations
photographic
archives
as raw material for dissemination. Large motion picture studios or

and record companies are examples of these sorts of archives. These
hold archives of original films, metal stampers for records, stock shots,
negatives, and other original material.
36
Typology and basic tasks

All of the types of archives prioritise the five tasks in different ways. The tasks are on
the left with the types of archives above. The lower the number, the more important
the task. I have added the numbers given for each task; the lower the number, the
higher priority for the task. I propose the following scheme:
Broadcast
National
Research
Collection
15 (3)
Preservation/
Conservation
13 (1)
15 (3)
Dissemination 2
Classification 3
4
3
4
3
3
4
14 (2)
Creation
17 (4)
Library
Commercial
Total
I shall examine the number ones amongst all of the archives, look at the remaining
priorities within each type of archive, and comment upon the total scores in the final
column.
First tasks
The first priority of broadcasting archives and of commercial archives is to create
material for dissemination. The focus is on the user of the media. These archives
have the primary business of getting the information out to the public; in the case of
broadcasting archives, at a fast and furious rate.
Libraries exist for the purpose of making material available to users, to disseminate
material. Again, the focus is on the user. Public libraries offer video and audio tapes
for the general public. In the case of university libraries, many university courses
depend upon student access to training media, such as language tapes and videos. A
synthesis of educational and library use within a media context is shown by the Open
University Library in the United Kingdom.
Both national and research archives see collection of relevant material as their top
aim. National archives have instituted legal deposit in order to obtain a true record of
the audiovisual publications of their nations. As you can see, national archives have
two main priorities; collection and preservation/conservation. The media archivists
from national archives whom I contacted could not really prioritise collection and
preservation/conservation - one above the other, so I have included both tasks as
priority 1 for national archives.
Remaining priorities
Broadcast archives disseminate their self-created programmes almost immediately, so
dissemination and creation priorities are close together. Programme makers depend
upon an effective classification and retrieval system to locate their raw materials
efficiently, and those materials must be in good enough condition for broadcast use.
Going back to a previous point, broadcast archives have two major parts; the
programme material itself and previously published tapes, films, and recordings. My
typology for the second sort of broadcasting archive would place collection above
37
preservation/conservation, because the archivist there is required to develop and to update

the collection in order to meet the needs of the viewing/listening public.
National archives place a high value on classification. They specialise in setting the
cataloguing standards for all media, and their cataloguing records are often used by other
archives or libraries. Preservation/conservation also ranks high; these archives often are
at the cutting edge of research into restoration of deteriorating media and re-recording
techniques. These archives do produce media publications, but their main function is
developing and maintaining a comprehensive, well-catalogued, well-maintained
collection.
Research archives are very difficult to arrange priorities for; perhaps this is because I
know of so many unique such archives and I, myself, work in one whose priorities are
ever shifting. Research archives place a high value on preservation/conservation because
a high portion of their holdings is unique; their field recordings correspond to manuscript
material in libraries. They are also often very specialised within, for example, a particular
cultural group or academic discipline. The depositors often submit extremely detailed
documentation, and the archivist must possess enough subject knowledge to interpret this
accurately and catalogue it correctly.
Because of the proliferation of culture centres of indigenous peoples with oral traditions,
dissemination is becoming increasingly important. These centres provide access to our
media of direct experience, and the people can learn in the traditional ways of seeing and
hearing rather than by reading.
Some research archives have an active programme of creation of audiovisual material.
ln my own institution, an exchange ceremony, a Rom, horn Northeast Arnhem Land was
commissioned to be performed in Canberra, and the resulting video and audio material
became valued parts of the archives. In some cases, research grants are awarded because
the grantee will record data that fills a gap in the archives holdings from a particular place
or time. Some research archives have cadetships for students so that they may assemble
either finding aids or recordings from archival material, thus giving them university credit
for research within the archive.
Libraries, by virtue of their responsibilities to users, place a high value on cataloguing and
retrieval. This responsibility also requires that they keep current media holdings
according to users demands. Of course, this material must be in good condition. The
function of creation comes last because libraries do not focus on making their own media.
Finally, the commercial production archives serve as a holding place for the masters of
their own creations; thus preservation and conservation become very important, especially
in the case of a re-issue. Dissemination also ranks high with them because they must deal
with these re-issues. Classification and listings are not as high a priority, as any
discographer will heartily agree! Finally, production archives place a high value on
collection of their own productions, but they do not seek to build up large holdings of
other publishers.
Total scores
In totalling the priorities, I found surprising results. My typology shows that the most
important task in media archives is preservation/conservation - not really a surprise, but
dissemination, as number 2, was not what I was expecting. However, the pressures upon
archives to publicise their holdings and justify their existence by creating a high profile
could be one reason for this ranking. Classification and collection come third with an
38
equal scoring. Creation ranked the lowest. A final interesting feature is that no one type
of archive followed the ranking of the total scoring column.
I would expect that priorities would continue to change as technology develops. I would
like to see someone do an analysis like mine in a year or so and see how the results may
differ.
In any case, my classification and priorities are based upon the archives I have visited and
worked in; I have tried to give a starting point and methodology so that others can fill in
the missing information and agree or disagree with me. What I hope most is that you are
challenged to analyse your own places of work and to see how the coming changes in
technology will affect your own priorities.
39
Section I. INTRODUCTION
1.7 THE AV ARCHIVE
TO AUDIOVISUAL
DEFINITION
ARCHIVES:
TYPOLOGY
AND TYPOLOGY
Ray Edmondson et al. Philosophy of A V Archiving
(Draft 2)
1.1 AV archives embrace a plurality of institutional models, types and interests.

While recognising that every organisation is unique, and that any typology is to a
degree arbitrary and artificial, some natural categories are discernible, and
categorisation is a useful way of describing the field.
1.2 The following typology is presented in no particular order, and from two
perspectives. It will be obvious that an individual institution may fit into one or
several categories simultaneously.
1.3 Label categories
1.3.1 The following are a number of labels in more or less common use in the
profession which provide a broad typology. For each, the label is given followed by
a brief description.
1.3.2 Broadcasting archives: these contain primarily tapes and discs of radio and/or
television programs held for broadcasting purposes. Some are departments of
broadcasting organisations - ranging from major networks to small public radio
stations - while others have varying degrees of independence. The objective is usually
to maintain a collection as a permanent source of material for future program or
commercial use, and the clientele is usually in-house: public access services may be
limited or non-existent and will be subordinate to the priorities of the in house
client. As well as completed programs and commercial recordings, collections may
include raw material such as interviews and sound effects, as well as ancillary
material such as scripts or program documentation.
1.3.3 Presentational archives: these have a particular emphasis on providing public
access to their collections through screenings in their own cinemas or exhibition
rooms. The screenings are often carefully researched and presented, and many of
these organisations operate specialised cinemas capable of screening obsolete formats
or housing live musical accompaniments for silent films. Many have an emphasis on
fiction (as opposed to documentary) material. Sometimes the term cinematheque or
videotheque is used to characterise these archives. However, these terms are used
more widely by entities that are not archives: for example, repertory cinemas or
commercial video rental outlets which have no preservation or curatorial dimension.
1.3.4 AV museums: the emphasis for these organisations is the preservation and
display of artefacts - such as technology, costumes, and memorabilia - and the
presentation of images and sounds in a public-exhibition context, both for educational
and entertainment purposes. Within this category, film museums form a recognisable
and growing group, while others emphasise the broadcast media or recorded sound.
1.3.5 National AV archives: these are wide ranging bodies, often large, operating at
the national level, with a brief to document, preserve and make publicly accessible the
whole - or a significant part - of the countrys AV heritage. Access services may cover
the whole spectrum from public exhibition to the support of private research, and
technical services and facilities may also be extensive. They often provide services
and supply a coordinating function to other AV archives in the country. The role is
analogous to that of national libraries, archives or museums: In some cases, these
40
archives are departments of such bodies, in other cases they are separate institutions of
comparable stature and autonomy.
1.3.6 Academic archives: a varied and somewhat amorphous group which embraces
archival collections of AV materials and related activities operating within the
administrative framework of a university, scientific or similar academic institution.
Some are substantial and have collections and preservation programs of national
significance: others are small and specialised. These are distinct from AV resource
collections, a common feature of universities, often related to campus schools or
libraries.
These collections have a lending or access function but little or no
preservation role.
Thematic archives: this also is a large and varied group of AV archives
1.3.7
distinguished by a clear focus on material of a particular format, subject matter,
locality or chronological period; or relating to specific cultural groups, academic
disciplines or research fields . Examples are oral history collections, folk music
collections, local or provincial film or. tape archives, organisational in-house archives.
Most are likely to be departments oflarger organisations. An emphasis on servicing
private or academic research is characteristic.
Studio archives: some major production houses, for example in the film
1.3.8
industry, have taken a conscious approach to the preservation of their own output by
setting up archival units or divisions within their organisations. As with broadcasting
archives, the purpose is normally to preserve the parent companys assets for future
use, rather than fulfil a cultural objective per se.
1.4 Profile approach
1.4.1 The second, and complementary, approach is to get an organisational profile
against several pertinent indicators:
1.4.2 Institutional status: AV archives range from small departments of much larger
organisations to major entities which are autonomous institutions in their own right.
Their degree of autonomy in setting their own priorities, procedures, policies and
internal culture will vary according to their relationship with their governing
authorities. It is not a simple equation; some small bodies can be highly autonomous,
while larger, formally independent ones may be constrained by current government
policies and priorities.
1.4.3 Funding source: Culturally motivated AV archives, virtually by definition,
cannot be financially self-supporting and are reliant on finding from government,
charitable or other sources. For some, funding comes entirely or largely from
government: for others. a mixture of government, charitable, corporate or revenue
sources may apply. Sources of finding may, in turn, affect the policies and priorities
of the archive.
1.4.4 Range of media: AV archives differ in the range of media covered. Some, for
example, are strictly focussed film or sound archives; some are multi-media
archives which embrace all formats of sound recording and moving image; some fall
between these extremes.
1.4.5 User emphasis and clientele: AV archives can service one or several clienteles:
for example, the academic researcher, the commercial producer, the exhibition-going
and product-buying public, the in-house clientele of the parent organisation,
41
education, broadcasting, the audiophile and the cineaste.

between the culture and the clientele of an archive.
There is a relationship
1.4.6 National/regional status: Some archives collect material and service enquiries
from a national perspective, be it broad or highly focussed: others focus on a
particular geographical area and build a collection and knowledge base that would
never find its way into a national institution.
These are complementary ways of
contributing to an overall national task.
1.4.7 Purpose and motivation:
AV archiving began as a culturally-motivated
movement - pursuing the preservation of the AV heritage because of its intrinsic
worth, regardless of commercial potential. While these values remain paramount, in
most archives collections and programs are growing faster than subsidies. This
increasingly requires them to generate income to cover the shortfall, and the trend
shows no sign of abating. At the same time, they are being joined by archives and
service agencies which have a commercial and pragmatic motivation: protecting and
servicing the assets of their principals (such as film producers or broadcast networks)
and meeting their running costs from revenue. The once clear divide between these
groups is becoming less strict. Even though the perspectives differ, however, in both
cases the survival of the AV heritage is involved; the same professional skills and
values are relevant. It remains true that, once the limits of commercial costeffectiveness are passed, the protection of cultural material is still a cost on
government and granting bodies.
1.5 The definitions above are not co-extensive with the membership of any of the
federations.
To varying degrees, they base their membership requirements on
parameters selected from this typology. Their approaches differ, taking into account
such factors as the organisational autonomy, motivation, and priorities of the archive
concerned. The above typology is descriptive, not prescriptive, and includes entities
that may not belong - and may not be eligible to belong - to any of the federations.
Note: Material in this section draws on the article A brief typology of sound archives
by Grace Koch (Phonographic Bulletin No 58, June 1991) and other research sources
noted in that article. It is acknowledged that some of the research data is now dated,
and a survey project to update it would be a useful exercise.
42
SECTION
I LEGAL
1.8 LEGAL
ISSUES FACING
AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES
Birgit Kojler
DEFINITIONS
Moving Image and Recorded Sdbnd Heritage
-.:,
The moving image and recorded sound heritage of [the country] shall include, but not
be limited, to the following,
(a) Recorded sound, film, television or other productions comprising moving images
and/or recorded sound created or released within [the country] or by or with nationals
of [the country] and/or with any other relevance to [the country], whether or not
primarily intended for public release.
(b) Objects, materials, works and intangibles relating to the moving image and
recorded sound media, whether seen from a technical, industrial, cultural, historical or
other viewpoint, this shall include material relating to [the countrys] film, television,
broadcasting and sound recording industries such as literature, scripts, stills, posters,
advertising materials and artifacts such as technical equipment and costumes.
(c) It also includes such concepts as the perpetuation of obsolescent skills and
environments associated with the presentation and reproduction of these media
documents.
Clear and comprehensive definitions of the terms to be used in this context are usually
a primary problem of legislation. The following definitions are proposed, based on
different sources:
The definition of the moving image and recorded sound heritage is mainly based on a
proposal of the Australian National Film and Sound Archives, seemingly the most
comprehensive and exhaustive enumeration of the subject of concern.
Audiovisual
materials are to be understood as:
(i) visual recordings (with or without soundtrack) irrespective of their physical base
and recording process used, such as films, filmstrips, microfilms, slides, magnetic
tapes, kinescopes, videograms (videotapes, videodiscs), optically readable laser discs;
(a) intended for public reception either by television or by means of projection on
screens or by any other means,
(b) intended to be made available to the public,
(ii) sound recordings irrespective of their physical base and the recording process
used, such as magnetic tapes, discs, soundtracks or audiovisual recordings, optically
read laser discs;
(a) intended for public reception by means of broadcasting or any other means,
(b) intended to be made available to the public. All these materials are cultural
materials.
The definition of audiovisual materials is intended to cover a maximum of forms and
formats, trying to leave it open for further technical developments.
43
Moving images shall be taken to mean any series of images recorded on a support
(irrespective of the method of recording or of the nature of the support, such as film,
tape, disc used in their initial or subsequent form of recording), with or without
accompanying sound, which when projected impart an impression of motion and
which are intended for communication or distribution to the public or are made for
documentation purposes.
They shall be taken to include, inter alia, items in the following categories:
(a) cinematographic productions (such as feature films, short films, popular science
films, newsreels and documentaries, animated and educational films);
(b) television productions made by or for broadcasting organizations,
(c) videographic productions contained in videograms other those than referred to
above.
National production shall be taken to mean audiovisual materials, the maker or at
least one of the co-makers of which has headquarters or habitual residence within the
territory of [the country].
Transmission programme shall mean any body of material produced by broadcasting
organizations for transmission to the public by radio waves, cable or satellite.
Recording is the process whereby sound and image signals are embodied on a
recording medium with the aim of preserving them for subsequent reproduction, and
by extension the artifact so created.
Reproduction is the making of a copy or copies of a recording or a substantial part of
that recording.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Objectives
The national cultural heritage of [the country] shall include all its creative expressions
in audiovisual form.
It is the leading objective of this [law] to provide for adequate preservation of the
moving image and recorded sound heritage of [the country].
In order to safeguard the cultural heritage in audiovisual form and to promote
knowledge about and research into the audiovisual production, audiovisual material
and material relating thereto shall be collected, documented, preserved and archived
as provided for in this act.
The Designated Archives for Audiovisual
Material
An audiovisual archives administration shall be responsible for the safeguarding and

use of the cultural heritage in audiovisual form. The organization of audiovisual
archives varies considerably from country to c.ountry and from institution to
institution, in governmental, semi-private and private firms. From our comparative
analysis of various internal rules and statutes it can be stated that it is obviously
unsatisfactory if a multiplicity of institutions exist in a single country without
adequate resources to enable them to preserve the material under correct conditions
and without a clear definition of their respective mandates.
44
There is no internationally approved model for a standard structure of audiovisual

archives. What becomes obvious from the different experiences is that discussions on
organization and structure should, as far as possible, include management for film,
video and recorded sound collections, which would help to apply uniform principles
to preservation, restoration, cataloguing and documentation.
The audiovisual archives administration shall be under the political jurisdiction of the
[Minister of .. ] who shall designate the appropriately equipped premise or premises
where sequences to be preserved should be stored. These premises shall together
form the Designated Archives for Audiovisual Material of [the country].
The Designated Archives for Audiovisual Material shall:
(a) Collect, restore and preserve audiovisual materials of national or international
importance, national or international audiovisual works, other material and
audiovisual documentation of artistic, historic and documentary interest;
(b) Collect, restore and preserve equipment and technical premises for copying,
consulting, viewing and displaying the different audiovisual formats, equipment and
technical material of historic interest;
(c) Catalogue the audiovisual materials and related materials;
(d) Undertake scientific research in the field of audiovisual materials and audiovisual
creation;
(e) Make the collection available for scientific, educational and cultural purposes;
(f, Make known information concerning the Archive by such means as publications
and exhibitions;
(g) Establish and maintain a database on the audiovisual production of [the country]
and issue on this basis a bibliographic record of the audiovisual production of [the
country] in collaboration with the national bibliographic institution;
(h) In agreement with the [Minister of ., ] take part in international programmes of
cooperation within the Archives field of activities.
In all of the countries surveyed more than one institution holding audiovisual
collections could be identified, without, however, their statutes as officially
recognized archives always being clear. When searching for a legal framework,
emphasis has to be laid on the difference between audiovisual archival institutions
which operate within an official appointment and which are officially recognized, and
all other types of audiovisual organizations.
The formulation in the Guidelines follows a twofold objective:
Firstly, it makes clear that the patrimonial task of audiovisual archives can only be
guaranteed by a neutral and officially recognized administration.
Secondly, at the same time, it is open to decisions based on national needs and
conditions, whether such an administration should consist in one centralized
institution or in several premises.
A detailed enumeration of the objectives of audiovisual archives and of the
conservation of the audiovisual heritage would have to be in.cluded in any regulatory
framework relating to this subject, even if from a comparative analysis, it can be
observed that such an enumeration of the purposes, objectives and responsibilities of
different audiovisual archive institutions is included in texts of very different legal
force and value in the countries surveyed.
45
The relevant enumeration in the Guidelines stresses that an audiovisual archive is not
only a collection, but also a technical means for the long-term survival of the material
in its possession. Audiovisual archives differ from the traditional written document
archives in the first place by reason of the information carrier, that is, the external
form, but not on account of the quality of the historical informative value. This means
that the traditional archive functions (assessment, evaluation, access and projection)
retain their importance.
When speaking about audiovisual archives in this paper they are understood to be
centres to safeguard the audiovisual heritage of a nation and to render it - to a limited
degree - accessible for research, education and other purposes to be defined.
They should be seen as neutral, officially recognized preservation institutions equal in
cultural importance to national libraries, national museums and national archives and
not as mere suppliers of services to TV or broadcast stations or to film production
studios.
Funding
What can be said from a comparative view of national legislations is that in very few
cases does a legislative act regulate financing, financial autonomy and management of
the budget of audiovisual archives. The cultural and professional work is often
hampered by financial difficulties, owing to the fact that budgets and certain types of
expenditure are not authorized by existing legislation. This is why the Guidelines aim
at stating a clear and comprehensive public responsibility to provide the audiovisual
safeguarding institutions with adequate resources. This does in no way exclude other
sources of financing the archive, inter alia, by own activities. However, in view of the
patrimonial task of the relevant institutions, such extraordinary revenues should
only form supplementary, not the main source of funds.
Council
For an optimal functioning of the structure of the archival institutions and a
reasonable coordination of human resources, it seems most useful to integrate
questions on structure, management and staff in any relevant legislative act. This
however, is true only for a few of the countries surveyed, in most of the others, they
are included in bylaws or statutes. It seems most reasonable, as experience shows, to
create a managing and supervising body consisting of a representative membership.
Membership
of the Council
The Guidelines therefore propose that the archives management should consist of a
staff representative, as the staff should be able to participate in the decision-making
process as well, and a governmental representative at the ministerial or higher civil
servant level. It should also be open - not at least for the sake of co-operation and coordination - to other experts such as representatives of other safeguarding and
patrimonial institutions. (National Libraries, National Archives.)
ACQUISITION
AUDIOVISUAL
OF ALDIOVISUAL
MATERIALS
MATERIALS
BY THE DESIGNATED
ARCHIVES
FOR
Material subject to legal deposit

Legal deposit means the obligation, enforceable by law, to deposit with one or several
authorized institutions copies of any material designated for public diffusion. In most
46
countries, legal deposit exists with respect to written material published in the
country. This enables national libraries to hold a complete collection of the national
production of the printed word and to compile a national bibliography.
The only way to guarantee that audiovisual material is deposited with archives set up
for that purpose would be a similar system of legal deposit. There are, however,
essential differences, not the least being the cost of audiovisual records and the
relative fragility of their material support.
In a number of countries, it might have been the UNESCO 1980 Recommendation
that led to national initiatives for legal deposit of moving images. Not all such
However, legal. deposit systems have been
initiatives have been successful.
established in a number of countries. If a mandatory deposit system at least for parts
of the audiovisual production is foreseen, it may be included in quite different bodies
of law.
In some cases where deposit is foreseen, it is limited to registering the title of the film,
a summary of the subject matter or the scenario etc.. In others, such deposit is
included in the context of copyright protection. Some countries apply deposit to
material produced by the state. Others foresee deposit for films produced with
governmental subventions.
A legal obligation for @rivate) producers in the field of audiovisual records to deposit
in a public archival establishment can only be realized in a few cases and is often
reduced to cinematographic films; rarely are other audiovisual items included.
It should be stated in this context that an obligation to hand over material does not run
counter to the interests of the producers, since the free storage of the primary materials
of a privately produced item in a public archival establishment is objectively an
advantage for all parties concerned, even if subjectively it is sometimes not perceived
that way.
The first problem to be solved by legislation is to define which categories of
audiovisual material should be included in deposit regulations. The Guidelines contrary to many existing legislations which are restricted to certain material supports
- try to cover the whole field of audiovisual materials.
As to the scope of regulation, some propose that only national productions or those
co-produced with foreign producers should be deposited, meaning national production
as that of producers whose place of residence or headquarters is in the country
requiring legal deposit.
However, the deposit of the various versions or remakes of an audiovisual production
as well as foreign productions relating to history of culture of the country could be of
value.
The UNESCO 1980 Recommendation considers films dubbed or subtitled in the
language of the country in which they are publicly distributed as an integral part of
the moving image heritage of the country concerned - but nevertheless only proposes
voluntary deposit for this kind of foreign production, rnostly because it was
considered detrimental to the interests of the film-makers who would fear that these
films might be commercially exploited in another country without their being able to
exercise control.
47
This argument, however, is not very convincing as international copyright instruments

do provide for protection of foreign production from other signatory states as well as for
that of their own nationals. The Guidelines do not restrict their scope of regulation to
national production. This idea is not unfamiliar to a number of legislation.
A special status is accorded to radio and television broadcasts in case they are held in the
archives of the organization which made them, provided that the official archives are not
equipped to receive the whole of the television production.
Exceptions
It must not be seen as a contradiction to aim at establishing a wide-ranging legal deposit
system and to propose certain categories of exceptions at the same time. The Guidelines
intend to propose groups of exceptions necessary from the point of view of practicability
and familiar to several existing legislation, leaving their concrete application to the
conditions of each national situation.
Complementary information to the actual audiovisual record is most useful, not only
for cataloguing purposes, but also for the archives to be able to constitute a minimum
legal data list on the rights residing in the item. Such complementary information could
consist in data on contractual agreements with author and co-authors of the work, on the
form of publication, on the scope of distribution, on certain technical parameters etc..
Deposit institution
It might be argued that it is necessary to permit several institutions to hold material
because of the volume involved or because of subject special&ion.
The decision on the
structure of the deposit institution will depend on several factors, not the least being
financial considerations in maintaining and supporting such depositories. Under existing
deposit rules for printed material there are in most cases more than one library entitled
to receive copies of books. It should therefore not cause legal problems if there is more
than one official archive, although there might be practical problems.
Be the material with one central agency or with different bodies, it will, however, be
indispensable for the confidence of the depositor that the institutions are neutral, public
and working on a non-profit-making basis and without any orientation on commercial
exploitation of the material.
A solution would be to foresee that the material is deposited with one central agency
established for this purpose which would either have to be provided with the adequate
resources to ensure proper safeguarding of all audiovisual documents deposited, or have
the responsibility to distribute the material to specialized archives. The Guidelines, while
choosing this latter solution, are nevertheless easily applicable where several institutions
exist. In those cases it is essential that their respective criteria be strictly defined and they
adopt common technical and cataloguing criteria which would be guaranteed by the
structure proposed in the Guidelines.
Ownership
Whether ownership of the material is transferred to the archival institution will in general
depend very much on the contractual arrangements, as long as countries do not choose
to provide for explicit regulations in this field. Whereas only few national legislation do
refer to this problem, the guidelines propose that ownership be transferred to the archives.
This is very similar to the French solution.
48
A distinction must of course be made between the ownership of the rights and the
ownership of the material itself which is deposited.
Selection
Whether selection of items subject to deposit should take place at all and if so, according
to which criteria, is indeed a difficult and controversial problem. Only a few of the
national legal texts surveyed give a clear statement on this problem. The Guidelines try
to propose a practical approach to the question of whether selection shall take place at all
and if so, which criteria should be binding for archives. It would be illogical to introduce
a system of legal deposit and to foresee in the same law that a part of the material may
be eliminated. But practical considerations such as space and costs have led archives to
select materials to be preserved. There might in fact be border-line cases in which the
destruction and selection of certain documents is envisaged without running counter to
the general preservation principle. In general, no material should be denied and no
selection should be made. For considerations of costs and space, some legislation might
provide for exceptions to this general principle and foresee some form of selection
process until new techniques permit the preservation of all material having been
deposited.
Access by the depositor
Contracts between producers and distributors oflen foresee the destruction of the material
after the period of contractual exploitation. This destruction for purely commercial
reasons should not interfere with legal deposit. In terms of withdrawal of deposited
material the fact that some single copies remain with a designated archive, should not be
an obstacle to new sources of income by re-use in new productions. For that very reason,
regulations for some form of controlled access by the depositor to the material seem
necessary.
If the major task of legal deposit is the safeguarding of the cultural heritage in audiovisual
form, it seems reasonable to limit cases in which the re-use of the material once deposited
is possible.
If there is, as is proposed, an obligation for the archive to deliver the material at the
demand of the copyright owner - usually when the material is considered to be
marketable again - the archive which has performed a service to the producers should
also legally enjoy a share of these profits by being refunded at least a part of the
preservation costs.
Once legal deposit is introduced, legislation has to define the person responsible for the
deposit. Different solutions are chosen in national legislation. Some countries designate
the producer as the person responsible. In other cases, both the producer and the
distributor bear the responsibility. Some legislation mention the editor/manufacturer as
the person responsible for the deposit. Other laws also include reproduction laboratories
in the responsibility. Considering the fact that a very wide range of material is covered
by the deposit obligation, the Guidelines propose several alternatives for the obligation
to be shared.
In view of the risk of sanctions in the case of non-deposit, the depositor is to be given
proof that he has actually effected his obligation.
49
Time factor
As to the time when the deposit obligation matures, one fundamental difference could
be observed between those systems where deposit only relates to public audiovisual
records, and those where it applies to private productions. In the first case the time is
usually longer. In our case, as public records are not covered, it seems most
reasonable to demand deposit immediately after publication and/or distribution. It
should be stressed in this context that the obligation should in any case mature
consequent and not prior to publication and/or distribution in order not to bring up any
doubt on the possible misuse of the deposit system for prior censorship.
Sanctions
To institute legal deposit is one thing, having adequate means to execute it is a
different matter. It should be possible to impose penalties if a depositor regularly fails
to deposit. Some legislators have, in fact, explicitly included sanctions for nondeposit, such as seizure and confiscation of copies (e.g. Algeria, Italy, Madagascar),
fixed fines expressed in a multiple of the costs of an item (e.g. Barbados, Finland,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, USA). This latter approach is chosen in the Guidelines. In
order to keep the consequently necessary administrative infrastructure at a reasonably
low level, the competent authority is only obliged to act upon the archives request,
and a separate appeal is not possible.
costs
Usually, the introduction of a legal deposit system means per se that the costs are to
be borne by the depositor, contrary to other forms of acquisitions. One of the
traditional reasons for the introduction of legal deposit for printed material was, and
still is, to enrich library collections without expense for the State. Nevertheless,
opinions on this problem vary. There are those who believe that the costs should be
met by the producer who could include this expense in his production budget. Others
consider that in view of the high costs of copies, the State should meet the costs
involved or, alternatively, the archive funded by the State. Some lawyers argue that
legal deposit without indemnification for the depositor would appear as a
discriminatory form of taxation or confiscation of private goods. But, even if lawyers
opinions are not unanimous on this subject, a limited legal deposit at the depositors
expense seems generally accepted.
Other forms of acquisition
Taking into consideration the special status of broadcast material, it seems reasonable
to authorize the designated archives - as is already foreseen in the Copyright Acts of
the United Kingdom and the USA - to record off air programmes for archival
purposes.
Apart from the legal deposit system - even if wide-ranging - the archives should be
given the possibility to acquire other forms of valuable material that might not be
covered by the deposit rules. This is why the Guidelines specify purchase, exchange
and donations as well.
PRESERVATION
Well before the UNESCO 1980 recommendation which declares moving images as a
part of the cultural heritage, audiovisual materials themselves, and also archives have
been defined as a part of the cultural property which itself forms part of the cultural
50
heritage, audiovisual materials themselves, and also archives have been defined as a part
of the cultural property which itself forms part of the cultural heritage. Audiovisual items
are, generally speaking, fragile materials, which need special treatment for long-term
preservation. Legislation, however, rarely consider this aspect. As to the copyright
conventions, the only binding international regulation directly relating to the preservation
of audiovisual materials concerns ephemeral recordings: art. 11 bis of the Beme
Convention provides that national legislation may authorize broadcasting organizations
to make ephemeral recordings by the means of their own facilities and for their own
broadcast without the consent of the author, and to preserve these recordings in official
archives on the ground of their exceptional documentary character. This rule has been
incorporated in most national copyright laws. However, rarely do national laws go
further in developing regulations referring to different aspects of preservation.
Reproduction
for preservation
purposes
It is most important to note that a more general right to make copies for preservation
purposes does not figure as an exception in the Copyright Conventions nor in most
national legislation on the subject. The Guidelines, therefore, foresee the right of
duplication of recordings for purposes of preservation or security, or for the replacement
of damaged, deteriorated or stolen ones which do not prejudice the interests of the
copyright owner.
Technical standards/measures
against willful destruction
The UNESCO 1980 Recommendation states in paragraph 12 that it is the responsibility

of the states concerned, under the provisions of their national legislation to define
measures to prevent the disappearance, particularly through destruction, of moving
images, and the same is desirable for other categories of audiovisual material. The
Guidelines consider two different aspects of destruction: unwanted destruction which
they try to combat by proposing the development of technical standards, and willful
destruction. Both categories of regulations are rather uncommon in existing laws.
Safeguarding of works in the public domain
As soon as they cease to be protected by copyright, literary, scientific and artistic works
fall into the public domain. A minimum duration of protection is fixed in the Copyright
Conventions and in most national laws. From this time onwards the use of these works
is in principle free and unremunerated, This is a most important point for audiovisual
archives, as from that moment on, no permission is needed for reproduction and use. At
the same time, the status of works in the public domain is characterized by a legal
vacuum. In the safeguarding of such works, archives may have an important task. One
should think of referring to these matters in national audiovisual archive legislations as
well as in legal action to maintain the respect for works in the public domain. This may
be a very original concept for archivists and jurists to consider.
REPRODUCTION
AND ACCESS
Generally speaking copyright provides that anybody producing a literary or artistic work
and holding the copyright has the exclusive right to decide whether it shall be made
available to the public; it gives the copyright owner a certain control of the use of the
work after its publication. In addition, many copyright laws confer rights based on
individual, idealistic interests termed moral rights. There is no doubt that those rights
have to be respected. Yet it should not be seen as a contradiction to the principle of the
51
protection of intellectual creation to cede certain privileges in this context to the

designated audiovisual safeguarding institutions.
Privileges for reproduction
Generally the exclusive right of reproduction is in principle with the copyright owner and
includes reproduction of the original and all forms of subsequent copies as well as the
transfer from one medium to another and the transfer in various language versions.
Article 9 of the Beme Convention specifies that authors of literary and artistic works are
to have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of their works in any manner
or form. Article of the Universal Copyright Convention allows more freedom for the free
use of protected materials. Rules for archives are required, first of all to cover situations
where the copyright owner is not known (and therefore no contract possible), but also to
give the archivist certain rights towards the copyright owner, even if they are known. The
Guidelines define those purposes for which the right to make copies should be foreseen
for audiovisual archives. Archives frequently need to make single copies of works for
security reasons before using it. From an archival point of view it is necessary to hold all
materials in two copies, one for strict preservation purposes and one for access. This
means, if there is only one copy deposited, that the archive needs to make further copies,
more so, if the access copy should deteriorate in quality. Therefore, an archive cannot
function properly without the right to at least limited reproduction.
Exceptions for archives in this context are covered by the reproduction rule in the Beme
Convention which states that it shall be I... a matter for legislation in the countries of the
Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain cases, provided that such
reproduction does not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and does not
unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.
Access to the archival recordings
Audiovisual archives need the opportunity to bring their documentary sources to life by
encouraging their use for different purposes, such as research, education and the
promotion of culture. Access derives its raison detre from the concept of cultural
property. Legislators have in many cases failed to establish a body of clear, precise and
universally applicable regulations with a solid and coherent basis as to the question of
right of access to audiovisual archival collections.
Limitations
to access
Whereas the principle of access to source material needs explicit mentioning, the
Guidelines recognize the fact that this is done against the background of conflicting rights
and interests. The first group of such conflicts concerns long-term preservation needs.
While access to the material is important, the audiovisual archive cannot be compared
with a public library. It must have rules for limiting the access to the material in its
possession for the sake of preservation.
Apart from these kinds of objections, obstacles to access to archival material can also
have their origin in governmental considerations (national security, ordre public) or
considerations related to the protection of privacy. Taking these kinds of considerations
seriously, the Guidelines propose an abstract exception to the general access principle.
52
Exhibition
of archival recordings
The Guidelines set out the limits relating to the use and exhibition of the material so
that it does not conflict with the rightful commercial exploitation by the copyright
proprietor.
Loan and exchange of archival recordings
Under the same conditions, the Guidelines also propose to authorize the designated
archives to loan single items outside their premises to institutions of a strictly noncommercial character. Apart from research, educational and cultural institutions they
also include diplomatic missions in order to permit them to make the countrys
cultural heritage known abroad.
The Guidelines also propose to facilitate the exchange of deposited material, at least
between official archives, without infringing international conventions if it is for
certain fair use purposes and if the receiving institutions are not allowed to make
further copies. Ideally, such an exchange could be arranged through an interarchival
loan system. Exchange might also be necessary for practical reasons to avoid the
restoration of copies in one country when it is believed that these are the only ones
whereas better ones exist in another country.
Supplying archival recordings for quotation purposes
Most forms of copyrighted material are subject to a right of quotation which means
that they may be used in the form of short extracts in education or in scholarly works,
criticism, news items, etc. where their use is strictly subordinate to the main material.
In the case of audiovisual material, quoting would therefore mean the use of a part of
the material either in another audiovisual production or for the purpose of criticism or
education under condition that the quoted part stays unchanged, is subordinate to the
main material and the source is mentioned. But most national legislation as well as
international copyright instruments remain silent on the kinds of works that may be
quoted in other works. Based on a careful analysis of existing regulations, the
Guidelines try to extend this general rule to different kinds of audiovisual material.
Contribution
fees
The idea of non-commercial activities characterizing the foregoing provisions of the

Guidelines causes of course the problem of fees as users contribution to the
maintenance to remain non-commercial and to avoid the accusation of unfair
competition. The Guidelines propose that it should be possible for an archive to
charge appropriate costs for services without violating the non-commercial character.
IMPORTATION
AND EXPORTATION
OF ARCHIVAL
MATERIAL.
Importation
In the context of the transborder flow of audiovisual materials, several different
aspects have to be considered. A problem frequently noted is the difficulty of sending
audiovisual material across national borders. Many countries impose custom duties or
import taxes on these materials even if they often have little commercial value. Taking
into consideration the repeatedly expressed wish to treat films, sound recordings and
other audiovisual materials as cultural materials in the sense of the diverse free flow
agreements, a number of countries have in fact exempted certain categories of such
works from importation and/or exportation duties.
53
Most countries restrict in one way or another the free flow of information, cultural or
other material relating to national security or national public order. This paragraph of
the Guidelines is proposed in square brackets, leaving it up to the countries to decide
if they consider necessary a similar restriction in relation to the foregoing paragraph.
The question arises concerning the organization of transborder movements in order to
discourage unwanted exportation of the national audiovisual heritage. Helping to
simplify administrative and restrictive formalities and custom regulations relating to
the willful and lawful movement of cultural property may sometimes conflict with the
intention to provide, at the same time, measures against the illicit transfer of cultural
property of which audiovisual materials are part. The Guidelines intend to propose a
reasonable compromise in this conflict.
Exportation
Many countries do not yet possess the necessary technology to enable them to record
aspects of their history and culture, and for this reason most such recordings are held
abroad. This is particularly true of the period prior to 1980 though is much less so
now. Others have lost recordings of great relevance due to accidents or armed
conflicts. States should therefore be encouraged to facilitate the acquisition by the
official archives of other States of copies of audiovisual documents which relate to
their history and culture, irrespective of the author, the period or the reason for which
they were made.
Considering trends in regulating transborder data flow by strict legislative measures,
problems might also arise as to the exchange of computerized cataloguing data
between archival institutions in different countries. This field also opens a new
dimension for jurisprudence and might be considered when formulating national
legislation$, even though not yet spelt out in the Guidelines.
RELATED MATERIAL
Deposit
Related materials, such as scenarios, photos, posters, contemporary critiques, publicity
materials, etc. often constitute important historical background to the actual
audiovisual material. It is important to have access to the complete record, especially
for research purposes. Some legislations therefore stipulate an obligation to deposit
related material with the actual audiovisual material it concerns, as is proposed in the
Guidelines.
ln national legislations, the handling of related items is characterized by an even
greater legal vacuum than that covering audiovisual records themselves. Regulations
for the right to reproduce and distribute these materials will depend very much on the
kinds of support used. Newspaper articles will have to be treated differently from
posters, for example. Not only the copyright owner, but also the period of copyright
protection might differ for these materials, in contrast to the audiovisual material
itself. This is why it seems most reasonable - in order to simplify their handling by
archives to integrate them in audiovisual archives regulations and to assimilate them
to the actual audiovisual records.
54
SECTION
1.9 LEGAL
I INTRODUCTION
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ISSUES IN AV ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES
an introduction
Catherine F Pinion
Legal issues in the management of audiovisual archive materials are numerous and
range from copyright and its related rights to deposit, preservation and access
arrangements. Copyright legislation exists to provide legal protection to the creators
and publishers of published works and to prevent unfair copying of original works.
Like print, audiovisual materials are also subject to copyright legislation, However,
the difference for audiovisual materials lies in the fact that items such as sound
recordings and moving image materials are performance works and carry additional
rights beyond those which relate to the content and the physical format. These rights,
known as neighbouring rights, are owned by the people who are involved in creating
the final product. Also, the actual performance of the final product is subject to
performance rights controls through royalties and fees, e.g. the public showing of a
film, the broadcasting of a sound recording.
An example showing the variety of rights which can exist within an audiovisual work
is film. It is necessary not only to consider the copyright belonging to the author of
the original work used as the basis for the film, but also the neighbouring rights of the
person who provides the screen adaptation, the composer and musicians who provide
the film music, the producer and all those who work on the technical side (stage-sets,
wardrobe, makeup, lighting, sound), and the actors and actresses who bring the work
alive. All their rights need respecting in subsequent screenings of the film, whether to
the general public in a cinema, or to a group of students in a lecture hall. or by an
individual researcher in a film library.
As a result of copyright and neighbouring rights interests, the management of
audiovisual materials is more complex than for print-based formats. There are likely
to be formal agreements or contracts negotiated with the creators or production
companies. These agreements may restrict access to items, e.g. restricted to use by
students and private researchers, must not be used for thirty years, must not be used
until the informant is dead (oral history recordings), no commercial applications
allowed. All archivists are keen to attract new materials, especially original items. For
audiovisual archives in particular, acquisition may depend on negotiated agreements
to achieve deposit on a voluntary basis. This means that a good relationship must be
maintained for the collection to develop. Audiovisual archivists, therefore, have a
special interest in ensuring that copyrights and associated agreements are kept - and
that access to materials is within the terms of the agreements. This is especially
important for those countries where there is no legal deposit legislation for
audiovisual materials.
This chapter will consider the legal issues that affect archives., from the time when an
item enters a collection to its being available for use by an enquirer, whether for
private research purposes or for public performance. Different types of archive or
collection have different functions. Whether it is a designated national archive (with
legal deposit responsibilities), a locally managed archive, a commercial archive or a
private specialist collection, the purpose of the parent institution will affect the way in
which the archive functions and, in consequence, the terms of agreement it operates
Access to collections will depend on the most appropriate terms being
within.
negotiated.
55
Methods of Deposit and Acquisition

First, it is useful to consider briefly the different methods of acquiring stock. Each
method has various legal issues to observe, and these may affect subsequent use of the
materials. Acquisition or deposit methods can be grouped together as follows:1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Copyright
Copyright deposit
Legal Deposit
Voluntary deposit
t,
Donations
Transfer
c)
Special agreements(with oral history)
Off-air recordings (using special agreements)
t;
In-house arrangements
Purchase
a)
b)
and Legal Deposit
Where materials are deposited as a result of copyright and legal deposit laws, archives
carry a responsibility to ensure that all relevant materials are collected. Materials
must be deposited by the production company in a designated centre or centres within
a stipulated time. In the case of non-deposit, the centres are empowered to demand
copies for deposit. Copyright deposit is often confused with legal deposit. Copyright
deposit requires that items are deposited (or registered) in order to establish official
rights and acquire a certain amount of protection in the courts should the copyright of
the item be challenged. Registration strengthens any evidence that it is the original
published work. The Library of Congress is a leading example of copyright deposit.
Legal Deposit is the general requirement by law for publishers to forward published
items to a designated depository. Legal deposit is about the process of depositing in a
nationally designated centre, rather than granting copyright protection. The primary
aim of legal deposit is to create a cultural record of the published ideas, thoughts and
influences of a nation, through the collection of information carriers (usually
specified) so ensuring that they are not lost to a nation.
Worldwide, there are different levels of legal deposit. Because of the wide range of
audiovisual materials, it is impossible for every item to be preserved. Consequently,
most countries have specified within their legal deposit laws the range of formats to
be deposited, and in some cases their subject content. Canada, for example, operates
selective legal deposit, limiting its collection to items originating in Canada and those
with a Canadian content. This is not unusual. France, on the other hand, has sought to
collect as exhaustively as possible, including foreign publications publicly available
within France. This aims to fulfil the main criteria for legal deposit - that of creating a
cultural record of the influences on a nation.
Even if copyright and legal deposit is restricted to audio and visual carriers such
as sound recordings, film and video, these constitute extremely large areas of
audiovisual publication. Some countries are more involved in production than others
and this results in heavier responsibilities for the archives.
Preservation of
audiovisual items is costly, requiring regular monitoring and involves transfer to
contemporary formats for ease of consultation. Clearly, legal deposit collections
require a large financial commitment in order to maintain essential preservation
programme. Where there is only a limited amount of production, then less money is
required and it is theoretically easier to establish legislation for deposit.
56
Voluntary
Deposit, Donations and Transfers
In the absence of legal deposit, voluntary deposit can be a highly successful method of
creating national collections. In the UK, the National Film Archive and the British
Librarys National Sound Archive (two different institutions) are examples of
important national collections built up over the years using this method of deposit.
Systematic voluntary deposit is established through agreements with trade
associations. The danger is that when the economy is tight, companies may cease to
deposit because there is no legal requirement to do so. Both voluntary deposit and
gifting are regular methods of acquisition in all types of archive. from large national
collections down to small highly specialist archives.
The transfer of items from one depository to another may occur when one national
collection decides to return a work to the country of its origin. This has many
benefits: it helps the receiving country to fill a gap in its own national collection; it
eases the financial pressures with regard to restoration and preservation work for the
donor; it also enables users to see items in the country of origin. Transfers can also
take place between institutions, e.g. when one organisation ceases to exist. These
transfer arrangements need to ensure that ownership rights are respected (or reestablished) and that rights already existing in the works are recognised and
maintained.
Special Deposit Agreements
Special agreements are often negotiated to ensure that certain collections or items are
deposited in archives. They may be specific to one item (as is usually the case with
oral history recordings) or to a collection, or they may be the result of a convention
drawn up by producers associations. The latter are trade agreements contracts which
override copyright law. In such contracts, specific requirements are laid down as to
how the item or items are to be managed. Contracts of this nature are legally binding
and whilst some may afford no real problems for the archive, there are some contracts
relating to film which are very restrictive and seek to control access and use.
In-house arrangements
In-house arrangements for preservation are subject to the interests and policies of the
organisation concerned. Radio and television archives are examples of in-house
collections: copyright questions have been resolved, or the organisation holds the
rights (because it has made the programme and effected the transmission). Use of the
Film and audio
archive is usually restricted to the broadcasting organisation.
production companies may also maintain their own collections, which often include
takes of recordings never released to the general public. Retention of items in such
collections will be in line with the organisations policies and will relate strongly to
their commercial interests. The question of national preservation is not the first
interest of the organisation.
A few countries have established laws concerning the archiving of broadcast
programme (France - INA) and these collections will operate under the legal deposit
rules within that country. In addition, whilst most broadcasting stations maintain their
own archive collections for their own use, some have also entered into special
agreements with outside organisations, allowing for the deposit or downloading of
programmes and thereby providing greater access opportunities (UK - BUFVC and
NSA).
57
Purchase
Purchasing items is an option for acquiring materials where the producer may have
problems in affording to deposit a free copy, e.g. film. As this method involves a
financial outlay on the part of the archive, it is clear that this method has its
limitations. However, all collections will employ this method to a certain extent.
LEGAL
IMPLICATIONS
Ownership
and copyright
restrictions
It is important to establish who owns the materials once they are deposited - and
whether it is a temporary or permanent deposit. Also, it is advisable to try and
establish who all the rights owners are, if possible. Some items may have been
transferred from another archive, perhaps from abroad. What happens to the
ownership and other rights in the works ? A new agreement may need to be renegotiated as the custodian has changed. With complex access clauses, as happens
with film, this would clarify the copyright situation.
With regard to unique
recordings, such as oral history tapes, it is necessary to establish from the outset who
will own the rights in order to avoid problems later on when requests are received to
use sections of tapes for public performance or for commercial reasons. Whilst it is
the informants right to specify any restrictions he or she would like the archive to
observe, equally it is in the interests of the collecting organisation to ensure that fair
and workable agreements for both sides (depositor and the archive) are negotiated.
Agreement at this stage avoids difficulty later on. Specially negotiated agreements
will state the extent of access by users.
Summary:
a) Clarify who OWNS the material deposited
b) Establish who the rightsowners are
c) Establish whether the deposit is temporary or permanent as this can affect
access rights
d) If transferred from another institution and/or country ensure that all details
concerning the origin of the item and its ownership rights are documented
e) Understand fully the copyright implications agreed at the time of deposit
Preservation copying
To preserve audiovisual materials and make them accessible, there is a need to allow
for the copying of the original onto another format. Copying onto a contemporary
format means that the original or master copy is better preserved. ln addition, it may
be essential to transfer onto another format if the original is very damaged. In many
countries, permission to copy onto a different, more stable format for preservation
purposes is built into copyright legislations.
Summary:
a) For access/exhibition purposes, ensure that agreement is reached to copy
onto a contemporary format
b) For preservation work, ensure that either the agreement or copyright
legislation allows for the copying of the original onto a more stable format.
c) Clear details of the archives responsibility to the depositor for preservation
work should be included in any deposit agreement.
58
59
avoid problems in the future. Even if withdrawal by the depositor is allowed on a

temporary basis, there should be clarification as to the conditions of such withdrawals,
e.g. repayment for preservation work undertaken at the archives expense, storage
costs. These costs can always be reimbursed when the item is returned to the archive.
Summary:
a) Contracts drawn up between depositor and archive should clarify the position
with regard to any withdrawal options that the company might require.
b) The depositor and archive should each be clearly aware of their financial
liabilities when items are withdrawn
c) Contracts should include agreement as to time limits for temporary
withdrawal. It may also be advisable for notice of withdrawal of materials
to be given to the archive - and this should be included in any legal
agreement.
Deselection
Agreements need to be made as to the future of items should an archive seek to
deselect from their holdings. Selection and appraisal in audiovisual archives is an
established practice, so it makes sense to provide for the possible withdrawal of items
if they are not felt to be of use to the collection (for a variety of reasons) at some
future date.
Because there might be a difference of interests between depositor and archive, it is
advisable for the archive to make its policies on deselection clear to the depositor at
an early stage, preferably at the point of deposit. Subsequently, if and when
deselection occurs, the archive will adhere to an already agreed policy regarding the
item. This may include an agreement to notify and return the item to the depositor.
Summary:
a)
Establish a policy for deselection of items. This will be formulated

according to the needs of the collecting Institution.
b) Establish what, if any, requirements are needed to inform and/or to return the
items to the depositor.
c) Ensure that the depositor is aware of these conditions and agrees to them.
Today, the general public and the private researcher are becoming more aware of
developments in communications technology regarding remote access to information.
The mass storage of information which can be accessed remotely is a technical reality.
In addition, the presence of multi-media programmes and electronically-delivered
information systems is an indication that such technologies will play an increasingly
important role in the delivery of information direct to the user - regardless of location.
Multi-media products encompass several different media, each with its own rights.
Further rights reside in the resulting multi-media products and much attention is
currently being paid to copyright issues in this context. For audiovisual archives, both
now and in the future, this will have considerable implications.
60
SECTION
LEGAL
I INTRODUCTION
TO AUDIOVISUAL
1.10 Copyright,
Neighbouring
Michael Henry
1994
ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES
Rights and Film Archives
This article examines the legal complexities which film archivists have to deal with.
Although the article refers to United Kingdom legislation, many of the points made
will apply equally to other European or former Commonwealth countries. The article
begins by identifying the various types of rights which are relevant to archives copyright performers rights, moral rights and other rights. It then examines the
activities of film archives, and specific exemptions given to libraries -but not archives
- before identifying the four principal problems faced by archives. Having identified
the problems, it is possible to specify the additional rights which national legislation
should provide in order to enable archives to perform their cultural mission. The
article concludes with a short summary of proposals made by the National Film and
Television Archive.
1 Copyright Protection of Films
1.1 Pre-June 1957
Pre June 1957 films are protected in the United Kingdom in a number of different
ways:
(a) Protection of a film in the United Kingdom as a dramatic work. Copyright exists
for the life of the author of the film plus 50 years in the United Kingdom (although the
term of protection could be life plus 70 years elsewhere). The author for United
Kingdom purposes is considered to be the director of the film. It is therefore
necessary to establish the identity of the director and his or her date of death, in order
to discover whether the dramatic work copyright in a film still subsists.
(b) Protection of a film in the United Kingdom as a series of photographs. Copyright
subsists under United Kingdom law in films as a series of photographs either for the
period of 50 years from the date on which the photograph was made or for the life of
the cameraman plus 50 years (or the life of the cameraman plus 70 years elsewhere).
In some territories the term of protection may be longer. it is therefore necessary to
establish both the identity of the production company of the film and the identity of all
persons who could be considered to be the <<author>> of the photographs - normally
the director and the cameraman. Dates of decease also have to be established, in order
to discover whether the photographic copyright in a film still su.bsists.
(c) Protection of a film in the United Kingdom as a series of sound recordings. Under
United Kingdom law the period of protection lasts for 50 years from which the sound
recordings were made. Some territories provide a longer period of copyright
protection up to 99 years and in the USA common law copyright protection is given
for certain sound recordings up to 2049.
1.2 Protection in the United Kingdom of films made after May 1957 and before
August 1989
61
The period of copyright protection in the United Kingdom for films made between the
above dates is 50 years from the date of registration of the film in the United Kingdom
or the issue of copies of the film to the public. Public exhibition is not considered to
be issuing copies. Many films were not registered or issued to the public and the
period of protection for such films under the law before the 1988 Copyright Designs
& Patents Act was technically eternal. For unpublished films, copies of which were
not made available to the public, the protection period is 50 years from I August 1989
(the commencement date of the Copyright. Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988).
1.3 Protection in the United Kingdom of Post-July 1989 films
Any film made on or after 1 August 1989 has a period of copyright protection in the
United Kingdom of 50 years from the showing or playing of the film in public or its
broadcast or inclusion in a cable programmer service or the issue of copies of the film
to the public. The period of copyright protection may be longer outside the United
Kingdom.
1.4 Protection of films outside the United Kingdom
Whilst the minimum period of copyright protection for films established by the Bern
Convention is 50 years, there are some countries which provide for longer periods. In
the USA the period for pre-1978 films is an initial period of 28 years plus a further
period elf 47 years subject to renewal of the copyright registration. Post-1977 films in
the US are protected for a term of 75 years from publication or 100 years from
creation. The periods of protection elsewhere in the world are also liable to variation,
although the Bern period (50 years) is often used as the minimum.
2. Underlying Rights Clearance of the copyright status of a film itself is not
sufficient. The following additional elements need to be dealt with.
2.1 Underlying Literary material
The question of ownership of any underlying dramatic work, a play, and of the
ownerships of any underlying literary work, such as a book or a screen play
adaptations, revisions, translations, outlines and treatments needs to be considered.
These rights must either have been assigned or licensed to the original film-maker
who will need to have acquired the right to licence the use of excerpts of the film.
Without such authorisation the use of excerpts will infringe the underlying literary and
dramatic material.
2.2 Underlying Musical Material
The identity and ownership of all rights in relation to music and lyrics used in the film
and any arrangements or translations must be established. These rights must either
have been assigned or licensed to the original film maker who will need to have
acquired the right to licence using excerpts of the film. Without such authorisation
the use of excerpts will infringe the underlying musical material.
3 Third Party Material
Where a film incorporates choreographic routines or uses poetry or preexisting sound
recordings or preexisting film footage or other material, the copyright in this material
will similarly need to be assigned or licensed. These rights must either have been
assigned or licensed to the original film-maker who will need to have acquired the
62
right to licence using excerpts of the film. Without such authorisation the use of the
excerpts will infringe the underlying literary and dramatic material.
4 Performers Rights
4.1 The United Kingdom
Performers
and a Number of other Countries give Protection to
In order for a performers performance to be protected it must be given in one of the

countries or by one of the nationals of those countries. Performers rights therefore
subsist in performances given by (say) Austrian nationals in the US in 1943 and any
time after that. A performance means a dramatic performance (which includes dance
and mime), a musical performance, a reading or recitation of a literary work or a
performance of a variety act or similar presentation.
4.2 Moral Rights
The Bern Convention provides for the establishment of a number of moral rights.
United Kingdom law currently recognises the following moral rights:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
the right
the right
the right
the right
to be identified;
not to have a work suffer derogatory treatment;
not to have a work falsely attributed .
to privacy.
Moral rights subsist in literary dramatic musical or artistic works and in films (but not
sound recordings under United Kingdom law). Any use of any of the above material
in a context outside that in which it was originally created is capable of amounting to
derogatory treatment of a work. Appropriate consents need therefore to be obtained
from the owners of all literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.
4.3
Other Rights
Various other rights exist including a right to privacy and a right to publicity (under
US law) and in appropriate circumstances releases may need to be obtained from
living and/or dead persons featured in the material. The circumstances in which such
releases may be necessary will need to be determined in consultation with errors and
omissions insurers. Where relevant individuals are deceased, the procedure will
require detailed investigation of wills and other testamentary disposition and the rights
of deceaseds spouse(s) children and grand-children.
4.4 Collective Rights
A number of rights are administered collectively. The PRS administers rights in
music. PPL and VPL administer rights in sound recordings and video recordings.
The ALCS administers authors rights and a number of other collecting societies are
being established (such as DACS DPRS etc.).
4.5 Directive 92 / 100
European Union Directive 92/100 on Rental Rights has established an unwaivable
right to equitable remuneration which will be enjoyed by creati.ve persons engaged in
cinematographic works.
Such persons may include the director screenwriter
composer and others.
63
4.6 Directive 93198

European Union Directive 93/98 will extend the term of copyright in certain European
Union states with effect from 1 July 1995. *
5 Activities of Film Archives The day today activities of the film archives require
them to copy material, in order not only to preserve it, but also to make it available to
third parties for viewing. Whilst the terms of the deposit agreements operated by
some archives permit them to copy material, there is a substantial amount of material
in the possession of the archives for which no written agreements exist. The copying
of such film material by the archives is capable of being an infringement of
- the copyright in the film;
- the copyright in the sound recordings contained in the films soundtrack;
- the rights of the performers featured in the film and/or sound recordings;
- in certain circumstances the moral rights of authors and directors;
- the copyright in any underlying literary dramatic musical or artistic material
incorporated in the film, or on which it is based.
Although the Copyright Designs and Patents Act extended the scope of civil and
criminal liability, it did not provide any means for obtaining consent from any
recognised body in circumstances where the owner of copyright or moral rights cannot
be traced (although a system does exist to deal with circumstances where a performer
cannot be traced).
In many cases it is extremely difficult for the archives to establish the identity of
persons who own rights in films and sound recordings.
Without the consent of all owners of copyright, owners of moral rights and/or all
performers of qualifying performances, the activities of the archives in copying
material for preservation purposes, or for the purposes of viewing, may be unlawful.
The activities of the archives are consequently somewhat restricted.
6 Specific Exemptions given to Libraries
The activities of the film archives require them to make available material to third
parties who wish to use the material for research or for private study. In this respect,
the activities of an archive are not unlike those of a research library which may be
used by both students and persons carrying out commercial research. The Copyright
Designs and Patents Act 1988 contains certain provisions which permit libraries and
archives to:
(a) make copies of published works, without infringing any copyright; and
(b) supply other prescribed libraries and archives with copies of material, without
infringing copyright; and
(c) make replacement copies of certain works, without infringing any copyright; and
(d) make copies of articles of cultural or historical importance, without infringing any
copyright where such articles are being exported in certain circumstances. The
provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act which apply to library archives
do not, however, extend to the activities of the archives, and do not apply to films or
sound recordings. In many cases it is extremely difficult for the archives to establish
the identity of persons who own rights in films and sound recordings. Without the
consent of all owners of copyright, owners of moral rights and/or all performers of
qualifying performances, the activities of the archives in supplying material to third
64
parties may be unlawful.

restricted.
The activities of the archives are consequently somewhat
7 Rights Owners Consents

7.1 Uncertainty of Copyright Status of Certain Works
Because of the absence of any requirement to register details of authorship or
ownership of the copyright in films, sound recordings and their underlying literary
dramatic musical and artistic works, it is impossible in many cases for the archives to
state with certainty whether a film or sound recording is th.e subject of copyright
protection in its own right, or whether the underlying literary dramatic musical and
artistic works from which the film is derived (or which are contained in it) are still
subject to copyright protection.
There is legislative precedent (e.g. Canadian
Copyright Act) for amending copyright legislation to include an express provision
which will apply in circumstances where owners of copyright cannot be traced.
Although in many instances the archives suspect that such material is not the subject
of copyright protection and is therefore in the <<public domain>>, it is frequently
unable to establish this factually, and therefore unable to exploit the relevant film.
This uncertainty affects all films - even those made before the Copyright Act 1911
came into effect on 1 July 19 12.
The position relating to films made between 1 July 1912 and 3 1 May 1957 is further
complicated by the fact that such films were the subject of three separate and
overlapping types of copyright protection:
(a) as dramatic works; and
(b) as photographs; and
(c) as sound recordings.
The 1911 Copyright Act did not contain any provision for determining the
authorship of films which were protected as dramatic works, but it is generally
assumed that the author was the director of the film, and it is therefore possible for
each of the three copyrights in such films to be owned by a different person.
Even where one particular company can be identified as the owner of all the relevant
copyright elements of a film, and it can be shown that the film is still protected by
copyright, this does not necessarily mean the end of the legislative uncertainties.
Companies are frequently dissolved by their shareholders and are nowadays struck off
the Register of Companies if they fail to file annual accounts promptly.
Where a company is dissolved or struck off, the property which it has not distributed
to shareholders automatically becomes the property of the Crown, and is known as
bona vacantia. Many films are thought to have vested in the Crown in this manner
7.2 Uncertainty of Copyright Ownership of Certain Works
A further problem encountered by the archives is the difficulty which it faces in
tracing and contacting the copyright owners of material which may still be the subject
of copyright protection, either directly (because the relevant film or sound recording is
still in copyright) or indirectly (where the film or sound recording is in the public
domain but the material on which it is based is still in copyright).
65
In circumstances such as this, the ability of the archives to perform their functions of
copying material for preservation, making the material available for cultural use, and
making copies of it available to third parties, are severely limited.
The proposal for copyright harmonisation recently issued by the European
Commission contemplates the extension of the copyright term throughout the
European Community to a period which is equal to the life of the author of the
relevant copyright work, plus 70 years. It also changes the identity of the <<author>>
of a film to the natural person who made it, which could extend the United Kingdom
period of protection from 50 years to life plus 70, which is capable of being a
significantly longer period. The proposal is likely to lead to a draft Directive in 1995
or 1996, and will extend the period in which the copyright status of films is doubtful,
adding to the uncertainties referred to above which surround the copyright status of
certain films.
7.3 Difficulty in Dealing with Works of Uncertain Status
Where the copyright status or ownership of films or their underlying
uncertain, the archives are placed in an extremely difficult position.
work is
An infringement of copyright is not simply a matter of civil liability, but (by virtue of
the Copyright Designs and Patents Act Section 107) a criminal offence is committed
where a person knows <<or has reason to believe>> that an infringing copy of a
copyright work is being made, exhibited, or distributed.
The position is compounded by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act Section 110,
which provides that where a criminal offence is committed by a body corporate, if the
offence is committed with the <<consent or connivance>> of a director, manager,
secretary, or other similar officer, then, that person is <<liable to be proceeded against
and punished accordingly>>.
7.4 Access to and Use of Material
Even when a work can be shown to be out of copyright and <<in the public
domain>>, it may still be possible for persons to prevent the cultural or economic use
of the work. The owner of the only surviving print, or sound recording, or book, or
poster, can prevent other people from making unauthorised copies of the physical
material, even though this material might freely be copied without infringing
copyright.
If the contractual arrangements by means of which access is granted to a noncopyright film do not permit copies to be made, and copies of the film are made, the
owner of the print (who may never have controlled copyright in the film) can sue the
person who made the copy for trespass to the owners goods. The period of the
owners right to sue for trespass is technically without limit, and is capable of lasting
far longer than the period of copyright protection. Even if the legislature were to limit
the period of time during which an action for trespass to goods might be brought, it
would still be possible for the owner of a film to lock it away in a vault and deprive
others of access to it.
What is needed, therefore, is a positive right by which the archives or other interested
parties can obtain access to a film or to other culturally significant materials (during or
after the period of copyright protection) for the purpose of making copies, either to
preserve the material for cultural heritage or to make it available for economic
exploitation. Without any such right of access, the benefit of the <<fair dealing>>
66
provisions contained in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Section 30 is
limited.
There is a strong argument for establishing a right of access to material possibly
subject to payment to the owner of the material of a reasonable access fee which could
be monitored by the Copyright Tribunal in a manner similar to the system established
by the Broadcasting Act 1990 to ensure the free use of programme schedule
information.
8 Rights required by Archives
In order to fulfil their mission, Archives require the following rights:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
the right
the right
the right
the right
the right
to
to
of
to
to
copy existing material for preservation;

copy existing material for restoration;
access to or loan of third party material;
make copies of material available for study or research;
show or play material in public.
9 National Film and Television Archive Proposal

Ln order to guarantee the preservation of our audio-visual national heritage and for the
reasons set out above, a statutory deposit scheme for audiovisual material on similar
terms to those which apply to books published in the United Kingdom should be
established. The audiovisual legal deposit scheme should app.ly to all films which
have been commercially exploited in the United Kingdom. The National Film and
Television Archive is compiling proposals for a legal deposit scheme in the United
Kingdom. This scheme comprises three essential elements, being:- the deposit of material;
- access to materials on loan;
- authorisation to carry out acts in relation to materials.
The National Film and Television Archive wishes the following
deposited:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
materials to be
Print material of United Kingdom productions;

Original negative or inter-negative material of United Kingdom productions;
Print material of foreign productions exploited in the United Kingdom;
Ancillary material for productions exploited in the United Kingdom.
In addition it will require access to or loan of material of cultural historical

importance, authorisation to copy material for preservation and restoration purposes
and authorisation to make available material for cultural/educational purposes.
The European Union Directive 93/98 on the term of copyright has
*Footnote:
extended the duration of copyrights and the article should be read in the light of
changes implemented by the Duration of Copyright and Ri,ghts in Performances
Regulation 1995.
67
SECTION
LEGAL
I INTRODUCTION
TO AUDIOVISUAL
1.11 UNESCO AV COPYRIGHT
ARCHIVES
ARCHIVES
MEETING
REPORT.
December 5-6 1994
Helen P Harrison, rapporteur of meeting

The Round Table on Audiovisual Records (a group of UNESCO NGOs) entered into
a contract with UNESCO: To Organise, in close collaboration with UNESCOs
General Information Programme, a workshop to examine legal restrictions affecting
access to audiovisual archives including consideration of policies of access, legal
deposit, the preservation of materials and the protection of rights.
The main objectives of the workshop were to update and discuss strategy based on the
recommendations of the report prepared by Birgit Kofler, PGI-91/WS/50
(See
Section 1.8 for details of findings of this report) to determine changes in legislation
necessary to permit audiovisual archives to function: to co-ordinate information from
the various groups involved in audiovisual archival bibliography.
The meeting was attended by 14 representatives of the organisations: FIAF, FIAT,
IASA, ICA, IFLA, IFPI, Council of Europe, UNESCO. The chairman was Wolfgang
Klaue, ICA/PAV and Rapporteur: Helen Harrison, IASA.
The agenda for the workshop stated the purpose and objectives:
Purpose
To examine the legal restrictions affecting the access to AV archives,

including a consideration of:
- policies of access
- legal deposit
- preservation of av materials
- protection of rights
Objectives:
To update and discuss strategy based on the recommendations of Birgit

Koflers report (PGI 9llWSiS)
- to determine changes in legislation necessary to permit AV archives
to function
- to recommend future actions towards solving the legal problems of
AV archives
The UNESCO representative on the Round Table, Joie Springer noted that the origins
of the meeting could be traced to the adoption of the Recommendation for the
Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images by the 21st General session of the
UNESCO General Conference in 1980. The recommendation was intended to be the
basis on which audiovisual archival activities would be built. It is however, not
binding in character and Member States are therefore not obliged to institute any
measures for safeguarding their heritage.
Following a survey in 1984 to assess the impact of the Recommendations in
UNESCO Member States, it was revealed that most countries had no legislation for
establishing audiovisual archives or for the deposit of films or video materials. This
was partly attributable to the fact that the concept of audiovisual archiving was a
relatively new one and not many countries were aware of the need to safeguard the
heritage either by preventing its destruction, or by way of voluntary deposit.
68
The decision was made to prepare model legislation or guidelines that could be
adapted to individual country requirements. These were published by UNESCO in
1991 as Legal questions facing audiovisual archives. This workshop will discuss
the report to determine what updates are necessary and how best to ensure that
legislation for the preservation of the moving image heritage is adopted by all
countries.
In addition to the model law, work has also started on preparing a study of
comparative legislation in different countries. The report which resulted has not been
published because the number of countries providing information was judged
inadequate to be truly representative. Since then, political changes have occurred in
several countries around the world and may have affected the findings of that time.
The workshop may wish to examine the study and decide if it is necessary or desirable
to complete it, and if so how this should be done.
The overall objective of the workshop is to examine the main restrictions affecting
moving image holdings in archival institutions with the ultimate goal of defining a
strategy to allow access to the materials whilst ensuring their preservation and
safeguarding the rights of owners.
Legal and ethical aspects concerning the transmission of information is a topical issue
and was reiterated by several delegates during the recent meeting of the
intergovernmental council of UNESCOs General Information Programme. As we all
know many groups are currently considering the legal aspects of the dissemination
information and UNESCO hopes that this meeting will provide the focus for bringing
these groups together so that closer collaboration and a more harmonized approach
will eliminate duplication of effort and waste of resources.
The following are some of the problems that will have to be addressed:
establishing the statutory basis for the preservation of the moving image
1.
heritage in all countries by the designation or creation of an institution with this clear
mandate
allowing archival institutions the right to preserve, copy and provide access to
2.
the materials in their collections under predefined conditions
ensuring that suitable copies of moving images produced, distributed and/or
3.
disseminated in all countries can be both preserved and made available for use by
future generations.
Legal Deposit of AV records.
It was emphasised that the main aim of the meeting was to consider the legal aspects
of deposit, preservation and access rather than the entire subject of copyright, and to
examine the legal restrictions which affect access to audiovisual archives, to examine
the conflict between access and preservation and the protection of rights in the
materials.
What is the primary aim of legal deposit? or even voluntary deposit by non-legal
agreement if one can have such a thing. Is legal deposit in fact the answer, or the only
answer to the issues involved?
In the context of this workshop legal deposit or deposit by agreement has as its
primary objective the collection and safeguarding of the cultural heritage of a nation,
69
region or the world. The cultural record can be collected and protected within an
archive, library or any institution with responsibility and retained for later purposes of
access and use. It helps to ensure the continued existence of the cultural heritage and
the materials on which they are recorded - in whatever format, textual, visual, audio
and it is the last two of these which concern us here - visual and audio.
The formats or materials which carry this audiovisual information are increasing in
complexity as well as converging in their technological presentation. We also have to
take into account the impact of the multi-media technologies and the increasing use
of electronic transmission of information and its relative ease of access in considering
copyright issues.
Legal deposit may help ensure the continuation of the material and heritage, but what
happens when it becomes accessible on a Superhighway. How does that affect the
status of the material and its legal deposit in a particular institution. The increasing
use of electronic transmission has to affect our view of the context and meaning of
legal deposit which implies an object - not an air-wave or chunk of electronic
information.
The next point to address is the world situation concerning audiovisual legal deposit.
How far have we come? Since the Kofler report of 1991 some countries have
introduced the concept - but it is still a piecemeal situation as described in the report.
We also have the Belgrade Document or the UNESCO Recommendation for the
Safeguarding and Preservation of moving images (1980) one of the few examples of a
concentrated effort to address the problems of audiovisual records from the legal
deposit angle as only one of its objectives. What impact have these recommendations
had? Should we perhaps be considering drawing up a convention for safeguarding the
audiovisual cultural heritage by increasing and improving legal deposit legislation?
Surveys have been carried through on the situation of legal deposit and are included in
the Audiovisual Archive Bibliography, published by UNESCO in 1991.
The Kofler document on Legislation on AV Archives in selected countries addresses
the problems but is incomplete and already needs updating and amendment as an
information document. And the Kofler report itself with the Model Law - always
intended as proposals or guidelines for legislation - needs to be examined and updated
in the light of technological development which has been mentioned already. The
increasing complexity of carriers, the convergence of the technologies and the
increase in electronic transmission of the information.
The next issue to be addressed is the concern of the AV industry about the deposit of
materials. Ln darker moments we may wonder if they are concerned at all or only
interested in today and the commercial return on their property, but some commercial
organisations have their own archives, television and radio broadcasting stations
maintain material within their own corporations and enter agreements with national
film, television and sound archives to deposit valued material.
a) The rights of creators and users have to be respected and most importantly
b) The agreement of industry to cooperate in safeguarding material has to be ensured.
The latter is not a question for this workshop, but once we have decided what we as
collectors and preservers of audiovisual materials and information need, the industry
will have to be involved and their interest and cooperation sought.
70
Once we have decided upon pursuing legal deposit we have to look at the
practicalities of what should be deposited and the mechanisms involved.
i) First need to identify the publishers and titles we are considering for deposit
ii) Next we need to establish legislation for deposit. This is the mechanism and may
be the most difficult part of the exercise.
iii) We need to decide what should be deposited, and here the RAMP studies on
appraisal could be of assistance - although some may be outdated and need
amendment. Should collection be comprehensive or selective and what criteria should
be used. What constitutes a publication - often in the av world unpublished material
acquires an equal importance to published work. What about broadcast programmes,
multi-media, electronic data and electronic transmission.
iv) Under what conditions should deposit be made. This has I:Obe considered from
the point of view of
a) the depositors and of
b) the users for access
v) Legal enforcement of deposit should also be considered. How can this be
achieved?
Finally some practicalities will affect any legislative process.
There are countries with a large output and others with a more limited AV output.
This is bound to affect legislative procedures.
The cost of deposit may be high when it involves laboratories and other expense to
provide suitable copies for preservation. Where will the funding come from?
Coordination of effort of existing deposit collections is needed.
Deposit is inevitably linked with access and we cannot ignore the developments of
superhighways and how these will affect the situation and the legislation.
The bones of the issue can be summarised:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Is legal deposit the only answer and if not what are the alternatives
How do we encourage legal deposit
How can we achieve legislation to ensure legal deposit
Need to encourage industry to cooperate to safeguard the av heritage.
We have a good report in the Kofler work which although it needs updating in the
light of developments hardly needs rewriting. It is a useful starting document. (See
Section 1.8 for conclusions and arguments of the report).
In summary of the meeting the Chairman acknowledged that this was a first major
debate of the audiovisual archives discussing the legal problems faced by audiovisual
archives, and as such we could not expect to have decisions or answers to the
problems addressed. We need to identify the problems and pursue the discussion.
Proposals which arose from the meeting:
1. There should be a joint study of legal problems facing audiovisual archives.
Koflers study can be used for guidance, but the new study should not be a rewriting or
updating of the Kofler study.
71
2. A long-term strategy is needed to reach international agreements for audiovisual

archiving. It is recognised that this will be a long process. The workshop also
recognised that trying to alter national and international laws will take time, and be
piecemeal, and even a Convention could be difficult to achieve, judging by past
experiences. Rather the associations should be looking towards producing guidance
based on identified problems, and trying to influence conventions and legislation
wherever possible. But first we need to come to some agreement about what the
audiovisual associations require from legislation.
3. Strategy needs to be co-ordinated in several areas:
Agreements with rights holders
Agreement among the audiovisual associations
Conventions and international agreements
Regional or national conventions
4. The debate needs to be continued to achieve a unanimity of purpose, and the av
associations should try to unite to achieve their purpose and develop a joint concept
and approach to legal issues and legislation. We need a more precise debate based on
the particular position of each association.
5. Clear legislation is required to state what audiovisual archives are authorised and
obliged to do.
72
ETHICAL
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
ISSUES
1.12 ETHICS
Ray Edmondson et al
1 GENERAL
1.1 Collecting and other professions share many commonalities in codes of ethics and
these apply equally to AV archivists. These include such areas as fairness, equity,
duty of care, discrimination, honesty and integrity, efficiency, criminal behaviour and
so on. A fully developed code of ethics would detail these issues, but in this draft
such things are taken for granted. The focus is on issues specific .to this field.
1.2 The following paragraphs are indicative, not comprehensive. The compilation of a
Code of Ethics for AV Archiving should draw on comparative sources from many
countries, with particular reference to codes within the library science. archival
science and museum fields.
1.3 Legalities are so important and sensitive in AV archiving that a code of ethics
needs to deal with the legal obligations of the institution and individual in
scrupulously honouring copyright obligations and depositor and donor agreements. It
also needs to deal with the morality of dealing with donors and lenders who may have
no title to the material they are offering.
2 INSTITUTIONAL
2.1 The care of collection material is the shared responsibility of the AV archive and
its superior authorities, and the individual AV archivist. Its staff are entitled to know
the boundaries of their individual responsibility and accountabil?ty.
2.2 The AV archive will honour and support the professional integrity, competence
and development of its staff. It may require that they meet appropriate professional
standards. It will not ask them to act in ways clearly contrary to professional ethics
and standards.
2.3 AV archives will operate in an open and accountable manner. Consistent with
professional ethics and standards, and mindful of the credibility and integrity of the
AV archiving field, they will create and observe written policies, guidelines and
standards as frame of reference for their work. They will not be reliant on informal
intuitive
procedures, or personality-based
understandings
or transactions,
arrangements. They will strive to document all relevant inforrnation in a retrievable
form so that they are not dependent on individual memory or knowledge.
2.4 Collection material will be publicly presented, regardless of the setting, with
integrity. An AV archive will strive to present material in such a way that, as far as is
now possible in practice, the audience is able to perceive and appreciate it in its
original form, context and import. Where material is presented in a reconstructed,
restored, abbreviated or processed form which differs from this, relevant information
or explanation will be available to audiences. An AV archive will not knowingly
mislead or misinform its audience or clientele.
73
2.5 An AV archive will manage its collection and internal priorities holistically, and
with a long term perspective. It will not compromise the survival of collection
material in the interests if satisfying short term demand. It will strive to manage its
priorities in the best overall interests of the survival and permanent accessibility of the
AV heritage.
3 PERSONAL
3.1 Responsibility to the public
3.1.1 Where AV archivists encounter confidential information in the course of duty
(such as recording or transcribing oral histories, or servicing client projects) they shall
honour such confidences without exception. Further, they shall exercise caution and
judgement in discussing such information with their colleagues.
3.1.2 AV archivists shall observe, without exception, the contractual and copyright
obligations which attach to collection materials and shall familiarise themselves with
these obligations to the extent that they are relevant to their duties.
3.1.3 Personal expertise notwithstanding, AV archivists shall not offer valuations,
authentications, or similar opinions of material. Irrespective of their accuracy or
otherwise, such opinions can involve a conflict of interest and be used subsequently
by their recipient in potentially compromising ways, including dealings with their own
archive.
3.1.4 Reconstructions, compilations, excerpting, abbreviation, format transfer or
other ways of manipulating collection material for the purpose of presenting it to a
contemporary audience shall (a) not threaten the preservation, unchanged, of the
source material and (b) shall be documented in terms of the purpose, parameters and
actual work done, so that an audience need be in no doubt as to the true nature of the
new work so produced. It is suggested that a pro-forma statement or code to this
effect be adopted as an appendix to a code of ethics. Such a statement might, for
example, set out the parameters and purpose of the project (which guide all the
technical and artistic decisions), a description of the work done and research
undertaken, description of the source material and its condition, explanation of the
judgements and choices made, a statement on how closely the result matches the
stated parameters, the time frame and completion date of the prqject, and complete
credits setting out the contributors to the project, and their roles.
3.2 Responsibility to employer
3.2.1 AV archivists involved in acquiring collection material for their archives shall
ensure that the transaction is fully documented in accordance with approved policies
and procedures. In negotiating the acquisition, they shall not in any way intentionally
mislead the supplier as to the terms of acquisition, value or identity of the item(s) in
order to gain advantage for their archive or the supplier.
3.2.2 Potential conflicts of interest - whether apparent or real - shall be declared to
their superior authority immediately they emerge. Such conflicts can be general or
specific to the AV archivists personal interests and role within their archive.
Examples might be: financial interest in an organisation supplying goods or services
to their archive, or membership of a group whose aims or activities conflict with those
of their archive.
74
3.2.3 Because of the apparent conflict involved, AV archivists shall not engage in the
building of private collections in a manner which could be perceived to be
inconsistent with the policies, priorities and interests of their archive. In case of
doubt, they shall declare to their superior authority any private collecting activity
relevant to their archives coverage.
3.2.4 AV archivists will strive to understand. observe and respect the legal
dimensions of their work. whether this relate to copyright, contractual or other
obligations.
3.3 Responsibility to collection material
3.3.1 AV archivists, as collection managers. shall take all reasonable precautions
against accidental damage, theft, misuse, loss, degradation, or misadventure, and shall
have regard for the responsibilities, policies, procedures and lhmitations imposed on
them by their respective skills and formal duties.
3.3.2 AV archivists shall not appropriate collection items for personal purposes
except insofar as the collection and services of their archive are accessible to them as
members of the public, and on the same terms.
3.3.3 AV archivists are guardians of the AV heritage. They respect the integrity of the
works in their care and do not mutilate or censor them, nor in any other way attempt to
falsify history. They resist the efforts of others to do so. They endeavour to complete
what is incomplete, restore what has been lost, remove the accretions of time, wear
and misinformation. They hold in tension their personal tastes and critical judgements
against the need to responsibly protect and develop their collection in accordance with
policy.
3.3.4 In the management, repair and restoration of preservation copies, material will
be treated as if it were irreplaceable (for in many cases it is). So far as it is within the
power of the AV archivist to ensure, no sound or picture information will knowingly
be lost.
3.3.5 AV archivists will not sacrifice the long-term survival of collection material in
the interests of short-term exploitation, acknowledging that this involves the
application of judgement rather than dogma.
3.3.6 When copying collection items for preservation purposes. the AV archivist does
not edit or distort the nature of the work being copied, nor expose an original or
preservation copy to undue risk. Within the technical possibilities available, new
preservation copies shall be an accurate replica of the source material. The process
involved, and the technical and aesthetic choices which it entailed, will be faithfully
and fully documented so the trail back to the original will always be clear. The
terminology, concepts and data recording methods used shall be precise and allow the
unambiguous transmission of information for the future.
3.4 Professional conduct and values
3.4.1 The free sharing of knowledge and experience to aid the development and
enlightenment of others, and the enhancement of the profession of AV archiving, is a
fundamental attribute. AV archivists shall act in a spirit of collaboration, not
competition, with kindred institutions.
75
3.4.2 AV archivists shall not knowingly be party to the dissemination of false or

misleading information relating to their collections or areas of expertise.
3.4.3 Trustful relationships with sources and clients on a personal level are one of the
greatest rewards and obligations of the AV archivist. Knowing that they are open to
abuse, and that some will prefer to trust the individual rather than the institution, such
relationships will be characterised by absolute honesty, institutional loyalty and the
absence of personal gain.
3.4.4 As the guardian of the AV heritage, AV archivists will strive to develop a
personal perspective on the social and historical importance of the material under their
care. Honestly held, such views may not always coincide with the view or the agenda
of the AV archivists employer. It is in situations of crisis or confrontation that a
reference point is needed. For example: political censorship (destroy this: it never
happened), economic pressure (we cant afford to keep all this stuff.. get rid of it),
arbitrary or uninformed directives. No code can provide a simple step-by-step
response to such potential situations but it can attempt to identify the professional
values involved as a guide to the AV archivist.
In such cases, they must use judgement in advocating their point of view and seeking
a solution which has the support of all involved. It is the mark of professionals that
they not only possess requisite knowledge: they have intellectual and moral autonomy
and an obligation to exercise it in the best interests of both the AV heritage and their
employer.
3.4.5 AV archivists recognise and observe their cultural and moral responsibility
towards indigenous peoples, ensuring that collection material is handled and access is
given in ways that are compatible with the norms of their cultures.
3.4.6 Knowing that the provenance of AV materials is often difficult or impossible to
establish. the AV archivist will not knowingly be party to transactions likely to
compromise personal integrity or the employers reputation.
76
SECTION
I INTRODUCTION
ETHICAL
ISSUES
TO AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
1.13 Ethics and New Technology

George Boston
At the technical symposium - Technology and Our Audio-Visual Heritage - held at
the National Film Theatre in London at the end of January 1995, I was persuaded by
my colleagues on the Organising Committee to say a few words about Ethics as they
affect technicians handling sounds and moving images. My words were quoted
several times during the three days of the Symposium by speakers. The Symposium
concluded with a panel discussion on the topic Where Next? The Future of A-V
Archiving. One of the panelists, Clyde Jeavons, Curator of the National Film and
Television Archive in London, observed that ethics seem to be considered only when
change is imminent. On reflection, I realised that he is probably right.
My dictionary defines ethics as The science of morals, being that branch of
philosophy which is concerned with human character and conduct; a system of
principles and rules of conduct. This article will, at the risk of becoming a sermon on
the subject, discuss some of the concerns about New Technology that people are
Iabelling Ethical.
I restrict myself to discussing documents that are to be copied to preserve the
information because the original information carrier has decayed to the point where it
is unrealistic to attempt to preserve it. If the original is in good condition, there is no
need to copy to preserve. Copy made for access or as a safety copy are not necessarily
subject to the same ethical considerations.
The increasing interest in using digital techniques to create copi.es of documents has
also created concern about the ethical standards to be applied to such copying.
Modem technology offers many powerful tools to alter the information when copying
a document. Without a generally accepted set of guide-lines - an ethical base - to
work from, everybody making copies will apply their own rules. These will,
inevitably, frequently be subjective decisions.
Most of the concern is centred on the need to copy information fi-om existing carriers
to new carriers. This is not a new worry. The monks in the Scriptoria of the
monasteries working at the production of the magnificent mediaeval illuminated
manuscripts were, I am sure, at times tempted to alter the wording of texts to enable a
page to be better presented visually. I am equally sure that they were constrained by
the realisation that the over-riding need was to transmit the information on the pages
of the Bible accurately to future generations. The same basic constraint must be
applied to any archival copying of original material.
Modem copying does, however, give rise to several additional layers of concern. The
monks only copied the words on the page and not the stains that may have
accumulated. Modem copies can include the words plus the stains, watermarks,
comments in the margins etc. With sound recordings, the hiss, clicks and bumps and
with moving images and photographs the scratches and other blemishes can also be
copied. This additional information is part of the history of the document.
If we examine the world of art and painting we find a constant debate in progress
about the results of restoring pictures. Some people like the bright, fresh colours re-
77
discovered under centuries of accumulated grime. Others say that the artists
anticipated the gloom cast by generations of smoking candles and oil lamps and call
the restorers vandals. Who is to say which group is right?
There is also concern about defining where the dirt ends and the paint begins. This is,
in practice, a subjective decision by the team of restorers working on the painting. A
major argument is currently raging in the letters columns of the British press about the
loss of parts of Holbeins painting The Ambassadors. This is undergoing extensive
cleaning and restoration in the workshops of the National Gallery. As a result of
removing the dirt and the work of previous restorers, it appears that large sections of
the painting - over 10% of the area - now consist of the under-paint coat only.
While it is clear that what remains is by Holbein and not by later hands, no-one is
quite sure that what has been removed was not by Holbein.
With the creation of digital copies of documents we are often in the fortunate position
of not being required to physically restore the original before copying. Provided that a
generally accepted code of conduct for the copying process can be agreed, the process
of copying to the digital domain should not create the same intense debate that so
frequently rages through the art world.
To frame a code of conduct to define a standard of copying may, at first sight, appear
difficult. Fortunately there is at least one precedent for such a code of conduct. The
International Association of Sound Archivists have defined three levels of fidelity for
archival standard copies of sound documents. By widening these definitions to be
non-specific as to carrier, the base for the construction of a set of ethical guide-lines
may be laid.
1. The Replica - an exact, three dimensional copy of the original document using the
same materials as the original. This is possible for some carriers; for example, a new
long-playing disc could be pressed using the original metal masters. For others it is
impossible. Except for particularly important documents, this is not a practical
proposition.
2. The Historical Copy - a copy looking or sounding exactly like the original
document with all the blemishes, imperfections etc. reproduced as faithfully as the
primary information. Many documents can have digital copies made that meet this
standard.
3. Recreation of the Original Document - a copy that has been restored by removing
all distortions, blemishes, annotations etc. to give the observer what was seen or
heard by the creator of the document. This requires the application of physical or
electronic restoration techniques during the copying of the document. As with the
debates in the art world, whose opinion about the restoration is the correct one?
For the purposes of setting a copying standard that can be used as a base from which
to define a set of ethics, the Historical Copy is the only one that is practical. It is an
achievable copying standard and does not require any subjective decisions. The copy
made is either an accurate copy of the original, warts and all, or it is not.
An ethical statement can, therefore, be simply framed. An archival or master or
preservation copy of a document must contain all the information present in the
original. This will include the primary information - the texts, the images, the sounds
intended by the creator of the original document - together with any annotations,
water-marks, blemishes, clicks, scratches etc. accumulated over the years.
78
If this copy was made in the analogue domain, it would not be possible to avoid
further decay. A digital copy can, however, be repaired by means of error correction
algorithms. By this means, the information is effectively frozen in place.
This does not mean that the information should never be altered. There are
circumstances when it is necessary to modify an access copy or a copy being made for
mass distribution.
It may be necessary to apply data-reduction techniques to a
digitised access copy of a document to fit it into the available storage space. For
example, to fit a movie into the storage available on a CD with high levels of data
reduction that will render the pictures suitable for use only as a low-grade access copy.
This is not of concern, provided that the original document is preserved in fullfidelity. There are thousands, if not millions, of copies of da Vincis Mona Lisa. The
original is not harmed in the slightest by their existence.
The archivists, librarians and technicians working with original documents must work
to the same standards of copying as the monks in the Scriptorium. In other words,
copying what is there with no additions or subtractions. It is the task of those making
copies to transmit to future generations the information that is available now. It is not
their task to decide what portion of the information is valid and should, therefore, be
preserved and what can be erased.
79
SECTION II COLLECTION
2.1 APPROACHES
ARCHIVES
TO THE
NATIONAL
and MANAGEMENT
ORGANISATION
OF SOUND
Rolf Schuursma
1. INTRODUCTION
Sound archives have various origins. Broadcasting sound archives came naturally into
being because of the primary need for developed storehouses of recordings for use in
radio programmes.
Other sound archives have developed within research or
educational institutions which took up sound recordings as yet another source of
information in their specialised fields (e.g. music, ethnomusicology, dialectology,
political or social history). There are many and varied examples of such specialised
archives, ranging from the Department of Sound Records of the Imperial War
Museum in London to the Ethnomusicology Archive of the University of California in
Los Angeles, and from the sound archive of the Netherlands Theatre Institute in
Amsterdam to the audio collection of the Indian Classical Music Foundation in
Bombay. Many other archives, however, developed inside institutions responsible for
general collections, frequently of a national or regional character, which do not
accentuate any specialised field. Thus centres like the Library of Congress in
Washington DC or the Public Archives of British Columbia in Victoria have gradually
built up extensive collections of sound recordings of spoken word and music
alongside collections of books, documents and other media. A few sound archives
have come into existence simply because their founders wanted to concentrate on
sound recordings as such, regardless of any particular subject or regional interest, and
independent of all other media. The British Institute of Recorded Sound in London is
perhaps the best known archive of this kind. Although the categories described above
represent the mainstream of sound archive activity, other types of audio collections are
also to be found. There are, for example, lending libraries which primarily specialise
in the distribution of published material such as audio discs and cassettes and there are
scientific institutes where sound recordings may form part of their monitoring or
experimental data (e.g. recordings of the heartbeat made for medical purposes or bioacoustic recordings used in the study of animal behaviour).
Whatever their origins, however, developments so far give the impression that in
many countries sound archives - outside the realm of broadcasting - have been
established as a consequence of momentary needs and certainly without much
preliminary deliberation about an overall structure of sound archiving on a national
scale. Even in areas where some effort has been made to consider whether the
establishment of one or more sound archives would best meet the needs of the country
as a whole, the outcome has seldom if ever bee a structure based on clearly defined
and elaborated possibilities and priorities. Some people may argue, that this kind of
structural course is apt to fail and that a more ad hoc establishment of sound archives
to provide a stronger and more flexible approach to national needs than any other
policy. Whichever conclusion may be reached, however, it is important that the issue
should be seriously and systematically considered. In many countries without any
kind of sound archive organisation audio collections of various kinds are nonetheless
coming into existence. The first requests for funds to cover their financial needs enter
government offices or private foundations. Once this happens the administrators
responsible for public or private money may, without adequate guidelines grant or
refuse resources according to the feelings of the moment. They should, however,
consider the national need for sound archives and base their decisions on the outcome
80
of such a study, while bearing in mind also the main existing models and options that
are available to them.
2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
In countries with as yet little or no sound archival activities there are two main ways
of considering subject, at least In theory. One is to look at sound archivism from the
point of view of the medium its the other is to consider it from the point of view the
contents carried by the medium. The difference between the medium centred and the
content centred approaches need further explanation before their respective
advantages and disadvantages are examined.
The medium centred approach starts with the assumption that the preservation of
sound recordings is so important and so specialised that the needs of the medium take
priority over any other consideration. An archive based upon this assumption will
tend to collect as many recordings as possible in order to preserve and describe them
professionally and thus save them for posterity. Also such an archive does not usually
give priority to research based upon the content of recordings and of other media
carrying the same kind of information. The situation is reversed in the case of a
content centred approach. Here the medium of recorded sound is just one instrument
among many for research or education. It is the content of the recordings, which
contributes to the total amount of information available for a given research or
educational field, that is the centre of attention. Anyone who is familiar with the field
of sound recordings will immediately recognize that a strict differentiation between
these two types of archives would be an over-simplification.
In reality nearly every
archive is a mixture of the two types with some accentuation of one or other of the
two approaches. It is, for instance, obvious that no archive of the first type will totally
neglect the contents of its recordings, while no archive of the second category will
completely ignore the needs of the medium. However, this broad distinction is helpful
for considering a national strategy for sound archives particularly in countries where
as yet little or nothing has been achieved.
3. GENERAL VERSUS SPECIALISED ARCHIVEX
Bearing this distinction between medium and content centred archives in mind let us
first consider the needs of countries where recordings, of folk music or oral history for
example, are coming into existence without being collected, preserved, described and
made available in a professional way. In such countries there is much to be said in
favour of creating a sound archive on a national basis which concentrates its primary
efforts on the acquisition, the preservation and the description of every kind of sound
record. Such an archive may conveniently be part of a national library or a public
The national institution would then take
record office of written documents.
professional care of the preservation of the sound recordings i.n its collections, in the
same way as it would of its paper and other records.
Although its staff would not perhaps spend much time on research on the contents of
the records themselves, such a national archive would - in addition to preservation certainly concentrate its efforts on their description, so making them fully available for
research and educational purposes. If a national collection of sound recordings can be
organised in this way as part of a state institution, then the government may also be
expected to take care of its funding. In large countries additional centres may also
usefully be established as branches of the national archive so as to provide recordings
and facilities on a regional basis.
81
-_--
--~l__~.l__l_--.-----.---
However, the national sound archive model has its limitations which should also be
seriously considered before any conclusions are drawn about the most effective
method for the organisation of sound archives. Every, national archive is likely to try
to live up to its broad objective by acquiring as many recordings as possible and to
function as an archival centre for the total acquisition of every kind of sound recording
in the country. However, unless the archive is part of such an enormously resourced
and highly differentiated institute as the Library of Congress, even national archives
will nonetheless generally tend to concentrate on a restricted range of subjects and be
forced to leave some others aside. Although they are institutions with a wider field of
view than is usually found in specialised archives the range of a national archive is
still limited. The aperture of its lens has a wide-angle but nevertheless is not able to
cover 360 or even more than 180 of the whole field of knowledge. This is not a
situation which can be changed just by raising more funds and employing more staff.
It is a structural problem, encountered in every institution where people try to cover
comprehensively all fields of knowledge.
A related problem is that national sound archives will be required to administer a wide
variety of highly specialised recordings many of which need much more detailed
treatment than conventional cataloguing in order to make them most accessible for
scholars. In this respect they are to be compared with public record offices and like
those archives of written documents they seldom have the range of expertise to
succeed in really giving their attention equally and on an equally high level to every
subject of interest covered by their collections.
What then of the alternative approach to sound archive organisation: the specialised,
single subject and content centred archive ? From the point of view of the researcher
and the educationalist a sound archive specialising in, say, history may be a better
solution than a national archive, especially when it is part of a larger institution whose
collections also include books, periodicals, films, photographs, written documents and
newspapers relating to the same field. In other words, where all media combine to
give maximum service to the user, who wants to study his subject of research or to
have access to material for the class-room regardless of the medium it may be found
in. This so-called multi-media approach is probably only possible in specialised
institutes with archives concentrating on one field of interest or, perhaps, in some very
great national institution like the Library of Congress.
A specialised institute with collections of pictures and sound recordings next to
collections of printed or written records must, however, be prepared to direct a
relatively greater part of its total budget towards the audiovisual media, for the
obvious reason that the acquisition and the preservation of such media are generally
more expensive than is the case with written or printed records. Such financial
discrimination in favour of audiovisual records is not always achieved. Institutes with
low budgets may easily feel that audiovisual media do not warrant such a high
expenditure and decide to make less funds available for their administration than is
professionally necessary. This is a problem for multimedia institutes and it can only
be corrected or forestalled by firm decisions concerning the allocation of available
funds.
There are other problems which must be taken into consideration as far as the
specialised, single subject, content centred archive is concerned. One concerns the
financial situation as seen from the national level. In the case of rather small
collections, dispersed over several institutes, each specialising in different fields of
research or education, the total cost may be rather high by comparison with the funds
necessary to run a single, centralised sound archive which keeps all types of material
on its premises. One should, of course, never accept such statements without applying
82
a detailed cost-profit analysis but the assumption seems to be credible enough.

Another major problem is that even a widespread network of specialised archives may
not be able to cover the entire field of sound recordings. Two institutions respectively
covering folklore and ethnology, for example, may not have any activity in the field of
dialect nor any interest in its development and, as a result, a major gap may be left in
the national holdings.
4. ALTERNATIVE
MODELS
Having considered a few arguments in favour of both national and specialised sound
archives, it might be interesting to take a quick look at three other organisational
models. First, the Arkivet for Ljud och Bild in Stockholm is an example of a national
archive for sound recordings, videotapes and films, partly based upon the fusion of a
few already existing archival collections.
This Swedish model, of one integral
national archive for all audiovisual media, is also interesting because it presents an
alternative to both the national sound archive philosophy and the concept of
audiovisual archives as part of a multi-media national institution like the Library of
Congress. In Stockholm, sound recordings and moving pictures are brought together
to the exclusion of other media such as books and written documents. It should be
remembered, however, that storage and particularly the preservation of audio and
visual media are in many ways different from both the technical aspects and from the
financial needs and there may be some disadvantages to combining them. Also, in
such an arrangement, the sound archive will only profit as long as the budget is fairly
divided between the media, with each safely secured against interference, and so long
as the management does not pursue a biased policy favouring the visual media at the
expense of the audio.
Secondly, in order to profit from a similar kind of centralisation of the preservation
and storage of recordings, several institutes in the Netherlands have proposed to the
Government the establishment of an organisation which would act as a central depot
and a clearing-house for audiovisual media and would also fill an intermediary role
between the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) and the various public
organisations and groups interested in access to radio and television material. These
plans are primarily intended as a solution to the problems concerning films and videotapes but they will undoubtedly have far reaching effects in the field of sound
recordings as well. The clearing house idea may perhaps prove to be a valuable kind
of compromise between the rigid centralised structure of a national archive and the
anarchy of quite independent and divergent specialised archives, especially in
countries where such archives already exist.
Thirdly, there is the ..unique approach of Austrian sound archives united in the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Osterreichischer Schallarchive AGoS (Association of Austrian
Sound Archives). The AGiiS foresees a few primary archives concentrating on the
collection and preservation of original sound records. These archives should not be
open to the general public, but a network of other institutions including libraries,
mediatheques or audio-visual centres should act as distributors of copies of the sound
records preserved in the primary archives. The AGiiS considers it necessary to
maintain content centred archives in this range of primary archives, also distributing
their recordings through the network of regional institutions mentioned above. The
system starts of course from the assumption that certain standardisations in the field of
title description and distribution media have first been accompli shed.
83
5. FACTORS AFFECTING NATIONAL
PATTERNS
In reviewing the models considered in the preceding pages it will be seen that, despite
the existence of several variants, the broad choice to be considered for the national
organisation of sound archives lies between the establishment of a single centre or of
several. In choosing between the unification or the multiplication of sound archives
there are three other major factors that have to be assessed before the balance of
advantage can be finally judged.
The first consideration, already touched on, applies mainly to countries in which
specialised archives already exist. Once a collection of sound recordings is part of a
specialised institute the creation of a single national collection is likely to become
much more difficult to achieve. There will be a natural reluctance among such
institutes to give up their sound archives despite any practical arguments in favour of a
central or national solution. The effectiveness of such a solution then also has to be
weighed against the value and efficiency of the service which existing archives are
already providing. The inevitably disruptive effects of ending their independence
obviously has to be more than balanced by the benefits that can be achieved through
their amalgamation.
Secondly, an important part of the sound archival resources of most countries is
represented by the output of their radio and television organisations. The national
pattern chosen for sound archives may be significantly influenced by how these
resources can best be organised in any particular state. Although broadcasting
organisations commonly maintain their own archival collections, these are seldom
open for educational and research purposes. Thus separate arrangements will
generally be needed to provide public access to such material.
Given the
complications of copyright and contractual obligations, broadcasting organisations are
often reluctant to provide copies of their recordings for use outside their own
premises. They will certainly be even more hesitant if they have to deal with several
institutes, each putting forward its own demands, than if they only have to collaborate
with one. From this point of view a national sound archive can usefully function as
the sole agent for broadcasting collections of sound recordings, providing a suitable
access point for non-broadcasters while also centrally controlling and safeguarding the
rights of the broadcasting agency and its contributors. A further advantage of such
centralisation is that it ensures public availability of all broadcast recordings,
including those which may happen to fall outside the orbit of existing specialist
archives.
Thirdly, a similar case for a national sound archive can be made in respect of
commercial discs and tapes published by recording companies. The reluctance of the
recording industry to sustain a proliferation of centres holding copies of archival
material in which commercial companies own rights is indeed now confirmed by its
official policy. Thus its agent, the International Federation of Phonogram Industries
(IFPI), has begun to promote the establishment of national archives in its member
countries to serve as the only intermediary archives between the recording industry
and the general public.
Such a centralised arrangement for broadcast and commercial recordings may not,
however, always be the best one for researchers. Most national archives are - as
mentioned before - in fact specialised in certain restricted areas of research. In acting
as central intermediaries between broadcasting organisations would also have to deal
with many other fields of interest in which their staff may have no specialist
knowledge. The BBC, for example, has understood this problem very well. Thus,
copies from the large and valuable collection of recordings made during the Second
84
World War have been made available to the Imperial War Museum, specialised as it is
in that field, and not to the British Institute of Recorded Sound, which serves as a
national sound archive but does in fact concentrate primarily on the field of music. As
a matter of course any general archive might be expected to handle the BBC Second
World War collections at a lower level of description and research collections at a
lower level of description and research than the specialised staff of the Imperial War
Museum.
To conclude, the problems of and the models for the national organisation of sound
archives are manifold and it would be unwise to pretend that there is but one solution
for every country developing activities in this field. However, the establishment of a
national sound archive is in many cases the best safety net for the recordings which
every country is producing in ever greater amounts. This will ensure that all kinds of
recordings will find their way into a professional preservation and description centre,
where at least they may be saved for the future. Eventually specialist archives may
also come into being, but even then a national archive may continue to fulfil this
central function while also preserving those recordings which would not be collected
elsewhere.
85
SECTION II COLLECTION:
2.2 HISTORY
AND ORGANIZATION
OF MOVING
AND MANAGEMENT
IMAGE
ARCHIVES
Sam Kula
The Archival appraisal of moving images: a RAMP study with guidelines. 1983
Editors note: Although this paper was written some 14 years ago many of the points
are still relevant and the paper is included as a history of the development of moving
image archives.
1.l. That moving images of actual people, places and events - actualities, as they
were termed at the turn of the century - are historical documents with unique
properties was being recognized as early as 1898. Just two years after the first public
exhibitions of cinematography in Paris, London, Berlin and New York, Boleslav
Matuzewski, a Polish cinematographer in the employ of Nicholas II of Russia,
published a manifesto in Paris calling for the establishment of a world-wide network
of archives to acquire and conserve the product of this new marvel of technology, this
new source of history. Matuzewski was aware that for cinematography to fulfil its
historic mission it would first have to move from purely recreational or fantastic
subjects toward actions and events of documentary interest; from the slice of life as
human interest to the slice of life as the cross-section of a nation and a people. In
other words the objectives of the cinematographers would have to differ from those of
their predecessors who had developed the magic lantern and optical toys, based on the
persistence of vision and the illusion of motion, to a very sophisticated level as a
means of personal or public amusement.
1.2. It is interesting to note that Matuzewski also foresaw the eventual need for the
appraisal and selection of moving images. One of the functions of the competent
committee he proposed to administer the Depository of Historical Cinematography
to be established in Paris was to accept or reject the proposed documents according
to their historic value. He assumed that the volume of voluntary deposits by
cinematographers anxious to have their films permanently conserved would demand
an appraisal policy.
1.3. Matuzewski was not alone in discerning the recording properties of the motion
picture camera. In 1900 the Ethnographic Congress in Paris proposed and adopted the
resolution: All anthropological museums should add suitable film archives to their
collections. The mere possession of a potters wheel, a number of weapons or a
primitive loom is not sufficient for a full understanding of their functional use; this
can only be handed down to posterity by means of precise cinematographic records.
Anthropologists and ethnographers were thus early to begin utilizing the new
technology as an additional tool along with the still camera and the audio recorder, but
there was little systematic coverage of traditional cultures undergoing rapid change.
As Francis Speed points out in describing the situation in Nigeria, the irony is that this
product of the new technology has not been more widely employed in recording
cultures threatened by the introduction of all types of new technology. Already many
of these cultures have disappeared; their ways of life have basically and irrevocably
changed and comparatively few have been reliably and comprehensively documented.
. . In a living culture the majority of the ritual, social, political and working
In order to make
occupations entail continuous and complex movements.
86
comprehensive and reliable records of these activities it is necessary to use an

audiovisual medium capable of reproducing movement.
1.4. Despite the enthusiasms of the few who perceived the new medium of motion
pictures to be capable of capturing a unique record of human endeavour in the
twentieth century, and despite the almost universal public acceptance of motion
pictures - the first mass medium to transcend both international boundaries and
cultural differences - the moving images produced were almost totally neglected by
librarians, museum curators and archivists. In the beginning there were essentially
two approaches to film-making as far as the general public was concerned: the first
were those who, following in the footsteps of Auguste and Louis Lumiire, found their
subject matter in the real world around them; the second, inspired by the fantasies of
George MCli&, an illusionist turned film-maker, discovered that the limitations of the
real world in terms of time and space could be overcome through the magic of the
movies, the transformation of real time and real space into screen time and screen
space. The initial objectives of both approaches in the commercial cinema was to
entertain, to attract an audience, to the profit of the producer, the distributor and the
exhibitor. The followers of MCli&s proved to be more successful at the box-office,
especially after the development of narrative techniques, and the actualities began to
play a minor role in the emerging film industry.
1.5. Moving images quickly became associated with vulgar entertainment and their
usefulness was measured by the financial return they could generate. Although in
numbers well over half the moving images produced during the first quarter of the
twentieth century continued to be actualities, the feature length fiction film
exemplified by the standard productions of the major Hollywood studios (the dream
factory) so dominated the public consciousness that all moving images were regarded
by the custodians of artifact and culture as escapist fare of no lasting value. Even as
moving images in the twenties and thirties began to be harnessed in the service of
national and international ideologies, and as the impact of moving images as shapers
of public opinion and moulders of public taste began to be recognized by politicians
and advertisers alike, there was no concerted effort to systematically acquire and
conserve the moving images of one generation for the enjoyment and edification of
those to follow. As a result it is estimated that fully one-half of the moving images
produced before 1930 have been lost.
1.6. One of the major contributing factors was the nature of the nitrocellulose stock
which was used for all theatrical productions prior to 1950. Although long wearing
and with excellent optical qualities, nitrocellulose is an inherently unstable compound
that gradually but inevitably disintegrates over time, even under optimal storage
conditions. All productions on 35mm film, the industrial standard, made before 1950
were on nitrocellulose or nitrate stock.
1.7. The only method of conserving moving images on nitrocellulose stock prior to
1950 was to transfer the image to fresh stock, and the prospect of having to do this
every few years, along with the storage problems associated with highly flammable
materials, acted as a powerful deterrent on archives, libraries and museums that might
otherwise have assumed responsibility for what was becoming recognized as a vital
part of the public record. The Library of Congress in the U.S., for example, accepted
the deposit of moving images as series of photographs printed on paper rolls for the
purpose of copyright registration from 1896 through 1912 and thus acquired an
invaluable collection of more than 3,000 pioneer moving image productions.
However, when new legislation on copyright permitted the deposit of nitrocellulose
stock prints, the Library changed its procedures so that presentation of a copy could
serve as evidence for copyright registration in place of the actual deposit. The Library
87
did not resume the acquisition of moving images (with rare exception) until the
forties, and did not develop a full scale acquisition and conservation program until the
end of the sixties.
1.8. It was not until the early thirties, when the introduction of sound had placed all
silent films in danger because they were no longer commercially competitive, that the
first archives specifically devoted to the acquisition and conservation of moving
images were organized. These first archives were founded on the work of individuals,
and frequently were based on private collection that were institutionalized in order
to ensure funds for conservation, control over access, and the continuity of support
necessary to enlist the cooperation of depositors. Perhaps the most influential
pioneers were Henri Langlois (Cinematheque Francaise, Paris), Ernest Lindgren
(National Film Archive, London), and Iris Barry (Museum of Modem Art, New
York). Through the force of their personalities they secured public recognition of the
need for moving image archives, and established the legitimacy of their calling.
1.9. In 1938 four of the pioneer organizations, the Cinematheque Francaise, the
Museum of Modem Art Film Library, The National Film Archive, and the
Reichsfilmarchiv, Berlin, founded the International Federation of Film Archives
(FIAF). World War II interrupted that development, but the Federation was reestablished in 1946 by the archives in Paris, New York and London, with the addition
of Gosfilmofond, Moscow. The Federation had 46 members and 23 observers from
52 countries in 1982. Although the majority of the members are from Europe and
North America, all continents are represented, and it is one of the Federations chief
objectives to assist in the formation and growth of moving image archives in
developing countries.
1.10. An analysis of FIAFs (International Federation of Film Archives) membership
reveals that very few moving image collections have been established in national
archives or libraries. The collections at the Public Archives of Canada, the Library of
Congress (U.S.), the National Library of Australia and the Bundesarchiv (FRG), are
notable exceptions. The Federations Statutes that demand an autonomous structure
for the moving image activity as a condition for membership may have deterred other
national archives or libraries that do acquire moving images from seeking affiliation,
but the National Archives (U.S.) is perhaps the only such organization with a
significant collection that is not a member.
1.l 1. The vast majority of FIAF members and observers in Western Europe, North
America and Latin American are autonomous, private organizations, or affiliated with
film institutes or film schools. They usually receive governmental financial support
directly or indirectly but their policies and programs are developed and implemented
by a small professional staff responsible to some type of governing board of directors.
1.12. In countries where the production of moving images is a state monopoly most
of the FIAF members and observers are organizationally linked with the motion
picture industry, usually in a structure where they serve as the archives of the
production components, and as a resource base for the film institutes or schools that
carry out the training programs for film makers.
1.13. With rare exceptions (Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound
Division of the Library of Congress, Washington; National Film, Television and
Sound Archives Division of the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa; and National
Film Archive of the British Film Institute, London) film archives do not systematically
acquire moving images from television, either as film or videotape. Because so much
of television broadcasting as introduced in the early fifties, was live, there was no
88
permanent record to select and acquire, and the film recordings (kinescopes) that were
manufactured to allow the re-transmission of certain broadcasts at a more convenient
time were either ignored or allowed to accumulate in the offices of the broadcasters.
1.14. As broadcast television became a great consumer of film, either produced for
television or purchased for broadcast, more and more newsfilm, documentaries, and
fiction films ended up on the shelves of the networks or in local station libraries,
usually closed to the public and frequently neglected in terms of organization and
conservation so that the material could not even serve effectively as a resource for
future production.
1.15. With the introduction of videotape in the early sixties a record of what was
broadcast could be retained for archive purposes. but in fact very few broadcasts left
the hands of the producers for research or record purposes. Worse still the cost of the
raw stock videotape and the fact that it could be erased and re-used combined to effect
the loss of thousands of hours of programming. In short, with regard to archives, the
first twenty-five years of television broadcasting throughout the world replicated the
dismal history of film-making in the first forty years. The documentation, when it
survived, remained in the hands of the producers and distributors, whose mandate
seldom included conservation or organization for public access.
1.16. By the mid-seventies, however, the value of television broadcasts as a future
production resource was becoming well established, and the importance of television
broadcasting as an integral part of the public record was increasingly recognized by
researchers in many disciplines. The response from the television producers was to
re-evaluate and in many cases to reorganize their production resources as archives,
accepting the fact that even internally the programmes and programme elements had
to be protected from indiscriminate and irresponsible use due to the always pressing
demands of the broadcast schedule. At the same time academically orientated bodies
such as the International Association for Audio-Visual Media in Historical Research
and Education, and national organizations such as the Television Archives Advisory
Committee (US), the Association for the Study of Canadian Radio and Television
(Canada), and the British Universities Film Council (UK), began focussing attention
on the need to conserve the record of television broadcasting and to organize the
resources for at least limited public access by researchers.
1.17. In 1978, primarily through the initiative of Institut National de LAudiovisuel
(Paris), the British Broadcasting Corporation (London), Radiotelevisione Italiana
(Rome), and Norddeutsher Rundfunk - Femsehen (Hamburg), the archives of the
major television networks throughout the world established the International
Federation of Television Archives (FIAT). Membership at present is restricted to
archives of production organizations, or to those media archives that have been
officially designated as the archives of a television network or production company,
such as the National Film Archive (London) for Independent Television Authority
companies, and National Film, Television and Sound Archives (Ottawa) for Global
Television. As more national archival organizations have acquired responsibility for
the conservation of moving images from television the Federation is considering
modification of its Statutes to allow their affiliation.
1.18. There were only 33 members in FIAT at the end of 1982 with the membership
concentrated in Western Europe. The conditions that prevail in almost all other state
television networks (the norm for television broadcasting through the world) is
similar, in that archives, if they exist as functional entities, remain the responsibility of
the producer. In rare cases this responsibility has been delegated to a national library
89
(as in Sweden and the U.S.), but this development is so recent that it is too early to say
whether these programs will become models for other countries.
1.19. With the exceptions noted above, the involvement of national archives in the
selection and conservation of television broadcasts is minimal. Substantially less, in
fact, than with moving image documents from other sources, although the technology
associated with conservation and public service on videotape materials is actually less
complicated and less costly than it is with early film.
1.20. The deterrent in this case is volume. It is not unusual for a single broadcaster to
generate over five thousand hours of programming per year. Selection is obviously
essential, and what is needed, in effect, is a records management approach that will
ensure the immediate protection of all the records generated for a limited time, to
allow time for an evaluation of the total production for archival purposes and the
preparation of a schedule which will specify which programmes are to be retained for
long term conservation. This is the stated objective of the network archives that are
members of FIAT.
1.21. The lnstitut National de LAudiovisuel has established such as program for
television in France, but the norm for television archives that are not actually part of
the production organization is a much more selective approach based on advisory
committees and consultation with subject experts. Since so much of televisions
output consists of films which may also have been or will be available through
theatrical distribution, there is obviously a large potential overlap with the work of
film archives. Television world-wide is also a rapacious consumer of theatrical
feature films and documentaries. The separation of moving images by delivery
mechanisms (television versus theatrical distribution) for archives purposes may thus
be wasteful of public resources, with the potential for dividing the work of one image
maker between two archives that may well be in different cities.
1.22. The degree to which archives in television networks can serve and should serve
the general public of scholars and researchers is also an issue. Indicative of the nature
of the problem is the Report of the Advisory Committee on Archives, established by
the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1978.
Although recommending that the BBCs archives should be made more accessible to
outside researchers and the general public through in-house services and various
diffusion policies, the Report recognizes that additional funding will have to be found
or allocated to allow the archives to both serve the network and this wider public.
One of the key elements in any such diffusion program is the computerization of data
now in card catalogues so that information on the holdings of the network could be
available in educational establishments throughout the country.
1.23. In recent years, as the tape recorder became a ubiquitous witness to public events
and private conversations, archives at the national, regional and local level have been
increasingly acquiring recorded sound as a component of other accessions, whether
public records or private papers. In much the same way film and video recordings are
proliferating in archival record or manuscript groups. It is probably safe to say that
the annual accession list of every national archives would show some intake of
moving image and recorded sound, whether or not these organizations subscribe to the
theory of the global archives, and systematically acquire and conserve this type of
documentation.
1.24. How this type of documentation is treated, however, once it enters the archival
system, varies widely. The range is from a policy that can be termed benign neglect,
90
the passive registration and shelving of the object along with the textual material in the same
group or collection, to an active policy of conservation and public service that not only
recognizes that such documentation must be segregated physically to protect the recordings
and, in the case of film on nitrocellulose stock, the repository itself, but also that such
documentation must be inventoried, or described in greater detail than is probably the norm
in a national archives to make them readily accessible to researchers.
1.25. Despite the best efforts of Commissions in FIAF and FIAT in attempting to standardize
the cataloguing of moving images, little has been accomplished beyond some movement
toward a definition of terminology and an acceptable list of minimal data elements. These
organizations, together with the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and
the International Association of Sound Archives (IASA) are currently collaborating in a joint
effort at standardization. In practise archivists in production organizations, such as television
networks, tend to more detail in describing their holdings in order to meet the needs of their
colleagues in production who may request highly specific shots or sequences. This approach
is beyond the capacity of more general collections - in fact television archives tend to reserve
this treatment for newstilm, - but there is little general agreement as to what constitutes an
acceptable compromise. When one considers that one minute of a motion picture, measured
at sound speed, contains 1440 photographs, some of the problems involved can be
appreciated. In order to cope with the volume of data generated through this type of analysis,
many of the television archives have already adopted machine readable cataloguing systems,
or are experimenting with computerized retrieval systems. The facility to rapidly exchange
data on holdings should accelerate the move toward standardization.
1.26. Among the fundamentals in the archival handling of moving image documentation is
the fact that all reference to the material demands a mechanical and/or electro-optical
reproduction that inevitably wears out the copy being viewed or auditioned. It is thus at once
both difficult to scan a large quantity of audiovisual documentation and costly in terms of the
manufacture of reference material and the reproductive machinery required. As the viewings
must frequently be supervised, although the advent of the videocassette has minimized this
need, the cost in human resources is also significant.
1.27. If the master recordings are not protected by reference copies, the material on deposit
is not being conserved. Even restricted and supervised access to such material is dangerous
as the number of times a film, videotape or audio tape can be played before the quality of the
recording is affected is very limited, and there is always the possibility of accidental damage
in any pass through a piece of machinery. Staff responsible for organizing, describing and
controlling access to such material must therefore have special training that includes some
familiarity with the technology involved.
1.28. The material itself should be stored under environmental controls that reduce the
hazards of airborne contaminants, fluctuations in humidity, and meet the needs of the base
material - nitrocellulose and triacetate stock, videotape fabricated from a range of polymers
with regard to temperature. In addition colour film emulsions composed of fugitive dyes, the
industry standard until 1980 (,colour print stocks have recently been introduced with superior
91
keeping characteristics), will require cold storage at or below the freezing mark if the colour
is to be retained more than six or seven years.
1.29. Staff expertise is also required to establish and to maintain a systematic acquisition
program from major producers, whether private corporations or state monopolies. Not only
will those sources demand access to the material deposited, but they will require access to
copies for further production purposes that meet the standards of the industry. The archivists
thus have to balance their primary objective of protecting the original material with the need
to satisfy the donor a requirement which is probably contractual and which is essential in any
case if further deposits are to be forthcoming. In a UNESCO survey conducted in 1973 only
twelve archives enjoyed any form of legal deposit with regard to moving images, and ten of
those were in countries where production of moving images is a state monopoly. Voluntary
compliance is still the norm in building archival collections of moving images and recorded
sound, and the archives must be responsive to donor needs, particularly if a program of
record management is to be introduced which guarantees the protection of material identified
as archival while it still rests in the hands of the producers and distributors. (This situation
is changing in most cases for the better as Section I: 1.8 and 1.9 will provide more detail).
1.30. This very sketchy survey of moving images and recorded sound in archives has
attempted to indicate that almost all of the activity to date has taken place in nongovernmental archives; that historically there have been physical and technological, and to
some extent prejudicial factors at work to limit the involvement of governmental archives;
and that the archival involvement demands physical segregation of the material in
environmentally controlled stores and staff expertise in the processing and custody of such
materials. The UNESCO Recommendation concerning the safeguarding and preservation
of moving images as adopted by the General Assembly in Belgrade, October, 1980, called
for the establishment of officially recognized archives by each member state to acquire and
preserve all moving images of national production . . . considered by Member States as an
integral part of their moving image heritage.
1.3 1. The Recommendation foresees a mix of governmental and non-governmental archives
as achieving this objective in some countries, particularly where such non-governmental
archives already exist. What practical effect this Recommendation will have remains to be
seen, but its existence is an acknowledgement of a world-wide concern that moving images
are a part of our global cultural heritage, in every sense of that term, which has already
suffered extensive damage through neglect and acts of deliberate destruction. National
archives will inevitably be called upon to play a larger role in assuring that this aspect of the
historical record will be conserved but whether this will be an active role or merely one of
coordination and the establishment of standards may well vary with circumstances from
country to country. Certainly in countries where there is no institutionalized effort to acquire
and conserve moving image documentation at present there is a strong argument for national
archives to assume that responsibility, or at least to ensure that this responsibility is delegated
to an organization serving the public interest.
* This section is based upon a paper prepared by the author for the Section of Professional
Archives Associations, International Council on Archives, at the ICA London Congress,
1980.
92
HISTORY DEVELOPMENT
2.3 RECORDS MANAGEMENT
AND MANAGEMENT
IN SOUND ARCHIVES
Helen P Harrison
1. Some form of records management is essential to impose order upon records and
make them manageable and accessible to future users of the archive, whether these
users are researchers, browsers, those with a commercial concern to reuse the material
or interested members of the general public.
2. Actually little of the material in a sound archive can be followed through from its
creation to its ultimate preservation ? The idea of records management before the
material arrives in the archive is desirable, but seldom achievable.
Records management is concerned with the creation of records at the time when the
relevant material is created, or at least with communicating to the creators the
necessity for adequate documentation dealing with the identification, maintenance,
restoration and use of the material, before the archive necessarily becomes associated
with the material involved. Ideally the conventional archivist would like to be in a
position to decide at the time a record was produced if it has archival value that the
creator would ensure that the record was produced bearing in mind future archival
requirements. In the case of sound recordings this would include ensuring that the
proper technical standards were achieved in the recording for long term preservation,
that the information elicited in an oral history interview was relevant to the
programme as conceived, that appropriate related documentation was provided in the
form of transcripts and background information, and so on. This is an almost
unattainable ideal for many sound archivists. But it is possible in some instances,
especially with programmes where the archivist has an active role, such as initiating
the recording programme or cooperating with the creators to produce material of
archival value. If it is possible in some instances then it should be a goal of the
archivist to try to widen the possibilities and the occasions upon which he can
influence the creation and documentation of the potentially archival record.
3. Should sound archives try to preserve complete collections or representative
samples of particular subject coverage ? It may be argued that popular music may be
of ephemeral interest and only a representative sample should be kept. Certain genres,
such as folk music, may once have been a despised section of the recorded output, but
now it and ethnic music are studied all over the world.
The challenge to the appraiser is how to predict which of the ephemeral material of
today will become either the research material of tomorrow or indeed remain
ephemeral.
4. Archivists should participate in decisions about how records are stored before they
come to the archives, There is a need to influence file organisation, access systems
and storage media. These methods will either help or hinder the work of archival
preservation. The archive may be in a position to influence the setting up of some
systems and of suggesting the level of technical standards which should be achieved
or the type of documentation required. Records which conform to these standards can
then be transferred to the archive with much of the initial processing and preservation
already paid for. This is management of the record at the time of creation or before it
ever comes into the archive.
93
5. It must be remembered however that commercial manufacturers are just that - they
do not consider or cater for archival needs. They record, experiment, entertain if you
will, but not necessarily with the future in mind.
Commercial producers regarded their function as providing an opportunity for a wide
audience to hear (and see) the worlds entertainers and artists in the comparative
comfort of home. This is especially true of recordings of musical works. Sound
recordings tend to become a private or personal entertainment. They enable people
(rather as video and television today) to listen and enjoy in the comfort of their own
homes. Although in the early days of sound recordings, gramophone record societies
conducted public performances and in some situations still do, it was much more
likely that the recordings would be made available either for sale or for loan to listen
to at home and in peace - without the distractions of ones neighbours in the concert
hall. Therefore we do have to ask in appraising sound recordings for archive purposes
just why and for what purpose we are preserving the material. Is it as an historical
document, a cultural object or document, or as a record of fact, or even as a
development in recording technique?
Archives may be in a reasonable position to keep up with the acquisition of current or
recent material, but historical commercial recordings and the non-commercial
recordings pose additional and serious problems.
6. Commercial record production began in the 1890s; thus a large number of
recordings were made long before many of the national archives were established and
began serious collection. This, in turn, meant that a very large number of early
recordings did not survive. Most sound recordings were not primarily designed with
preservation in mind, but to produce reasonable quality playback combined with lowcost manufacture. Hence the problems presented to the technician for restoration or
re-recording.
7. Without adequate collections management and the intervention of people the
repository of sound recordings itself would experience difficulties and it would
become increasingly difficult to locate particular items or groups of items within a
reasonable period. Herein lies another argument for selection. Unless holdings have
been selected with reasonable care there is little or no point in spending time and
money documenting, storing and preserving material which is not of archival value.
There is merit in acquiring as much material as possible in a particular field of
interest, especially in the early stages of development of a collection, but once
acquired it is bad practice to leave such materials in an unordered state. The archivist
has a responsibility to the material itself as well as his user. The material needs
processing, conservation, and some form of information retrieval, however basic,
should be imposed upon it as soon as possible after acquisition.
An extension of records management is to survey the current record, that is before it is
ever offered to the archive for retention. The objective is to identify material which
has archival value and to ensure that this material is identified, documented and
preserved against the day when it is finally offered to the archive.
8. Audiovisual archives are now in a better position to influence and improve by
working on standards and guidelines for adequate bibliographic systems as applied to
archives, and of trying to achieve wider recognition of the value of control at an early
stage, rather than waiting for the unidentified, often incomplete and degraded copy to
arrive in the archive. This is not only a matter of self interest but could achieve an
economy of labour and release the archivist to concentrate on the maintenance and
94
preservation of the record and the provision

services.
of adequate research facilities and
8.1 The body of commercial recording can be treated in an entirely different way
from that of other types of recording.
Commercial records - primarily of music, but sometimes of the spoken word - are
made for a wide market and the originals or matrices can be controlled in an archival
situation, whether by a national depository or by the production company itself. The
matrix is rarely deposited in a separate or independent archive, usually only copies are
deposited.
8.2 Broadcast materials are created for a particular purpose, and a system of appraisal
or selection can later be applied to such materials. Creation of such materials as with
many paper records, is for a contemporary or current purpose; the process of selection
or appraisal is thus undertaken to determine value for future use, and research.
9 Sound recorded content, as has been noted, will also have an influence on
A discographer for example may wish to ensure that the
collections policy.
discography and therefore the collection it is based upon represents all the available
material, and also that the material listed will be preserved; hence the necessity for
adequate collections management. A discographer or a discography compiler will
need information about the location of the material and also, before publishing
findings, some reassurance about the preservation of the material to be included and
the durability or physical life of the recording medium used. In archives which initiate
their own recordings the eventual retention of the documents can be envisaged and
taken into account from creation onwards. Oral history is another area in which some
measure of control from the time of creation can be achieved.
10 A few statistics may help to illustrate the problems of control. The number of
sound archives is approximately 400, ranging from the large national archives to
specialised subject archives holding but a few hundred items. This figure does not
cover the numerous collections of oral history and private collections of
discographers. The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) based in
North America, has nearly 2000 members, many of whom are private collectors, while
the Oral History Society in the UK alone has over 450 members.
11 With regard to the recording industry very few countries issue more than 1,000
commercial LPs annually, although a number of countries issue LPs and many
archivists argue that one or two copies of each commercially produced recording
should be housed within the national archive, if one exists. The figures may become a
little blurred when we consider that recordings which could be classified as national
are manufactured, abroad and the national archives in particular will have to maintain
a watching brief on these activities to ensure that they acquire copies
When one considers non-commercial recording the figures ar even more difficult to
acquire and the situation becomes
For example, the figures for commercially-produced recordings in 1982 in the USA,
that is, recordings produce by American companies, were 2,600 long playing records
and 2,800 45s. In 1983 in the UK, 1,700 titles were issued in classical music and
spoken word, of which between 200 and 500 titles were in the spoken word category.
Some 12,000 titles of popular music were issued.
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11.1 Such figures do not take account of broadcast materials. For example, the BBC
through its national and regional networks and External Services produces at a
conservative estimate, puts over more than 3,000 hours per week.
11.2 In addition there are the oral historians who are constantly collecting material for
their research purposes, and it would be very difficult to estimate the amount of
material which is generated under this heading.
11.3 Finally there is the material already in archival custody, much of which requires
appraisal or reappraisal.
11.4 A brief mention of some of these collections will highlight the problems
involved and the necessity for post accessioning selection and reappraisal to reduce
and maintain collections in manageable proportions.
The National Sound Archive in the UK holds an estimated l/2 million discs, tapes and
cylinders. The holdings of the Library of Congress is even greater. Arkivet for Ljud
och Bild (ALB) in Sweden has 1,100 cylinders, 80,000 discs and 8,000 tapes and
cassettes. The US National Archives has 12,000 microgroove recordings, 40,000 radio
transcriptions and 12,000 tapes. The Public Archives of Canada holds some 90,000
items. The National Sound Archive of Australia holds more than l/2 million items,
and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, some 40,000 items. The University
of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) has several major collections; the Ethnomusic
Sound archive, with 15,000 tapes, the oral history collection 3,000 tapes, and the
music library with 18,000 discs. Of the radio archives, Norsk Riksrasting in Norway
holds 30,000 tapes and discs in the programarkivet. NOS, in Hilversum, Netherlands,
holds 150,000 discs and 50,000 tapes. The Voice of Kenya has 10000 electric discs,
200,000 microgroove and 30,000 tapes.
Such holdings grow exponentially at an annual rate.
Specialized subject collections may also contain recorded material or the archivist
may have conducted interviews which have been edited for public access purposes,
but the unedited material has its own value.
12 Much of the material being saved is not of intrinsic archival value. The number of
extant wax cylinders, Philips and Miller recordings, and wire recordings is not great,
and they are also concentrated in a few locations. The situation is different for sound
recordings than for film, where there is considerable scope for retaining old equipment
in order to replay the film in its original form and also to transfer volatile film to
safety stock. The number of archival sound recordings on unusual formats will only
justify the retention of comparatively few items of old playback equipment and the
building of one-off machines for restoration of the sound content to acceptable
listening levels.
13 The documentation of sound recordings includes scripts, transcripts, synopses,
summaries, disc labels and gramophone record sleeves. Ln addition, there may be
interviewing questions, project outlines, and outlines of interviewing procedures,
related stills, especially in oral history and even artefacts. Newspaper clippings can be
used to refer to the material in radio archives, giving more detail of daily events and
news broadcasts. Related textual material should be surveyed, and the merit of
selecting and appraising material based on textual material which refers to recorded
sound materials that have been destroyed, should also be considered, (eg. the use of
Hansard in the UK in Parliamentary archives).
96
13.1 Related documentation should not be used as a substitute for the material itself,
indeed it cannot be used as a substitute for some recordings such as musical works. In
some circumstances it may stand instead of the original recording, either because the
original recording has been lost; because it was too lengthy for the archivist to
contemplate maintaining and retaining in the archive; or, in fact, was so ephemeral, so
much a waste of recording material, that it did not even warrant retention.
13.2 Documentation of oral history recordings should indicate the reasons for the
interviews having been conducted in the first place - that is, why this material was
recorded. This may have been to fill a particular gap in the collection or to capture a
particular informants information about a person or event before the inevitable
happens. This is sometimes referred to as active archival collection, and the oral
historian and ethnologists in sound archives are prime examples of this type of
activity.
13.3 The appraisal of the technical documentation of why a recording was restored, of
what rerecording process was employed, and of the condition of the original is also an
essential part of the appraisal process and information of this type should be kept and
accessioned with the recordings.
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2.4 GUIDELINES
FOR ESTABLISHING
PROGRAMME
ARCHIVES
AND MANAGEMENT
AND MAINTAINING
TELEVISION
Anne Hanford, Chairman History and Archives Specialist Group April 1992. The
Royal Television Society
Introduction
Television programme material is valuable both in terms of commercial exploitation,
and as an irreplaceable social record. Neglect of material in the earlier stages of the
operation of television organisations in the past has led to the loss of irreplaceable
material, the commercial, social and cultural significance of which was not
appreciated until some time after the event. These guidelines are intended to prevent
possible future losses and to assist in the planning of an appropriate framework for
establishing and maintaining collections of material according to recognised
principles.
The term archive is perhaps inappropriate for the nature of the service required by a
television organisation. Another frequently used term library - is also inadequate.
However, whatever term is chosen, the overriding function of the service must be to
provide for the operational requirements of the parent organisation, while ensuring
that the material is preserved and available for longer term purposes. Material may
eventually be devolved to another body more responsible for these responsibilities,
such as the National Film Archive in Great Britain which has become the designated
body to maintain a national television archive under the provisions of the
Broadcasting Act 1990, Section 185.
1. DEFINITION
OF THE POLICY AND PURPOSES.
1.1 The first essential is to define the policy and purposes of the programme archive,
taking into account such issues as the ownership of the material, the requirements of
the actual and potential users and the timescale of the likely retention of the material.
In this latter respect, consideration must be given to the physical and technical
requirements imposed by long storage periods. It is important that the following
aspects are considered at the earliest possible stage, and certainly well in advance of
the first broadcast.
2. RECORDING OF ALL OUTPUT
2.1 In the UK, the Broadcasting Act 1990 specifies that each broadcasting body must
retain a copy of all its transmitted output for a period of 90 days, in case a copy is
required by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (Section 145(5)), the
Broadcasting Standards Council (Section 155(3)) of a Justice of the Peace (Section
167( 1)). These recordings may be made on non-broadcast standard formats. It is also
necessary to retain a broadcast standard recording of all programmes to enable
subsequent selection for re-transmission, commercial exploitation and archival
retention.
2.2 It is particularly important to ensure that programmes which consist of a mixture
of prerecorded and live material are recorded in their entirety off-air. Examples of
this type of output are news bulletins and magazine programmes.
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3. STORAGE
3.1 Material must be stored in secure, environmentally controlled premises to ensure
its survival for current and long-term purposes. These areas should be free of such
hazards as water and heating pipes and have a high level of protection against fire.
The recommended conditions for the various media are as follows:
Film
3.2 It has been established, as a result of research by various reputable bodies, that
environmental control is essential to prolong the survival of all types of film particularly colour. In general, the lower the temperature, the slower the dye fading
process. The very low temperature recommended by the International Federation of
Film Archives, for colour master material, - 5C (23F) relative humidity of 15%30%, provides for the best long term storage. However, these conditions are not
normally appropriate for television organisations which may require quick access for
copying, and cannot allow sufficient time for acclimatisation. A compromise between
providing for maximum survival and reasonable accessibility is recommended:
Short Term (i.e. up to 10 years)
Maximum temperature: 21C (70F) Relative Humidity: 25%-60%
Long Term Storage
Temperature: 1 l- 15C (50-60F) Relative Humidity: 40%-60%
Videotape and Videocassettes
3.3 Videotape can deteriorate in two respects, by electronic faults eg. print through of
the sound signal, and physically, eg.. coating becoming detached from the base,
warping, cinching, edge damage, etc. Very much less information, both practical and
experimental, is available on storage conditions for videotape than for film. This
particularly applies to the more recent formats using metal particle tape. The current
recommendations are 17-23C (65-75F), Relative Humidity 30%-45%.
3.4 Videotape should not be stored close to sources emitting strong magnetic fields.
Fluorescent lighting is a possible source and spools should be at least 45cms (18)
from this source.
Racking
3.5 Metal racking has proved safe for the storage of both film and tape. Film material
which is unlikely to be moved frequently, such as master material, should be stored in
Film in frequent use may be stored vertically for more
a horizontal position.
convenient operational access. Videotape should be stored vertically in its appropriate
container. Mobile racking, although itself more costly, permits the maximum use of
storage areas.
4. HANDLING MATERIAL.
4.1 Storage and handling areas must be secure and accessible only to authorised staff.
Activities which may cause damage to the material, i.e. smoking, eating and drinking,
should be prohibited in the area, which should be dust-free. Master material should be
stored separately from duplicates, copies, etc., and not in the same building or closely
adjacent site.
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Film
4.2 Only one reel of film
dimensions. All reels should
the can. Film should always
be handled only by properly
within the archive area.
should normally be stored in one can of appropriate

have the ends secured to prevent the film unwinding in
be kept on spools or cores. The master material should
trained staff, on well maintained equipment, preferably
Videotape, and cassettes

4.3 Tapes should not be dropped or subjected to other mechanical shock. They
should be played on properly adjusted machines in the environmental conditions
recommended for storage. Any environmental variation in transit between storage and
handling areas should be minimised. A period of acclimatisation should take place
within the handling area to allow for the effects of transit conditions.
4.4 Staff operating the machines must be trained and familiar with the best handling
practices designed to prevent damage to the tape. The common practice of placing
paper documents in tape boxes should be avoided. Ideally, transmission standard
copies of important videotape programmes should be made to protect the original
from loss or damage. All film, videotape and cassettes should be clearly labelled with
details of contents, including technical information such as gauge, format etc.
Preservation of Material
4.5 Use of the master material should be kept to a minimum to prolong the life of a
reel or spool. If it is envisaged that many copies of the programme will required, eg.
for sale or distribution, a duplicating master should be made from the original for
copying purposes. Ideally, any copying from the master should be carried out under
controlled conditions in the archive premises.
4.6 Some video formats are already becoming obsolete, and others will become so in
the future. It is necessary for a policy decision to be taken on the selection of the
obsolete holdings for transfer to a new format which has the optimum life expectancy.
Transfer of the material must be completed before the obsolete equipment becomes
unserviceable for play-back.
5. DOCUMENTATION
5.1 A comprehensive, professionally designed information system is an essential part

of a television programme archive. It should be computer-based and, ideally, related
to other computer systems within the organisation. In older organisations, it may be
necessary to consider the conversion of earlier manual systems to the currently used
computer systems. There are two main elements required within the system: stock
control and information retrieval. The stock control element registers the existence,
format, location and movement of material. The information retrieval element makes
it possible to search the content of the programme material by subject, personalities
and other editorial factors.
Stock Control Systems
5.2 Stock control systems must provide essential information on each reel, spool,
cassette, etc., received and retained by the archive. The information will include: title,
which component of the programme/recording, version, technical details, duration,
The method of
recording and transmission dates, reel/spool/cassette number.
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numbering will dictate the arrangement and effective use of the storage areas, as this
is the most appropriate method of arranging and locating the material.
Information
Retrieval Systems
5.3 The type of system selected will be governed by the nature of the users
requirements. If a high level of re-use of actuality material is likely, the material must
be described in detail and analysed to facilitate retrieval by many terms or concepts. If
the use is largely to retrieve programmes only by genre, broad subjects or by cast and
other participants, a less sophisticated system will be adequate. It is important to
recognise that the usage of the material may increase and change, and to choose a
system that is capable of expansion. The information retrieval and stock control
aspects must be linked to enable the nature and location of programme components to
be identified once the material has been selected.
5.4 Programmes may be required for purposes other than transmission by the original
broadcasting organisation. These requirements may not arise until some years after the
initial use. It is most important that documents and information necessary to make the
appropriate copyright and contractual clearances are retained at least for the period of
the continued existence of the programme. It is also desirable to retain other
documents and papers that will form the record of the activities of the parent
organisation. This is an area which requires a defined policy appropriate for the
nature of the organisation.
6. ACQUISITION
AND RETENTION
6.1 Material should be deposited in the archive as early as possible, certainly no later
than immediately following the first transmission.
6.2 The nature of the retention policy will be determined primarily by the needs of the
originating television organisation. These should be carefully considered, and an
agreed and formally stated policy should be defined as part of the operation of the
organisation. The necessary budgetary provision must then be made to support the
agreed policy.
Selection
6.3 Most television organisations do not have the requirement or resources to retain
all output. It is therefore necessary to select which material will be retained according
to stated selection criteria. These will take into account such major factors as the
requirement for repeat transmission of programmes and the potential re-use of the
material in future output. The value of programmes for sale or further distribution
will also need to be considered. If there is no operational requirement, or it has been
exhausted, the material may also have long term archival value. The National Film
Archive, or other national and regional archives or libraries, may then be willing to
undertake the preserving of the material.
Untransmitted
Material
6.4 Material which is not used in the transmitted programme may also have future reuse potential. If selected material is retained, provision will need to be made for
cataloguing and storage.
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7. ACCESS AND SERVICE

7.1 The programme archive must be accessible to the eligible users associated with
the parent organisation. Its location, hours of service, etc., will be dictated by the
requirements of the users. If they are dispersed over more than one site, on-line access
to the information systems will minimise the problems caused by this separation. It
may also be necessary to provide access to the material itself by line and transmission
facilities.
7.2 Users are likely to need two main types of access: information about or contained
in the programme, and sections of material to include in new programmes.
7.3 Viewing copies will be required either to derive content information or to select
material for copying, according to the principles described in paragraphs 4.2, 4.4 and
4.5. Non-broadcast standard videocassettes, such as VHS, are likely to be the most
economic and operationally convenient option.
7.4 Professional staff are essential to assist enquirers and maximise the use of the
material. These staff must be aware of any contractual and copyright clearances that
must be made before the material can be re-used.
7.5 It may be advantageous to have a common service point for all library and
information requirements. Besides the programme material, these could include stills,
music, gramophone records, books, periodicals, press cuttings, etc.
8. CONCLUSIONS
8.1 The production of programmes is costly. If they are to be exploited to the benefit
of the originating organisation, it is essential that the issues described are identified
and an appropriate policy developed. Delay or neglect of this process may lead to loss
of material, and may create significant legal problems that are difficult to resolve at a
later stage.
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SECTION III ORAL HISTORY
COLLECTION
AND MANAGEMENT
3.1 ORAL HISTORY

David Lance
1. INTRODUCTION
From the earliest days of sound recording, historical content and significance have
been major criteria for the selection and preservation of audio documents by
archivists. Speeches and lectures, reports and descriptions of important events,
personal narrations and reminiscences, interviews and discussions have lo been
collected as historically valuable records by a large number and variety of archives.
Until quite recently, however, the relationship between sound recording and historical
documentation was haphazard. Most collected material had been recorded - often by
broadcasting organisations - for immediate practical ends.
Any subsequent
preservation by archivists aware of its permanent historical value was generally
incidental to the reasons for which the recordings were original made. In the field of
historical sound documentation as with many other classes of records - archival
collections, therefore, traditionally consisted of recordings that were created without
objective regard to historical considerations and which survived, very often, only by
accident and good fortune. During the past thirty years, however, oral history has
developed as a practice in which historical research and archival collecting have
combined to eliminate to some extent the previously arbitrary manner by which the
past was documented in sound. This development was made possible by the
availability of relatively cheap portable tape recorders from the 1950s onwards. These
provided the tool by which historians could convenient produce their own research
sources, and archives their own collections, by selecting specific people, subject or
events for documentation by recording. It is the systematic creation of historical
sound recordings to form oral history archives that this chapter is concerned with.
What is oral history? It may be defined as a method for obtaining historical
reminiscences by interviewing people who were participants in or witnesses of the
matters they describe and recording their recollection verbatim on magnetic tape.
This purely practical definition should not obscure the fact that oral history, which has
been considerably developed and refined over the years, can be a sophisticated
research tool. It is, nonetheless, essentially a term which has come to describe a
method of collecting historical Information and it produces a particular form of data
that has become yet one more class of document available to the archivist. It is widely
held that the practice of oral history began in the USA where, in 1948 at Columbia
University, Professor Allan Nevins was instrumental in setting up a programme to
obtain from the lips of living Americans who have led significant lives, a fuller record
of their participation ... in political, economic and cultural life. Although a
professional historian, Nevins interest was primarily archival In the sense that, by
recording, he wanted to capture and preserve information which otherwise would be
irrevocably lost. Ln this he was also preoccupied with further documenting the lives of
regional, national and international leaders, an interest that was to dominate the
development and use of oral history for the next twenty years. Only in the past decade
has the balance been shifted, mainly by social historians interested in collecting
information about the history of urban and rural working class groups and
communities. As a result, oral history now also moves among the generality of the
population, noting and recording prejudices and reactions ... to garner human
experience in all its richness.
In addition to these trends, there has been an explosion of interest in this field of
sound documentation which is illustrated by the extraordinarily wide range of studies
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in which oral history methods have been used. For political and economic history,
social and cultural life, business and technology, science and the arts and in the affairs
of societies and individuals at many levels and types of interest, oral history recording
has been initiated. For practitioners in all fields of oral history the main objective is to
create - in Nevins words - a fuller record. To some this has meant supplementing
existing records; for others it has involved recording the hitherto unrecorded. In
countries or within groups that do not have a tradition of formal record keeping or
written history, oral history offers unique opportunities to preserve for the future a
more complete record of the past.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to give detail information or advice about the
methodology of oral history. There is a large existing body of literature dealing with
research techniques, interviewing method recording practice, transcribing procedures
and giving analyses and assessments of oral evidence. Some of major publications
dealing with these aspects are listed in the bibliography to this chapter.
2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The general objective of any archive recording programme should be to use oral
history methods as a means both documenting and of preserving the past. The process
product of such work ought to open up new fields of research. It should also seek to
meet the broader educational interests of present and future generation by showing
them the conditions of life and the variety of experiences of their parents and grandparents and reflecting and illustrating characteristics or change which make a
particular society or culture distinctive.
In realising these ends, the absence of documentary and printed records will usually
indicate the primary subject on which oral history recording would most usefully be
focussed. Filling wide or absolute gaps in the historic record are fundamental
objectives for a creative recording programme and, when they also represent subjects
that ar only alive in the memories of the very elderly, they are gaps which need to be
However, recording can also be based - even in generally well
filled first.
documented fields - on particular features which are not covered by the existing
records. It may be the case that the paper records which have been preserved have, for
example, an administrative or hierarchical focus, and that much more information can
be added to the historical mosaic of some subjects by oral history recording.
Since oral history has an important role in reflecting the past as well as uncovering it,
recordings may also be carried out to preserve a sense of place, time, personality or
event. Such recordings may produce little original information but they can create an
original sound document, giving colour and atmosphere and a feeling for history that,
in an important way, transcends the collection of data to give a unique dimension to
oral history records.
3. PLANNING AN ARCHWJX RECORDING PROGRAMME
Most oral history archives have been set up with either a regional or a special subject
emphasis (although there are notable exceptions, such as the U.S. Presidential
Libraries, where the collections obviously focus on specific individuals).
Thus a
recording programme may be about the history of a particular city, province or country
or, alternatively, it may be concerned with social history, military history, political
history and so on (or possibly some aspect or combination of them). Stated in its
broadest terms, the general purpose of most programmes, therefore, is predetermined
by this regional or subject setting.
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On its own, however, the particular setting which a recording programme is required
to reflect goes only a little way towards determining what the actual content of it will
be. This has to be worked out and specified. For example, a regional archive may
implement a general recording programme dealing with many aspects of the locality:
its leading citizens, its traditions and customs, its government and politics, its industry
and agriculture, its art and culture. The subject orientate archive will tend to work
within narrower limits but it will usually have - in common with the regional archive the task of structuring its special field of interest into appropriate component parts.
For example, a military history archive might organise a programme to deal with the
history of land, sea and air forces; of arms industries and wartime agriculture; of
political and military leadership; of social and economic condition in wartime. In
other words, before a new programme can decided.
The quality of oral history collecting may depend to a considerable extent on the effort
and expertise that is put into the planning of the programme. Objectives should be
formulated on the basis of developed knowledge and the most recent scholarship that
is available, so that the programme the archive devises will make the most relevant
and valuable contribution to its field of study. As the subject range of many archives
is extremely broad they may have to plan programmes consisting of a wide variety of
individual recording projects. This, in turn, requires a comparably wide range of
available subject expertise the planning stage. If this is not to be found entirely within
the collecting institution, then the archive would in identifying and developing the
potential objectives of its programme.
These objectives will need to be specified in sufficient detail to provide a precise
content and a working structure for the recording programme. Towards this end a
formal plan can usefully be formulated. Its purposes would be to define the subject
scope of the programme; to enable the work to be organised to agreed priorities; to
provide a means of monitoring the overall development of the programme and the
results that are being achieved.
4. STRUCTURING THE PROGRAMME
The identification of appropriate topics goes some way towards providing the archive
with the means of organising a coherent recording programme. To be most helpful, a
content plan for the programme might be drawn up and projected so as to provide an
overall and comprehensive scheme that will enable the archive to plan its work over
several years. As an example, such a plan is set out below which was designed to meet
the needs of a national archive in the field of economic history.
Studies of the main traditional industries: rubber, tin, opium, palm oil and timber.
These projects could document more fully the organisation, structure, practices.
conditions and changes within each industry and the nature and scale of their
association with particular communities.
Projects should also be organised to record traditional methods and conditions in
agriculture, fishing and the local craft industries.
The establishment and development of the various shipping interests and activities
must be documented. Separate projects should cover the local infrastructures set up
by major European shipping lines and the creation and conduct of locally financed and
developed shipping networks (e.g. the steamship companies, the coastal tramps, the
lighter and sampan trade).
105
Studies of banking and finance should be developed to cover:

- The development and organisation of local branches of European banks; 11
local family
- The foundation and methods of small banks and their growth and
development into major public companies;
- The methods, roles and importance of traditional moneylenders;
- The creation of the stock exchange;
- The organisation of capital support for the major national industries.
Systems for the collection and distribution of local raw materials and of foreign
consumer goods should be studied and the methods by which European based
companies operated through local middlemen need to be documented.
The changes or adaptations that had to be made in trade and business during the
Second World War need to be investigated. The means by which new trade and
markets were developed and the extent to which traditional commercial activities
were maintained are of special interest. By prescribing the general historical
objectives of the programme in this way its implementation can also be organised
most effectively.
As indicated in section 2, the age of the potential informants is a fundamental criterion
by which to establish an order of priorities for the archives work. An equally
important consideration is the need to record as quickly as possible those key
individuals who, for one reason or another, have made a singular or distinctive
contribution to the archives field of study.
5. PREPARING THE RECORDING PROJECTS
When the scope and order of an overall programme has thus been decided the next
stage is to elaborate its component parts so that each constitutes a clearly defined
recording project for the centre to undertake. The projects must be historically
coherent, in the sense that their subject and chronological limits are set to cover
distinct chapters or episodes in the archives field of interest. The boundaries of such
projects should also be limited so that each one represents a research field that can be
documented satisfactorily by the kind of relatively small and representative selection
of interviews that economic constraints almost invariably impose on oral history
recording.
Once these general requirements have been met the next stage is to work out in
reasonable detail the objectives or research aims of each project. As an example of
the kind of subject demarcation that is necessary in oral history research, a list of
topics is set out below which guided interviewers in a project carried out at the
This project, designed to investigate conditions of
Imperial War Museum.
employment for women working in industry during the First World War, was first
structured to cover the following main areas:
Recruitment
Training
The job
The work place
Transport
Food
Health
Finance
Free time
Traditions
Management
Industrial relations
The War
Demobilisation
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Each of these topics was developed in some detail, the extent and nature of which may
be demonstrated by one example. Thus, for The job, the following questions
influenced the interviewers approach:
- What was the official description of your job? How did the description
compare with your actual work? Outline a routine day on the job.
- Which jobs were preferred? Which disliked and why? Under what
circumstances did people change jobs?
- Describe the equipment used at work. Were any adaptations necessary for
war production?
- What were your wages? How did they compare with earnings in previous
employment? Were men and women paid the same? What did you think of the
level of pay? What were the opportunities for overtime and promotion?
- What hours did you work? Were they typical? What were the shift and
holiday arrangements?
- What did you wear? How much of this was provided by the employer?
- Did people make changes (e.g. for convenience or style)? What did you
think about women wearing trousers? How did other people react to them?
- Were there shortages of staff or materials? Was there sufficient technical
expertise? What was done about the shortages? What were the consequences
of them?
- Did any new developments arise during wartime (e.g. in the job, the
equipment or the product)?
The foregoing is not given as a prescription for designing oral history recordings
projects. Obviously approaches must vary according to the subject being investigated,
the research aims of the archive or the kind of informants who are to be recorded. But
this example should further illustrate the degree and nature of preparation that oral
history research generally requires. In this process the formulation of project papers,
as above, imposes the necessary historical discipline on those responsible for
organising the recording programme. In addition to defining clearly the aims of each
project, such guidelines also go a long way towards ensuring high standards of
planning and help to secure consistency of approach by the interviewers who are to
carry out the work.
6. APPROACHES TO INDIVIDUAL
STUDIES
In many oral history projects informants will be selected for recording because they
are representative of a particular group of people or a particular field of experience.
Additionally, individuals may be chosen for interviewing as key informants because
their unique or special experiences are of outstanding historical importance and
essential for documenting a particular field of research satisfactorily (often such
interviews are equally important for biographical purposes). These informants,
leading politicians or trade unionists for example. sometimes warrant intensive
interviewing. They also require special care so that the scale of recording is kept in
proportion to the kind of contribution they have to make.
There are a number of possible approaches - not always mutually exclusive - to
individual studies and the kind that is most appropriate should always be individually
assessed. For example:
A full scale autobiographical interview or series of interviews with a prominent figure
may be justified in cases where the persons life and work are largely undocumented.
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In cases where the key person is dead, a series of biographical interviews with the
third parties who knew him well may be worth carrying out towards the same ends as
in the previous example.
There may be special events or episodes with which the individual is particularly
associated (or which are relevant to the project at hand) and about which there is little
available documentation. In such a case the individual study might be focused only on
the areas or periods of special significance.
In an otherwise well documented life there can be minor gaps which it would be
valuable to fill and recording might therefore best be devoted to, as it were, oral
footnoting.
Finally, individual studies may be validly carried out to produce a voice-portrait of
the person concerned. In this case neither the aim nor the expectation of the interview
would be to produce original information. The object would be to create, through the
medium of recorded sound, a distinctive kind of document illustrating and reflecting
the individuals personality or style more than his record.
In choosing the appropriate approach for the particular person, the scale of the
interview should be related to the objectives of the project and geared to the existing
records concerning the particular informant. Thus, it may not be desirable to hold
back the progress of a major project by many labour intensive and time consuming
individual studies, while it would certainly not be sensible to interview a leader in
depth if the recordings are only likely to add occasional new glimpses to a generally
well documented career. The extent to which individual studies should feature in any
archives recording programme or, indeed, whether such studies should be the
archives main or sole pursuit is a matter which the particular collecting centre must
decide in the light of its own policy and priorities. However, for systematic planning
and in order to build up a balanced collection there are good practical and historical
reasons for archives to structure their work on a subject or topic basis. In general,
detailed individual studies tend to be very much more labour intensive and time
consuming than topical projects. In the latter case a great many informants can
usually be interviewed on the basis of one main piece of preparatory research, while in
the former only one interview (or several interviews with one person) will often be
recorded for similar effort. The historical justification for a subject approach is that
many - possibly most - research fields include several levels or perspectives all of
which need to be represented if the subject is to be satisfactorily documented. A
labour history project, for example, might naturally lead to intensive interviews with
important trade union leaders and in this way individual studies can be appropriately
and economically developed from within topical projects.
7. SOME METHODOLOGICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
The design of a recording programme and the construction of individual projects

require a measure of methodological as well as subject judgement. Planning must
include a process of assessment that should be based on practical experience of how
oral history works best as a research method and an archival collecting technique.
Obviously, this standard of judgement can only be provided by historians who have
used oral history methods and have a good understanding of their nature and also of
their limitations.
Oral history is now well enough established in many countries for methodological
advice to be readily available. However, the selection of an adviser may present
greater problems than the choice of subject specialists. For approaches to oral history
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vary not only between countries, but also within them. For some practitioners oral
history is academically research directed; for others it is more archivally or broadly
based; some oral historians see the value of the information collected as being directly
related to the proximity of the recording with the events it describes; while others hold
to the belief that the oral tradition communicates accurate and valid data across
decades or even centuries. Such differences illustrate the range of approach and
account for varying practices. It follows that a suitable adviser must be carefully
chosen on the basis of the needs, purposes and functions of the archive in which the
new programme is to be established. Therefore, selection may need to follow a survey
of the aims and methods of other oral history practitioners or established recording
programmes.
In cases where a methodological adviser is not locally available it may simply not be
possible to establish a programme on a broad front in the short term. To do so would
be at the probable cost of producing poor quality results at considerable expense. In
these areas, programmes are best developed gradually, allowing skills to grow out of
practical experience based on small projects with limited objectives. By encouraging
and nurturing the development of local expertise, acquired from individual recording
projects that are feasible in the short term, the quantity and range of work can be
expanded into a coordinated programme at a later appropriate time.
Whether for individual projects or for broadly based recording programmes, some
general questions should also be applied to test the practicability of any oral history
research under consideration. For example:
Since oral history is dependent for worthwhile results on individual memory, is the
subject proposed likely to be amenable to this fallible human faculty? Generally those
subjects work best which are concerned with patterns of activity as opposed to single
incidents that require precise factual recall.
Are the people available to be recorded sufficient in the number or categories required
to cover satisfactorily the subject which is proposed? Here the more distant in time the
events and the more complex their structure then the more difficult it may be to locate
informants and to document the proposed subject satisfactorily.
Does the proposed project depend on key individuals and are they available and
sufficiently articulate and reliable to provide the kind of information that is required?
Is the chronological span to be covered or the range of information to be sought
practically manageable within the format of an interviewing project? In general, the
objectives of any individual recording project are best limited in scale to a period and
a subject range which can be conveniently managed and within which results can be
clearly assessed.
How sensitive or controversial is the subject of the proposed project and would
informants be likely to talk openly and at length on the matters involved? It would
obviously be unwise and unprofitable to invest resources in areas where self-censoring
could be expected to be a major problem.
How well documented by other kinds of records is the subject of the proposed
project? If the project is unlikely to add much new documentation to the existing
records, it would hardly merit a large investment or a high priority.
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By the application of these kinds of questions and by taking the best available
methodological (and subject) advice the most appropriate content and construction
advice the most appropriate for an archive recording programme may be formulated.
8. ORGANISATION
AND STAFFING
Once prepared, the oral history programme needs to be set within an organisational
structure that will efficiently and effectively accommodate the particular functions
involved in this field of sound archivism. The main functions are research and
interviewing, technical processing and documentation (which includes transcribing,
cataloguing and indexing).
The suggestion made in this section presume an
appropriate measure of financial support and the local availability of suitably qualified
staff. Individual programmes will have to modify the structure to match their
resources if these are insufflcient to establish and sustain a fully professional archive.
The research and interviewing work of the archive should be carried out by qualified
staff selected on the basis of providing the broadest possible range of specialised
knowledge available for the development of the particular programme. Interviewers
should generally be history graduates, but the archive staff responsible for selecting,
designing or supervising recording projects should also have a higher degree and
research experience. In addition to suitable subject knowledge, however, certain
organisational aptitudes and qualities of personality are also needed. The tasks of
preparing, organising and conducting individual recording projects and ensuring their
proper co-ordination within an overall programme are parts of an administrative and
management process as well as an historical one. Equally important are the personal
characteristics - speed and clarity of thought and expression for example - necessary to
use oral history interviewing methods to best advantage.
A full time research staff provides the optimum mean of implementing a programme.
If this is not obtainable at least the overall control of each recording project should be
in the hands of an experienced oral historian. By using a small group of permanent
staff interviews as project managers, the archive can develop quite a large recording
programme with supporting interviews who should be trained and properly supervised
- employed on a short term voluntary, freelance or contract basis. By this means the
number of permanent research staff may be kept to a reasonably economic level.
The number of research and interviewing staff will obviously depend on the scale of
the programme that the archive plans to implement. For the collecting centre as a
whole to operate efficiently, however, it is necessary to understand the relationship
be.tween the recording programme and the other functions which the archive has to
carry out. It is not possible to provide figures that are exactly and universally
applicable for all oral history recording, since methods and organisation will vary to
some extent between different archives. It may be said, however, that one full time
interviewer should be able to record up to one hundred hours of reminiscences a year
based on about fifty interviewing sessions. (This, and other figures quoted in this
section, are given as a rough guideline based on the practical experience of the
Imperial War Museums Department of Sound Records.) On the basis of this unit
figure an archive can estimate a growth pattern for its collection and calculate the
various kinds of resources that will be necessary to support it.
To illustrate the scale of staff support necessary for technical processing, one
technician should be capable of copying to full archival standards about 600 hours of
recorded interviews a year. Archives do not, however, need to reach this level before
the appointment of a qualified technician can be justified since the maintenance of
equipment and the conservation of the collection should also be the technicians
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responsibility. An oral history collection has no special or distinctive technical needs

or problems. In fact the requirements of new programmes are likely to be more
straightforward than those of some other kinds of sound archives dealt with in this
book because recording interviews is technically less demanding than, for example,
recording music or animal sounds and because oral history archives are generally less
concerned with restoring and preserving old recordings.
The main documentation procedures in an oral history archive are transcribing,
cataloguing and indexing. Transcribing - the process of presenting the information
content of recordings in a typescript form - should be carried out by typists with a
good general standard of education and a clear understanding of the structure and use
of language. Their task is to produce an accurate typescript of each interview and - by
the appropriate use of sentences, paragraphs and punctuation to make it as literate a
document as possible without altering the words or sense of the speakers.
Transcribing is an extremely time consuming process; on average one hour of tape
may take eight hours to transcribe and three hours to proofread and correct. If the
archive wants and can afford to transcribe all the interviews it records, the output from
one full time interviewer would be more or less sufficient to keep one transcriber
permanently occupied.
Cataloguing and indexing oral history interviews is also very labour intensive and it
may take in the region of four hours to compile full catalogue and subject index
entries for one hour of tape. These documentation services should be under the
control of an experienced and well qualified cataloguer who is capable of designing
and applying suitable systems for the organisation of audio documentation and who is
supported by an appropriate number of staff able to apply consistently disciplined
rules for the organisation of a collection.
In organising and staffing an oral history sound archive it cannot be stressed too
strongly that the functions described above are part of a single and integrated process.
It is therefore essential that a reasonable balance is struck between recording and the
various stages of processing the resultant material. To achieve this requires the
establishment and, as the recording programme develops, the maintenance of proper
ratios between the various categories of archive staff. To summarise what has been
detailed above, the ratio of two interviewers: two transcribers: one cataloguer may be
a useful equation for establishing a balanced organisational structure, with one
technician being capable of providing the necessary technical support for up to six full
time interviewers.
9. TECHNICAL
STANDARDS
The technical aspects of oral history work, as mentioned earlier, fall squarely within
the general field of sound archivism. Such matters as equipment, tape, recording
standards, copying, storage and preservation requirement have therefore been left to
Where there is proper concern for the
the technical chapter of this publication.
technical quality of its sound documents, the oral history equipment as most other
kinds of professional sound archives.
While oral history sound archives therefore have no technical needs that are peculiar
to their field of work, there is some debate among oral historians - and one that has a
direct bearing on the financial aspects of planning - as regards the relative importance
of the sound recording and the written document (i.e. the oral history transcript).
This debate exists because many oral historians regard the tape recorder as but an
electronic notebook and are only concerned that their recordings should be sufficiently
audible to enable a typist to reproduce interviews in a written form. This kind of
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attitude to the recording is most frequently found in university centres where access to
oral history collections is provided to _an exclusively academic clientele. Since
typescripts do provide more rapid and convenient access, this position is at least
understandable when the sole interest in oral interviews lies in the research use of the
information they contain. In such circumstances a strong case can be made for using a
cheap cassette machine on which to record interviews.
Even for university collections, however, this argument is not entirely convincing. Its
major flaw lies in the fact that interviews are oral records and their audio dimension
contains a significant part of their message. The presentation of information verbally
is qualitatively different from the style in which the same data would be presented in
writing by the same speaker/author (the extent to which informants will seek to alter
the form and content of their oral history transcripts is, perhaps, the best and most
convincing evidence of this). In spoken reminiscences stress, pause, tone, pace and
volume are among the characteristics of oral history interviews that the sound
document alone fully and satisfactorily preserves. It is impossible to reproduce all the
qualities of the oral record in a written form and the nuances of the spoken word give
the sound document its own distinct character and value. Provided these audio
characteristics are properly recorded and preserved, the resultant documents have
wider and no less important applications than use by historians and other scholars.
Thus in broadcasting and audio publication, in museums and elsewhere for exhibition
purposes and in schools and colleges as teaching aids - as well as in scholarly use lies the fullest application and dividend of oral history.
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SECTION III ORAL HISTORY: COLLECTION

3.2 INTRODUCTION
ORAL TRADITION
AND MANAGEMENT
AND ORAL HISTORY
Peter Mazikana and William Moss

1. INTRODUCTION
The post-Second World War period has brought about a significant expansion in the
f%nctions and responsibilities of archival institutions and the archivists who manage
them. Against a background of stagnant or diminishing resources, archivists have been
called upon to accommodate increasingly large volumes of records, to adapt
traditional archival practices and principles to new sources of information and record
media, and to cope with rapid technological advances in communications and
recordkeeping devices.
The customary archival role of the custodian or keeper of local, state, and central
government records has had to be modified and transformed in many ways. This
transformation has not been easy, as may be shown by the continuing controversy
over the degree of involvement by archivists in the management of current and semicurrent records. Archivists in different countries have responded in different ways to
the challenges that have arisen. It is not surprising, therefore, that oral tradition and
oral history have not received the universal welcome they deserve as legitimate
archival endeavours.
There is nothing new in the recording, use, and preservation of oral tradition and oral
history. Indeed, individuals and institutions have collected, used, and preserved oral
sources and have made those materials available to researchers for years. To a large
extent, however, this has been done by university departments, specialized research
institutions, or archival units set up specifically to deal with oral sources or sound
recordings. For archival institutions at the local, state, and national levels, the novelty
lies in the extent to which they are being asked to accept the role of custodians and
administrators of this material and the extent to which they are even being asked to
assume the entirely unfamiliar and often uncomfortable role of participation in the
creation of these records. Whatever the pros and cons of such involvement, there is
little doubt that oral tradition and oral history have had and will continue to have
increasingly significant impact on archival work, and archivists must be prepared to
accommodate and master this material. To do so, however, they must have as full and
precise an understanding of oral history and oral tradition as they have of other more
familiar archival sources.
Oral tradition and oral history share a common oral nature. While it is deceptively
easy to propose distinctions between them, it is more difficult to sustain the
differences in practice. There is often much similarity in the ways they are collected,
processed, stored, and made available to researchers and in the equipment required to
record and preserve these materials. In common practice, both those who concentrate
on oral history and those who work with oral tradition belong to a common class of
oral historians and share many of the same interests, concerns, and objectives,
methods and procedures.
Oral traditions are those recollections of the past, orally transmitted recounted, that
arise naturally within and from the dynamics of a culture. They are shared widely
throughout the culture by word of mouth even though they may be entrusted to
particular people for safekeeping, transmittal, recitation, and narration. They are
organic expressions of the identity, purpose, functions, customs, and generational
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continuity of the culture in which they occur. They happen spontaneously as

phenomena of cultural expression. They would exist, and indeed they have existed in
the absence of written notes or other more sophisticated recording devices. They are
not direct experiences of the narrators, and they must be transmitted by word of mouth
to qualify as oral tradition.
Oral history, on the other hand, is usually identified as an activity, a detached and
academic process of inquiry into the memories of people who have experienced the
recent past directly. This inquiry and the responses it generates are recorded to
supplement written records that have been found wanting in some measure for
historical analysis. It is a studied, abstract, and analytic practice of historians and
other social scientists, and it relies heavily on a recording device, whether manual,
mechanical, or electronic.
Oral history owes much to the traditions of Western European historiography. It was
developed partly to remedy deficiencies in written records, but it has been viewed by
many traditional historians as an undisciplined, rebellious, and perhaps even
irresponsible child of documentary history. Rebellious or not, oral history necessarily
presumes an existing context of written records, from which prior research identifies
major lacunae that may be filled through the recording of testimony by participants
and witnesses to the events in question. The product of oral history is subject to
textual criticism and content analysis by the same standards that are applied by
historians to written documents.
Although oral traditions may be collected as an academic exercise and subsumed
under the general umbrella of oral history, in their very nature they have an inherent
additional social value in contributing to the social cohesion, dynamic evolution, and
durability of the culture they represent. Oral traditions are therefore changed in the
very act of recording from dynamic and developing or evolving self-consciousness
into fixed and static snapshots of the culture at one point in its development. They
become abstracted from the process that creates and nurtures them, and in this they
necessarily become outdated very rapidly.
Oral traditions are to a large extent identified with societies lacking a written tradition,
but they also exist in highly literate societies, even those with impressive archives of
written records. Their most important archival function, however, has been in
documenting those societies without written records, throwing light on the historical,
social, economic, and cultural development of such societies. In many cases it has
been the only way in which the past of a society could be reconstructed and recorded
in written form for archival preservation.
Oral history became necessary, at least in part, because many historians came to
believe that written records were excessively limited to the documentation of a ruling
government or elite class, or to a dominant national function such as religion or law.
Thus, much social history went unrecorded or was recorded incidental to other
purposes which diminished the usefulness of the record for social history. Whole
classes of people were poorly represented in great national annals, and the perspective
reflected in those annals tended to be highly legalistic, formal, and bureaucratic.
Modern historians are seeking to remedy this deficiency in a variety of ways, among
them the collection of oral history and oral tradition. Modern institutions, whether
commercial, governmental, religious, or social, have come to discover a need for
documenting and sharing information beyond the strict confines of records of official
transactions. Furthermore, oral history, even at its most studied and academic levels,
has begun to discover the importance and use of mythology to rationalize even the
most highly sophisticated and deterministic activities of a modern technological
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society. As in the case of oral traditions, the relationship of a traditional perspective

to the social dynamic may be as significant as the evidential value of the contents of
oral history for documentation of historical phenomena.
Archives require durable records removed from the direct effect of continuing social
development. Archivists must understand that in acquiring oral sources they are
participating in a process of transformation from socially dynamic and evolving
sources to static and durable records of segments of that process. For the archivist, the
distinctions between oral tradition and oral history are important primarily in
understanding the provenance of each, and perhaps in developing appraisal criteria for
deciding the durability of the value of each for evidential, administrative, or general
information needs. The forms in which the archivist encounters them are often
remarkably similar, and the distinctions between them are often unimportant in
archival management of the physical property of the records once created and
deposited in the archives. Handwritten or typed notes and transcripts, magnetic
audiotapes, sound motion picture films, and videotapes all may contain oral source
records, but the most common for both oral tradition and oral history is magnetic
audiotape, often but not necessarily accompanied by a written transcript or schedule of
contents of the tape. Each form may record one, two, or several participants, although
multiple participants beyond the inquirer-respondent dialogue form in oral history are
less common. The inquirer or collector role in recordings of oral tradition is
commonly much more reserved, obscure, and self-effacing than in the oral history
interview, where the interviewer must act as a catalyst to prompt and challenge the
memory of the narrator.
It is crucially important, however, for both oral history and for oral tradition, that the
archivist understand that what is given to the archives is a record of an interview or
the record of a recounting of an oral tradition; it is not a record of or from the past
about which the subject speaks, although it may be an attempt to define or recreate
that past. It is a record of an event (an interview, a story-telling, the recitation of an
epic poem, etc.) that took place in the recent past, not a surviving relic of that more
distant past of which the narrator speaks, even if the information supplied is the only
surviving evidence of that past known to exist.
2.0 ARCHIVAL MANAGEMENT
2.1 General Archival
OF THE RECORD
Concerns
2.1.1 Nature of the Record

It is essential to remember, as noted earlier, that the record produced by the oral
history and oral tradition collection process is a recording of an interview or of a
narration. It is not, properly speaking, a record of past events, even though those
events may be narrated, recited, recollected, reflected upon, examined, and evaluated
in the content of the recording. The product indeed may be consulted by historians to
seek and find evidence of what took place in the past; but, for archivists the record
is a record of an interview or narration, or perhaps a conversation among several
people, that took place in a time and perhaps in a place well removed from the events
discussed or narrated. So long as the archivist managing oral history and oral tradition
records maintains this perspective the administration of these records may be orderly
and precise. Without it there may well be considerable confusion.
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2.1.2 Appraisal
of the Record
The archivist must, however, appraise each oral history or oral tradition record on the
merits of its contents as well as on provenance, just as must be done with other kinds
of records. Standard application of archival judgment as to the intrinsic value of the
material and to primary and secondary values, administrative and historical values,
evidential and informational values, and e:nduring or permanent values of an item for
future use all must be addressed for oral history and oral tradition materials just as for
traditional written records.
2.1.3 Provenance of the Record
Oral history and oral tradition records, like all other records, are created by a process,
and sound archival management requires an understanding of that process and the
provenance of each item accessioned. These records may be created by archival
institutions when they deliberately conduct interviews and record oral traditions to
supplement or remedy deficiencies in existing archives. They may be created by
government agencies as inquiries into their own histories, or as inquiries into the
histories of people, places, organizations, functions, or programmes over which they
had jurisdiction or responsibility. For instance, some colonial governments conducted
extensive inquiries into tribal histories searching for resolutions of tribal boundary and
chieftainship disputes. The records may be created by semi private or private agencies
under contract to government agencies for the same purposes. They may be created
entirety in the private sector by scholars, educational and research institutions,
business corporations, social and religious institutions and associations, and so on,
and these records may at some time be acquired by an archival institution. Each of
these kinds of records may be subject to different requirements of administration
depending on their provenance and their status under the laws, customs, and political
circumstances of the nation in which they were collected and the nation in whose
archival institutions they may be deposited. In some cases, archivists may have to
deal with records created in one country and deposited in another, or with records
shared by two or more countries having common interests in the records. However,
archivists have also encountered this problem occasionally in the matter of traditional
written records.
2.1.4 Form of the Record
As previously noted, the most common form of an oral source record is a magnetic
audiotape, but the archivist may encounter oral sources in any medium capable of
reproducing the sounds of spoken voice or representing speech in written words and
symbols. Each form of record or medium presents its own requirements and problems
for storage, preservation, retrieval, and reference use. Therefore, although it is clearly
essential to establish intellectual and administrative control according to provenance
of the material, it may also be necessary to establish controls based on the form of the
record and its use. A motion picture film with narration in an obscure and unfamiliar
language presents a whole different set of requirements from an audiotape in the local
language, and must be handled accordingly.
2.1.5 Ownership
and Consent
Depending on the laws and customs of the country and culture involved, it may be
necessary for the archivist to be sure that ownership rights and rights of use are
properly respected. In some countries there is a strong sense of proprietary right of the
person interviewed or the person narrating to the intellectual property of his memory
and to the formulated response to the collecting inquiry, whether for oral history or
116
oral tradition. In some cultures, memory is integral to personality and to the soul of
the individual, and the recording of spoken memoirs for use by others may be
considered a kind of spiritual theft. Whether the proprietary rights are grounded in
custom, religion, economic property, or law, the archival manager is required to
demonstrate that the interview or narration is recorded, acquired, and used in keeping
with prevailing requirements of the nation concerned. This requires in many cases
establishment and documentation of the voluntary consent of the person interviewed
or recorded. In some cases consent may be implied sufficiently in the very act of
participation. Other situations may require more sophisticated, elaborate, and formal
legal documentation to record an agreement and consent to the process and transfer of
material.
2.1.6 Restrictions
Closely related to the issue of proprietary rights is the question of restrictions on use
of oral history and oral tradition recordings. For the most part, restrictions on the use
of tlese records are exactly parallel to restrictions on other types of records. It is not
uncommon for oral history and oral tradition materials to be restricted entirely or in
part for a period of time after being deposited in an archival institution.
The
restrictions may be imposed by governments as a matter of law or regulation, or
perhaps by those interviewed and recorded as a condition of agreement to the
recording in the first place. The reasons for restriction normally have to do with
personal privacy, mutual confidentiality, or national security. Secrecy of group rites,
as in fraternal and religious orders or secret societies may also be involved. Material
may also become sensitive overnight in the shifting fortunes of political powers within
a country. It is important to the proper administration of oral source materials, as with
any other records, that such restrictions be stated explicitly so that management of
them may be unambiguously carried out and may be consistent over time. It is
preferable that a specific term of months or years be placed on such restrictions
whenever possible so that materials may be made available automatically at the end of
the term without need for further negotiation. Restricted materials must, of course, be
identified clearly and segregated from materials open to research so as to prevent
abridgment of restriction agreements and to prevent the damage that might be done to
all parties by premature public use.
2.1.7 Arrangement
Since the provenance of oral sources may vary widely, and since their forms may also
vary widely, the question of arrangement is an important one. Two common forms of
arrangemeut may be found in most repositories. One is arrangement that is strictly by
provenance. That is, no matter what the form of the record, oral history and oral
tradition records are kept with and administered together with all other records from
the same source. A collection of oral records from one source may, for instance,
become a series within that sources record group or fond. A single oral history
interview or oral tradition recording may be no more than a folder or file unit within a
series, and may be administered exactly like any other records in that group and series.
The second most common form of arrangement is for an archival institution to create
a separate sub-archives for all oral history or oral tradition materials, not unlike
separate sub-archives often created for photographic materials or machine-readable
records. The management of one of these sub-archives is more complex than
management of the materials by strict provenmce arrangement. Within the subarchives or oral history collections the arrangement is often by provenance, and
materials from the same source may be grouped into collections or series within a
collec-&ion of related oral source materials.
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But, arrangement may also be by a master subject classification, not unlike that
employed for books in libraries. Indeed, libraries that have acquired oral history
materials often treat them as bibliographic items and classify and catalogue them
according to the prevailing bibliographic classification system in use. Furthermore, a
basic decision must be made at the outset, even though the special sub-archives has
been created to hold oral source materials. There still may be cases in which the
overwhelming interest of the material lies more properly with a parent fond of other
forms of record, and the integrity of the fond may demand that an item or items
remain there. When material is removed from its parent fond and placed elsewhere,
whether for preservation with similar physical materials or for inclusion in an oral
sources sub-archives, it is essential to prepare cross-reference descriptions for
placement in both the original file location and in the new location so that intellectual
control by provenance can be maintained. The obvious benefit of the alternative of
placing all oral sources together in a sub-archives is that they share many of the same
problems of storage, preservation, and reference access, so common procedures can be
applied to all such materials by one staff skilled in those procedures and the materials
can be stored on shelving and in containers most suitable to their preservation and use.
2.1.8 Transcription
Yet another consideration arising out of the issues of form and arrangement is whether
the archival institution should maintain oral records solely in their original sound
recording form or found state, or if all such materials should be transcribed into
written form like other principal records. The original sound recording is, of course,
the best available record of what occurred in the interview or narration, and it must be
considered the record properly speaking. One school of thought argues that it is the
responsibility of the archivist to maintain that original record, and that the archivist
should not further interpose interpretive judgment between the record and the future
user by transcribing a text from the sound recording. This argument has much to
recommend it. Any step away from the original recording must necessarily sacrifice
something of accuracy, fidelity, completeness, and evidential value. Not even the
most sophisticated and complex system of written language and symbols is sufficient
for absolute fidelity to the original recording. Any transcription must necessarily be
something of a translation or interpretation.
Nevertheless, there is another school of thought that requires some consideration. If
transcription is done shortly after the interview or recording takes place, if the one
who transcribes the recording is well-versed in the topics and subjects that are
discussed or narrated, and if the participants in the recording have an opportunity to
review the transcript and make corrections, then many inevitable errors of ambiguity
in the speech recording may be resolved accurately for the benefit of future scholars.
It is not uncommon for several different people to hear quite different words when
listening to the same ambiguous passage on a recording. When voices overlap, where
background noises intrude, or where the speech characteristics of the speaker are not
familiar such differences of interpretation are difficult to resolve. It is also argued,
with somewhat less force and conviction, that researchers being accustomed to
reading instead of listening will more readily use transcripts than tapes, and that tapes
should be maintained primarily for resolving ambiguities and uncertainties discovered
in transcript texts.
Still another not insignificant consideration for archival management is that
transcription is a slow, labour intensive, and therefore expensive process. The
transcriber must develop a special knowledge and understanding of the matters in an
interview so that specialized terminology will be understood and transcribed properly.
Extreme accuracy requires many hours of patient listening, writing (or typing), and
118
correction, often by several different people for the same item. Experience shows that
not even the most carefully prepared and proofread transcript is without at least some
errors or instances where there may be honest differences of opinion about the proper
transcription of at least some words and phrases. In some languages, of course, the
ambiguity of spoken language is greater than in others, and a transcript may be
essential to discern which of two or three identical spoken words is actually intended.
The transcription of oral tradition can also present a particularly thorny problem when
archaic words or usages are encountered, or when the tradition has reinterpreted
earlier forms of the language in conformity with prevailing usages. vote that in a
related phenomenon, social science survey research has discovered that it is not
enough to ask the same question repeatedly over time to achieve the basis for
comparative analysis because the very meanings and universe of allusions invoked by
specific words change over time, so responses later may have very different
significance from earlier ones to the same questions.] his may put a higher premium
on transcription, or it may convince archival managers to forego transcription
altogether because of costs or the difficulty of assuring accurate transcription.
Archival managers must also be wary of the accuracy of transcriptions arriving in their
institutions from other sources. Very often transcripts are done for immediate
purposes that have little to do with the very high standards of accuracy and fidelity
demanded of an archival institution. The source or agency of transcription should
always be identified clearly for all such donated materials so that the archival
institution holding them is not held responsible for inaccuracies, and so that
researchers may themselves judge the significance of transcribed renderings in light of
their provenance.
2.1.9 Preservation
Preservation required for oral source recordings depends on the form of record
(magnetic tape, paper, phonograph disk, motion picture film, wire recording,
videodisk, etc.). The preservation requirements and methods for these varied forms of
oral records are the same as for any other records in the same forms, and the same
quality standards should apply. As noted earlier, the better the quality of the original
recording, the better will be subsequent reproductions of the record. For this reason,
many programmes make two copies of the original tape so that the original may be
reserved and not used for further reproduction except in extreme emergencies. Both
duplicate copies are made directly from the original, and are as exact and complete
reproductions of the original as possible. They are placed on open-reel tape at a fast
recording speed, and the tape should meet the specifications detailed elsewhere. One
of the two copies is reserved as a production master and is used primarily to make
further reference use copies in the future. The second copy is used as the first
reference copy for use in transcription and general public reference. The original tape
should be labelled clearly as ORIGINAL and it should be removed to a secure storage
location separate from the main archives. The production master should be labelled
"PRODUCTIONMASTER"
and the reference copy should be labelled "REFERENCE COPY."
They should be stored in separate locations so they will not be mistaken for each other
or used interchangeably, and so that if one becomes damaged, the other may survive.
Many repositories use compact cassettes for the reference copies because of the
greater ease in handling, for their relatively lower cost, and because of the protection
of the tape from direct handling. Some minor loss of sound quality must, of course,
be expected when cassettes are used.
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2.2 Receipt and Administrative
Control
If oral history and oral tradition materials are received as an integral part of a major
records accession, then they are treated as part of that accession. The standard practices
of the repository with respect to accessioning and administrative control should apply.
When repositories undertake their own oral history and oral tradition collecting
programmes, however, or when separate sub-archives for oral history or oral tradition
materials are established, certain additional records and procedures are required for
accessioning and administrative control.
2.2.1 Basic Identification
Both intellectual and administrative control require certain basic elements of
identification for each oral history and oral tradition basic unit. The basic unit for oral
history or oral tradition is the interview session or recording session. The basic unit may
be simple or complex. Simple units are composed of one audiotape on which one source
is recorded at one particular place and time. Complex basic units may consist of several
tapes covering one long recording session with the same respondent/informant, or
perhaps several sessions with the same respondent/informant on several different
occasions for the same project. The basic unit is defined according to provenance by
each unique source, but it may be further defined by time and place of recording session
and the project for which recording was done. When an individual recording session is
recorded on two or more tapes, the same identifying information applies to all tapes from
that session. Tapes from different sessions that are recorded at different times and places
with the same respondent or informant will vary in their basic identification with respect
to date, place, and perhaps interviewer/researcher.
Unfortunately, records received into an archival institution from other institutions or
agencies may lack some or all of the basic information elements. When they do, it is
necessary to discover as many of the elements as rapidly as possible for the best chances
for good intellectual and administrative control. It is from these basic elements that all
other records of receipt and processing can be developed and finding aids developed.
Therefore, institutions receiving oral source material from outside agencies should
conduct inquiries to learn as many of the elements as possible and as accurately as
possible from the creators or creating agency that conducted the project in the first place.
2.2.2 Register of Recordings Received
Since some interviews or oral tradition recordings may be accessioned under their parent
record groups, and since some recordings (notably those created by the archival
institution itself are accessioned individually and may not be formally accessioned until
processing is completed and a corrected transcript approved for deposit, it is prudent
archival management to have a register of recordings received into the institution or oral
sources sub-archive. The register is a consecutive record of each interview or recording
session brought into the archives, and it is the means by which a receipt serial number or
control number is assigned to each item to identify it and track it throughout processing
and future use. The register should contain sufficient information to distinguish the
recording unit from all others and to provide summary data for reports on receipts and
production over time.
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When the receipt serial number is assigned it should also be recorded on the tape
containers and in the main file of correspondence. Upon receipt and on completion of
the necessary basic information and register entry, each tape received should be placed
in a file of tapes awaiting processing. The arrangement of tapes should be in receipt
serial number order so the next tape selected for processing is the oldest one in the
file. Tapes brought into the oral sources sub-archives from other record groups for
processing or permanent administration should be handled in the same manner except
that their parent record group, series, and file location should be noted on the tape
container and receipt register.
2.3 Processing the Record
There are many degrees of processing that may be applied to oral history and oral
tradition record units. For purposes of this study three representative levels have been
selected and they are described below, but readers should understand that there are
many intermediate levels and that the three levels described are not mutually
exclusive. Archivists may choose to process only to the first level described, to the
second, to the third, all three, or combinations and intermediate stages between,
depending on local requirements and resources. Decisions can be made on the basis
of needs of researchers and archivists as well as on economy of local resources.
2.3.1 Preservation
Processing and Minimum
Description
The basic identification elements provide initial description of each basic record unit,
but to be effective they must be complete and of confirmed accuracy. Further. a
modest amount of preservation processing should take place and a summary
description of the unit information contents is needed before the unit is ready for
reference use. The following steps are necessary to initial preservation and minimal
description.
1) The tape or tapes of a single recording session (record unit) must be taken from the
file of received tapes and the basic information elements must be checked for accuracy
and completeness. Errors and omissions should be corrected at this time if at all
possible.
2) The tape is then copied onto two additional tapes (or sets of tapes in the case of
multiple-tape units). The best means is through the use of a real-time copier that can
produce several copies simultaneously so that there is only one running of the original
tape; however, any available means of copying will suffice. Care must be taken to
assure that the playback portion of the machinery is not placed in the RECORD
mode or position so as to avoid erasure (wiping) of the original. When copying is
completed, each tape should be identified with the same information that is on the
original tape (basic identification elements and receipt serial number, and when
appropriate the parent record group identification). The original tape should also be
marked ORIGINAL and retired to a safe remote storage location. One copy should be
labelled "PRODIJCTION MASTER" and reserved elsewhere in the archives for use in
future copying. The other copy should be marked "REFERENCE COPY" and placed in
receipt sertal number order in a file of tapes awaiting further processing.
3) The reference copy of the tape or tapes is then listened to and a brief narrative
summary of the entire contents of the recording unit is drafted, reviewed, and prepared
in approved final copy. In the absence of further processing, this brief summary must
stand as the basic finding aid to that particular record unit, so it must be completely
representative and yet as concise as possible. The basic identification elements and
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receipt serial number should be added to this narrative, either as a heading, or as an

appendix depending on local preference.
The record unit may at this point be considered processed through the minimum
level necessary for reasonable administrative, intellectual, and reference control.
However, it is also necessary at this point to separate those record units having
restrictions from those that may be opened to research without restriction. Restricted
tapes and summaries should be placed in a separate, secure, storage location within
the archives, and their locations should be noted by a reference to the receipt serial
number in the main correspondence file and in other processing files and records kept
by the institution.
2.3.2 Schedule of Contents
In order to avoid the lengthy delays and high costs of transcription, many oral history
and oral tradition programmes prepare a sequential list of topics covered on each tape.
This may be a very simple list of topics in the sequential order of their occurrence on
the tape. or it may also be keyed to a time schedule of the playing of the tape to
suggest the approximate location of each subject on the tape. In some more
sophisticated processing procedures a dual track tape may be used, with a standard
time signal entered onto one track while the other track carries the basic recording. In
this way the keying of content descriptions can be more precisely matched to locations
on the tapes for ready reference. Of course, a stereophonic (two-track) playback
machine is essential to make effective use of this device.
2.3.3 Transcription
Transcription is the highest level of processing for sound recordings. It requires
highly concentrated, skilled, and patient work to produce a reliable written text that is
very faithful to the spoken words as recorded and yet that is very readable. It is much
harder to understand speech when one cannot see the speaker and when one is not
engaged in direct conversation with that speaker. Dialects, archaisms, changes in
voice levels. imperfect pronunciations, interruptions, the overriding of voices
speaking simultaneously, background noises, internal machine noise of the recording
or playback equipment, poor quality of sound on the tape, and other factors all
contribute to frustrate precise and accurate translation of spoken language into written
language. Furthermore. spoken language often does not obey the grammatical
structure or punctuation of written language, and transcribers must be innovative in
sentence structure and paragraphing in order to maintain fidelity to the original and yet
maintain readability. The transcriber does not have, however, the freedom of the
reporter to comprehend the gist and intent of a statement and to translate what is
actually said into what clearly was meant or intended. The transcriber must write
down precisely what was said, with little or no interpretation beyond punctuation and
paragraphing. The very placement of a comma in a sentence can change the meaning,
so a transcriber must be very, very careful.
Therefore, transcribing should not be undertaken unless a programme has the
resources to do it well, or unless the ultimate use of the recording absolutely requires a
transcript. Moreover, both programme managers and future users must understand
that a transcript is actually only a highly sophisticated finding aid to the true record,
which is the tape itself.
It is preferable that transcription take place soon after the recording so that
participants in the recording may be appeared to for clarification where transcription
may be uncertain and the tape itself ambiguous. It is also an advantage if those who
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do the transcription are themselves well-educated in the topics of discussion so that they
recognize and identify and can transcribe properly any specialized terminology and
references to obscure names.
The basic process of transcribing appears deceptively simple. A person listens to a tape
while simultaneously writing down or typing what is heard, verbatim, including
representation of non-verbal exclamations and interjections, notations of intrusions,
laughter, coughing, sneezing, and so forth. Occasionally when there is something like
music on the tape in the midst of a narrative recitation, the transcriber may have to
identify the tune or the song being sung, or perhaps to annotate its tune by title or analogy
rather than in musical notes. Most transcription is done in typewritten copy, but some
more sophisticated programmes are beginning to use electronic word processors
(personal or small business computers) because of the capability of making corrections
rapidly before print-out copy is prepared.
Since transcription is an uncertain process, each draft transcript should be reviewed by
at least one person other than the transcriber. Difficult recordings may require several
reviews. The reviewer (or editor) is actually a proofreader who listens to the tape and
makes corrections to the draft transcript in order to make it as faithful a representation
of the spoken words as possible. When this review is completed, the transcript must be
identified with the basic identification elements for that record unit, including the receipt
serial number and the identification of the parent record group where appropriate.
2.4 Tape or Transcript
Review
2.4.1 Oral History

Many oral history programmes offer the people who have been interviewed an
opportunity to review the tape or transcript prior to formal donation of the item and
accessioning into the archives. There are several reasons offered to justify this policy.
The person interviewed may have insisted on the right of review as a condition of
agreement to being interviewed. There may be omissions in the interview that the
respondent, upon further reflection, may want to add as an appendix or in follow-up
interviewing. There may be transcriber errors, ambiguities, or omissions in a transcript
that the respondent may be able to correct or remedy. It is also believed to offer the
respondent an opportunity to be more thoughtful and complete about the quality and
validity of the testimony presented in the record.
Some who practice oral history are vigorously opposed to this practice. They insist that
the integrity of the original record is important and that it is compromised by any such
review since the respondent may wish to revise objectionable or infelicitous parts. Some
people, also, are appalled at the peculiar quality of their spoken composition because it
compares so unfavourably with carefully crafted written prose, and this may sour them
on the whole process of oral history and discourage further cooperation with the
programme.
There is also some difference of opinion among oral historians about the corrected
transcript.
Some programmes retype the transcript entirely, incorporating the
respondents corrections. Others maintain the first typewritten transcript with the
handwritten changes of the respondent. History and total accuracy doubtless argue
for the latter as the preferable document, and archivists would agree that such an item
is the best written record of the meaning and intent of the respondent. It permits the
reader of a transcript to discover places of ambiguity or uncertainty and to concentrate
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attention on those areas in listening to the audiotape for better understanding and
interpretation.
2.4.2 Oral Tradition
Oral traditions are sometimes recorded in remote villages and often among people for
whom a transcript review would be meaningless. It may also be that at the end of a
field trip there is little prospect of returning to the area of recording. In such cases it
becomes imperative to review the recording soon after the recording has taken place
and to thrash out with informants any ambiguities, archaisms, or points of detail. As
these corrections and emendations will likely be in the form of written notes by the
researcher/collector, they should form part of the record and be explanatory to the tape
recording as well as to any transcript of the recording.
2.5 Accessioning
By commonly accepted archival standards, accessioning is the act of achieving both
physical custody and legal dominion and control over records so that the archival
institution becomes not only keeper but also owner, administrator, and arbiter of use
of the materials acquired. In oral history and oral tradition materials, as may be the
case with certain other records and often is with personal manuscripts taken into an
archival institution, accessioning may be conditional. The institution may agree, as a
condition of acquiring the material, to administer it according to certain laws and
regulations of the parent government or agency of origin, or to terms and conditions
expressed by the agency, institution, or person that transferred the materials to the
repository for permanent deposit and administration. As noted previously, when oral
source material is brought into an archival institution as an integral part of a record
group that includes a variety of kinds of materials, the accessioning of the whole
incoming body of material covers all its parts, including the oral material, and no
further accessioning action should be required unless there is uncertainty about the
transferring agencys rights and title to the material in the first place.
When oral recordings are acquired independently of other transfers or donations, as in
cases where archival institutions themselves do the interviewing or recording,
acquiring the material consists of two quite separate acts. One is the physical
acquisition of the real property of the recorded tape. This is done by accomplishing
the recording by an employee of the archival institution and the return of the tape to
that institution for deposit and processing. The second step is an agreement between
the person or persons recorded and the institution, in which formal donation of the
intellectual content of the recording is documented. This transfer agreement varies
widely in character and practice. It may be a relatively simple act, incorporated orally
into the recording itself, in which the intent to donate is spoken and recorded at the
beginning or end of the interview or narration. However, it may be that local customs
or laws may require a much more formal documentation such as a written deed to
establish the donation of both real and intangible property to the institution.
In any case, the prudent archival manager must be satisfied that the institution is fully
entitled to exercise control over the recording before it is accessioned. The
accessioning may be conditional, as noted, and a condition of accessioning may
require seal or restriction of the recording, or parts of it, for a time according to law or
to the wishes of the respondent. But, so long as the conditions are clear and according
to local law, they should not impede accessioning.
Once documentation of the transfer is established satisfactorily, the material may be
added to the regular accession register of the institution, just like any other accession.
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Normally, all recording sessions with one person or from one source are accessioned as
a unit by provenance. Therefore, a single accession may be represented by several
receipt serial numbers in the records of the institution. If a group of recordings collected
by another agency is brought into the archives under a single transfer agreement, all those
interviews or recordings should be regarded as one accession, even though there might
be many individual interviews or recordings in the whole body of material received.
It should also be mentioned that when oral tradition material is recorded, the informants
may be unable to comprehend the issues of intellectual ownership and content as distinct
from the physical property of the recording. It may be and often is assumed that consent
to record implies donation of both the physical property (where appropriate) and the
intellectual content to the person doing the recording or to the institution sponsoring the
project. In practice, this issue is rarely raised with oral tradition informants. However,
there have been occasions on which well-organized and relatively sophisticated ethnic
groups, realizing the benefits that may accrue to the group producing the oral tradition
for the record, require that any proceeds from the sales of books or other works
dependent upon the recording should be shared in by the group or by its representative
council or other responsible agency acting for the group.
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4.1 ARCHIVAL
APPRAISAL
Helen P Harrison
1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1 Appraisal is the intellectual decision making activity that precedes selection in
common usage. Selection to reduce a collection to manageable proportions is, since
the material has already been commissioned, more correctly, referred to as
reappraisal. In theory appraisal should precede, not follow accessioning, but this is
seldom possible in audiovisual archives. Audiovisual archives usually deal with
material which has been literally collected and not transferred to the archive in
accordance with comprehensive schedules or as a result of a records management
programme. The audiovisual archivist is much more likely to be dealing with material
which has already been accessioned, often in haphazard order, and the task becomes
one of weeding these accessioned materials into a more manageable, or cohesive
collection.
Appraisal has been defined as the process of determining the value and thus the
disposition of records, based upon their current administrative, legal and fiscal use:
their evidential and informational or research value; their arrangement and their
relationship to other records. A secondary definition is the monetary evaluation of
gifts of manuscripts. Selection may be defined as the practical and controlled
application of appraisal principles to a body of material.
Appraisal may also be aimed at determining the intrinsic value of the material.
Intrinsic value is the archival term that is applied to permanently valuable records that
have qualities and characteristics that make the records in their intrinsic form the only
archivally acceptable form for preservation. This is a very difficult decision to make
in considering many audiovisual materials because of the technology.
1.2 The nature of audiovisual materials and the attempts to build archives and
collections of these materials are more likely to be based on selection of what is
available rather than on appraisal of the long term value of the documentation of an
institution, such as a business or a government agency. The sound archivist seldom
has this amount of material to choose from, he deals in what has managed to survive
until the point in time he considers collecting or preserving the material. This
situation may change as a result of more adequate records management, but for the
present it is very often a question of the archivist being presented with a collection of
available material and then asked to make choices on the basis of his knowledge of the
existing collection and the purposes of the repository.
Audiovisual records are therefore more closely related to the selection process than to
the appraisal process. Appraisal implies a more leisured activity whereby records or
collections can be presented as a corporate entity to the archives which may take or
reject at its final discretion.
With audiovisual archives the collectors are seldom so well organised or so fortunate.
There is a lesser degree of records management involved or evident. Audiovisual
items are collected, acquired or presented for possible retention in a more piecemeal
fashion. This is especially the case with moving images, but will also frequently
apply to sound recordings.
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1.3 Everything at some time may have some value. This surely is the dilemma of the
archivist. If the archivist takes this attitude from the beginning then he is simply
turning himself into a storekeeper. Some archivists and even donors might advocate
that everything should be kept, and if it were to cost nothing to acquire, preserve and
store archive materials then perhaps this policy of saving everything could be adopted.
But to keep everything is a form of madness: archivists, like people, are forced to pick
and choose, and audiovisual archivists must often choose from an incomplete record.
Others would go to the other extreme when in doubt, throw it out. What is surely
required is something between the two, something which has been called, disciplined
appraisal. Archivists should withdraw from a race to acquire the total record - an
impossible task with regard to audiovisual materials, including sound recordings,
photographs and moving images, and they should concentrate instead on preserving
materials selected in accordance with archival principles. Once again the principles of
selection and appraisal are a necessity.
1.3.1 Selection is a necessity because of the volume of the material involved and the
very nature of the material. Some sound archives have been in existence for nearly
ninety years and the longer they exist the more necessary the process of selection
becomes. Sound recordings were produced in the 1880s and 189Os, and the earliest
sound archive was that established in Vienna in 1899. The fact that other archives
were not established for a further 30 or 40 years has had a major effect on the
collection of sound recordings and the necessity for and criteria of selection. Many of
the early recordings did not survive long enough to be available to the archives.
Selection has been made even more imperative as a result of the increased ease of
recording. With improvements in equipment and ease of handling such equipment to
produce acceptable recordings, more and more people are recording material which
can be regarded as of archival value.
1.3.2 Audiovisual materials are regarded as more difficult to preserve than paper
documents. There is a cost involved, but there is a greater problem involved in
locating information within the plethora of information available. Audiovisuals are
very slow to work with, at both the input and at the output stage, they have to be
listened to or viewed in real time. Unreasonable amounts of time needed in research
due to large, confusing or mismanaged collections will often lead to the researcher
giving up or looking for alternative sources. Therefore to try to keep everything can
be argued to be as self-defeating as to keep nothing.
1.3.3 The volume of output makes selection inevitable. In addition to the commercial
production of the recording industry there is a large non-commercial output and the
output of oral historians and broadcasting. Where far more material is recorded than
is transmitted, the unedited, untransmitted material may be potentially valuable for
later usage. Specialized subject collections may also contain recorded material or the
archivist may have conducted interviews which have been edited for public access
purposes, but the unedited material has its own value. We might also consider one
area often overlooked, which is selection at the point of origin. This is the situation in
which the sound archivist who initiates a recording needs to reflect on why he has to
record this material, at what length he should be doing so, and whether or not he
should edit the recording and then dispose of the material which is superfluous to the
recording he intended or his present requirements.
1.3.4 Selection has been made even more imperative as a result of the increased ease
As tape recording has become easier and the equipment less
of recording.
cumbersome, more and more recording is made possible by a greater variety of
people. No longer is it the sole province of a technician to record material for
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preservation purposes. With improvements in equipment and ease of handling such

equipment to produce acceptable recordings, more and more people are recording
material which can be regarded as a useful record.
1.4 Post accessioning selection may also be used to reduce an archive or collection to
manageable proportions. Unless selection principles are used we are in danger of
sinking in a tangle of magnetic tape, under a sea of books, cassettes, videodiscs or
computer software. Worse, we might disappear altogether into the computer hardware
in search of that elusive piece of data which was not properly labelled.
And herein lies another powerful argument for selection. If we do not select with
reasonable care then what is the point of spending resources of time and money
documenting, storing and preserving material which is not of archival value?
Indeed it can be argued that it is a dereliction of our duty as information providers,
whether archivists, librarians or information scientists, not to select the material for
preservation and future use. Too much information can be as difficult to handle as too
little; it is equally difficult to access and discover the material which would be most
useful. The idea that, with the aid of modem technology you can store everything
easily on convenient little cassettes appeals to the research worker, but how is he
going to access a roomful, (and it has been expressed in that very term), of audio or
videocassettes when each cassette bears from 3 to 6 hours of material; not necessarily
in edited form. The research worker too frequently forgets that someone has to
expend effort and time entering the information into the database in a retrievable or
accessible order.
1.5 The criteria for selection of sound recordings have not been, and indeed cannot
be, laid down as hard-and-fast rules, but it is hoped that those who consult this study
will find many practical examples and working principles in the pages which follow.
Examples of criteria used in different types of archives are included: these should
assist sound archivists in arriving at reasoned, practical criteria for selecting material
to store in archives for passing on to future generations.
2. ARCHIVAL APPRAISAL AND SOUND ARCHIVES
2.1 Before embarking on a discussion of the appraisal of sound recordings and other
audiovisual materials which contain sound as an integral part, it will be useful to
examine the nature of sound archives and implications of archival theory of appraisal.
For the nature and contents of certain archives, especially audiovisual archives, will
often determine and influence application of the principles of appraisal and selection
which will be necessary and used. Although this study will concentrate upon sound
recordings there is a marked tendency for the audiovisual materials of the moving
image that is, film and video, and sound recordings to be acquired by the same
archival repository, especially in view of the increasing convergence of the
technologies.
2.2 Audiovisual materials can be housed together or they may be maintained
separately, but as with most archive materials the lines of demarcation between
audiovisual materials are often not distinct. Film has sound on it, magnetic recording
may have sound alone, music and effects, or it may have sound and images, or it may
be a purely visual record.
2.2.1 Converging technology is also having a marked influence on the trend to collect
a variety of audiovisual materials rather than one type alyne. This is especially
evident with magnetic recording and with the disc technologies of compact disc and
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videodisc, which can be used more and more interchangeably to carry sound and
visual images, either still or moving.
2.3 Appraisal is a relatively new concept in archives management, and it is an even
younger concept in audiovisual archives management. The appraisal of sound
recordings has scarcely begun for two obvious reasons. Collections management has
only recently become a major factor, for collection per se has been the all important
issue up to now.
2.3.1 Sound recordings when looked at alongside motion pictures present less
problems in terms of storage space and it can be argued that there are fewer financial
burdens in the mere collection, storage and conservation of stock. This latter may
seem a trite statement, but it is one of the main reasons for the delays of sound
archives in setting up selection or appraisal policies. Until recently it has been
possible to store and conserve a larger proportion of the sound materials which have
been produced due to more favourable parameters of cost of production and storage
space and replay devices than, for example, the production of moving images.
Restrictive selection policies have not as yet been forced upon sound archives.
2.3.2 Another reason for the lack of selection policies in sound archives is the nature
of the collection of audiovisual materials where legal deposit may be unknown and the
archivist ends up by accepting everything offered in the hope that some day he will be
able to rationalise his collection. A 1972 ICA report which linked the archives of
motion pictures, photographic records and sound recordings, was the first significant
recognition that audiovisual materials were archival materials. Other important
recognitions of the archival charter of audiovisual materials were the policies of the
US National Archives dating back to 1934, the policies of the BBC (1979) of the
British Records Association Working Party and of Audiovisual Archive the ICA
Working Group on Audiovisual Records.
2.3.3 IASA, which might have been expected to lead the field in administration of
sound recordings, has not as yet produced guidelines for collection, appraisal or
selection although the recent publication, Selection in sound archives begins to
address this problem area. This is an indication of the extent to which concentration
has been placed to date on acquisition. The problems with this narrow emphasis is
that the real burden of costs will fall on future archivists unless adequate attention is
given to the activities of records management, appraisal, accessioning, bibliographic
control, and conservation.
2.4
The extent to which collection or acquisition has been carried out without
adequate attention to these other considerations and activities is reflected in the
literature. The present study attempts to remedy this situation by examining guidelines
and principles already developed for other types of archival materials, especially for
audiovisual materials. Problems of the integration of sound archives with other types
of archives also have to be taken into account. For example, should one select
material in all genre that is relevant to the collection or the collecting institution, or
should one select only the most appropriate genre that is being used - and how does
one arrive at this decision? There are also questions as to who should be doing the
selection which need an answer. The purpose of the repository, that is, its function,
will undoubtedly have an affect on the appraisal policy.
2.4.1 There are inevitable constraints placed on any archive which make it necessary
to adopt selection policies. These constraints may be purely basic and arbitrary ones,
such as space or the high cost of storage, or they may be constraints imposed by the
available resources in terms of people, time, and the financial burden of preparing the
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_--.-..I.-..-... -.
.-
______.-.--.-. ..--
..~
..-...-. .~ ~_
..-.-
material for storage, conservation and subsequent access. Further discussion is needed
of the concept of intrinsic value of soynd material and the permanent and interim
value of such material.
2.5 As archivists of a fairly new technology sound archives must define a sound
archive. An initial reaction may be - instinctively - that a sound archive is different
from a conventional @aper) archive. A sound archive may have the same policies,
philosophy and similar aims in the preservation and collection of a particular slice of
human activity as any other archive. This slice may be the large one of an era, century
or decade, reflecting the cultural and social life of the times, or it may be restricted to
a smaller slice which records particular aspects of a special place, a restricted period
of time, or particular subjects on one or more materials. But the acquisition policies,
the principles of arrangement, organisation, access, security, conservation and
preservation of audiovisual materials are different to the extent that they require
modification or adaptation of traditional archival practices. There are differences in
degree in the application of archival principles to textual and non-textual materials,
and these differences are not confined to the material of which the record is made.
Manv of the fundamental differences relate to the content of the record and how it is
acquired and organised.
2.5.1 There is another type of collection closely allied to archives, and it is this type
of collection which is probably more appropriate to consider as an audiovisual
archive. This is the collection of last resort. Audiovisual archives are so often in this
category that we should begin to merge the two types. Collections of last resort
represent the attempt to conserve copies of material in usable condition - at least for
reference purposes - and they seldom retain archival originals or masters in the
accepted sense. Many audiovisual archives fall into this category whether they
acquire sound recordings, film or video. Audiovisual archivists are familiar with
having to transfer material from one obsolete or deteriorating format or medium to a
usable format, and then deciding what to do about the original material. A collection
of last resort is very often the best that can be achieved. The original material may
have to be destroyed, although not necessarily, but like nitrate film many of the
audiovisual carrying materials have a self-destructive nature and will deteriorate
without any intervention from the archivist or curator. What should be saved from the
material is very often the subject content of the material and this, in an audiovisual
archive context, is what should really be emphasised. The preservation of the content
for reference is the objective, rather than preservation of the badly degraded,
decomposed or technologically outdated original.
2.5.1.1 The original should not always be destroyed of course, and need not
necessarily be destroyed unless it is in a dangerous condition. There is always the
possibility that developing technology will improve restoration techniques, especially
with sound recordings and materials recorded on an originally stable medium. Such
materials can be retained in their original format in the hope that new, or developing,
technology will shortly reach the stage at which the material can be saved and
rerecorded on to a more permanent format for the archivist, or in a more acceptable
format for the listener. One of the traditional implications of the word archives is that
the original documents, or documents as close to the original as possible, should be
preserved.
2.5.1.2. With audiovisual archives it is seldom if ever possible or practicable to
preserve the original document for reasons of wear/tear/damage, unsuitability of
format or obligations, or because of the information it contains which is of value
beyond the reasons for its original creation. This is the traditional view of archives.
Most of these are paper archives, but film and video, sound recording or
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photographic archives are not necessarily official archives in the same sense. They
are much more likely to be archives of our current or recent culture. Given the
technology involved in audiovisual archives and the material which results, this
cultural heritage is mainly of the late nineteenth and twentieth century, and
educational audiovisual archives are among the youngest of these institutions.
2.6 Selection is a form of decision making and is usually based on a set of principles
or guidelines. In many cases these principles have never been published and such is
the case with sound archives. Selection is arguably the most important and at the same
time the most difficult of all the activities of the archivist or curator, especially those
dealing with audiovisual materials. It is an essential element of the archival process,
and imposes a discipline on the collector almost from the beginning. A collector may
not normally consider selection immediately, but the very consideration of what to
collect or how wide a range of material one includes in a collection is one of the first
principles of selection. As individuals we are constantly making selections in
everyday life, and most of our everyday decisions are forms of selection. Decisions
are taken almost unconsciously according to whim or circumstance. But selection
takes decision-making much further than this, it is usually based on a set of principles
or guidelines.
Collectors of sound recordings are allowed to have their own
predilections or whims, and this is not to denigrate their purposes, for without
collectors the material may not have been saved. However, collections grow and very
soon some process of selection, or weeding or discarding becomes necessary.
2.6.1 The collector may be working within his own parameters of cost and space, and
it is his own decision as to what is kept and what is disposed of by exchange, sale
destruction. Others may question his decisions but are not in any position to criticise
unless they do something positive to assist in the retention or preservation of the
collection in part or whole. A collector can be subjective in his approach, but an
archivist should be objective, and a selection policy or set of principles is needed here
to provide a framework for collection appraisal and selection.
2.6.2 Some form of records management is essential to impose an order upon the
record and make it manageable and accessible to titure users of the archive, whether
these users are researchers, browsers, those with a commercial concern to reuse the
material, or interested members of the general public. Selection is thus a necessary
process and should be considered from the outset. It need not happen immediately but
with any volume of material the need for it will quickly become apparent. Selection,
like management, is not an exact science; if it were then the archivist might have exact
criteria and theorems to guide him. Nor is selection solely an art. it can be argued as
more of an art than a science, but it is preferable to consider selection as a craft,
practised to achieve certain ends with suitable criteria or guidelines to meet these
ends.
2.7 The basic principle of selection for an existing collection it to preserve that
material which has significant evidential or research value, and then the purpose of
selection is to ensure a balanced, representative collection of material relevant to the
nature of the subject matter and purpose of the archive concerned. This means
different archives will have different selection policies according to the intended use
of the collection. There will, almost inevitably, be grey areas where the material could
be considered of use to the archive in conjunction with the rest of the collection.
Rigid criteria are thus going to be of little use to the archivist; criteria must be flexible
and take into account related areas of interest.
2.8 Some archives have a selection staff which concentrates on the areas of
acquisition and selection. Some archives use a system of selection committees,
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usually an ad hoc arrangement whereby committee members are made aware of

likely items of interest, or debate the merits from a listing supplied by the archive
staff. Such systems normally depend on the subsequent availability of the material
and upon the cost of acquisition. Much material escapes the net through this method
of selection, but it does have the merit of consultation. Selection by consultation and
committee may be fraught with difficulty when sectional interests appear and conflicts
occur between people from different disciplines. In a book on Archive Administration
written in 1922, Sir Hilary Jenkinson noted: The archivist is concerned to keep
materials intact for the future use of students working upon subjects which neither he
nor any one else has contemplated. The archivists work is that of conservation and
his interest in his archives as archives, not as documents valuable for proving this or
that thesis. How then is he to make judgements and choices on matters which may not
be his personal concern. If the archivist cannot be of use, can we not appeal to the
historian - he may seem the obvious person to undertake such a task. As soon,
however, as the historians claims in this connection are investigated it becomes clear
that the choice of him as arbiter of the fate or archives is at least as open to criticism
as that of the archivist. Must he not be regarded, where his own subject is concerned,
as a person particularly liable to prejudice ? Surely there will always remain the
suspicion that in deciding upon a policy of archive conservation he favoured those
archive classes which furthered his own special line of inquiry. The very fact that a
historian is known to have selected for an archive is fatal to its impartiality. All too
frequently people eminent in their own fields want everything kept, in case they need
to study it. Selection should thus be done by the archivist and not by outsiders with
pecadilloes and sectional interests. Specially appointed staff in the archive can see the
wider implications, and if thoroughly versed in the aims and objectives of the
particular archive are in a good position to select. To be effective, however, they must
be carefully chosen, and they should have a set of criteria with which to work.
2.9 The development and variety of sound recordings and sound archives has already
been noted. The variety of sound archives extends from the national archives which
collect widely, to the regional archive concentrating on conserving material from a
particular area, to the specialised archive dealing with anything from ethnic minorities
to wildlife recordings or phonetic collections which deal with dialect. The ty-pology of
sound archives indicates the different varieties such as music archives,
ethnomusicology, radio sound archives, national archives, academic and those in
universities, local history collections, and oral history collections which may or may
not be of archival propensity. What is oral history today may become archival material
tomorrow.
2.9.1 The development of interests is reflected in the membership of the International
Association of Sound Archives, which has over 400 insti.tutional and personal
members. This is a small number by some standards, but it is a much larger number
than the members of some other audiovisual archive associations, due to the different
subject interests and purposes of sound archives as well as the personal membership
category. This variety of collecting institution for sound recordings must be taken into
account when dealing with appraisal. The national archive will collect material
associated with national events, perhaps the commercial output of recordings, perhaps
government archives; the radio sound archive collects material primarily for the
purposes of reuse and for reuse potential within the relevant broadcasting company.
The specialist subject archive will collect according to its subject interest. For
example, the Imperial or Australian War Museums will collect material pertaining to
conflict or wars with which the national forces have been concerned. The type of
institution will have to be considered in dealing with exchange and international
cooperation, and also when trying to prevent wasteful duplication of effort.
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3. APPRAISAL POLICIES AND PRINCIPLES

The purpose of appraisal is to determine the long-term value of sound recordings
before they are added to the archival holdings and before further work is carried out
This long term value includes the value of the records for administrative, legal,
financial, reference or research purposes, and can be extended to include the cultural
an artistic value of sound recordings as art forms.
Appraisal policy will have to take account of all these values, and before attempting to
formulate any principles it will be worth while looking at several of them in more
detail.
3.2 Retention of material is often advocated by people want everything kept. This is
an administrative impossibility due to lack of space and resources, both financial and
human, and therefore some form of selection appraisal is forced upon the archivist
from the beginning. Archivists would also question that there is the unlimited time
needed to sit through hundreds of hours of material order to carry out appraisal, let
alone to process all of the material and make it available for research. The value of
the material cannot ignore the administrative costs of handling and conserving and the
costs of storage.
3.3 The basic purpose of selection is to ensure preservation of material relevant to the
subject matter of the archive concerned. This means different archives will have
different selection policies according to the intended use of their holdings.
3.4 Legal aspects have to be taken into account in dealing with appraisal, and this will
include legal deposit. The lack of legal deposit or mandatory deposit laws has had a
marked effect, although it is only recently that legal deposit has become an issue for
audiovisual materials and very few countries have even begun to approach the issue.
The National Sound Archive in the UK, where there is no statutory deposit law,
claims a 95% voluntary deposit of commercial recordings, and other organisations use
a hit-and-miss system of voluntary deposit. Voluntary deposit does raise the problem
of refusal to accept material resulting in the loss of subsequently useful material, a
situation of which archives have to be aware. However legal deposit also leads to a
necessity for an appraisal policy, unless the archive is obliged by law to retain
everything which is deposited. It should not be made obligatory for an archive to
retain everything in this way, otherwise we are back to the situation of keeping
everything just because it is available. Many audiovisual archivists have been
unenthusiastic about legal deposit for just this reason, for it is they who will have to
use their limited financial and human resources in maintaining the material if and
when it begins to deteriorate. Archives are not dumping grounds for the benefit of
producers who cannot or choose not to maintain their own materials, but many
archivists see legal deposit as an excuse for the producers to shirk their responsibility
for the materials created, and to turn the archives into mere warehouses for their
material.
3.5 The financial aspects of appraisal will include considerations such as the cost of
purchase of materials, deposit, storage and subsequent documentation and access
facilities for research workers. Reference and research use have to do with the value
of sound recordings, but they all have to do with the collections policy of the archive.
There may also be regional differences in policy which could be related to the
different types of archives, or to archives with different functions, or the differences
may relate to the subject content, the type of material, or the purpose of the archival
repository.
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3.5.1 Selecting material within defined areas of interest of an individual archive raises
questions regarding what is in and what is outside the field of interest. There will,
almost inevitably, be grey areas where the material could be considered of use to the
archive in conjunction with the rest of its holdings. The nature of sound archives may
make them much more closely related to appraisal by subject than many film archives.
3.5.2 Selection of sound recordings according to the nature and type of the recorded
content will also influence the selection policy. For example, regarding gramophone
records of musical works the question arises as to whether one should keep the entire
output, that is, every performance of a work, either as a complete record of the
recordings in order to allow comparison of interpretation by different; artists, soloists,
conductors, orchestras, or as a complete output of a particular artists work.
3.5.3 This leads to a consideration of the cultural and artistic value of sound
recordings. Gramophone record companies may retain a complete archive of the
recordings they themselves have produced, whether as an archive or in order to
produce reissues on appropriate occasions, such as an anniversary of a composer or
artist.
3.6 Moving to other types of sound recordings and in particular those of the spoken
word, there are similar problems. There may be reasons such as reissue of material, or
the need to study the production of a particular artist or poet, but will it be necessary
to keep every version of this material or only a representative sample, including
presumably material which is read or played by the author or composer themselves?
3.6.1 The production of oral history material presents additional problems for the
appraiser. There is the problem of volume, especially of unedited material. Should
tape be edited and then the original lengthy interview disposed of, or should the
unedited version be retained in favour of the edited? This involves an ethical
problem, but one reasonable solution is to retain the unedited version, especially if the
Cutting out the
editing has significantly reduced the duration of the interview.
hesitations and repetitions is less serious, if arguably mistaken, than retaining only a 5
minute section of a 50 minute interview. However even hesitations and repetitions in
an oral history interview have an informational value. They may indicate where an
informant is unsure of the facts, or even where he is not telling the whole truth or
trying to suppress certain facts.
3.6.1.1 Appraisal of oral history interviews includes selection at the point of origin,
that is in deciding what to record, what to investigate, and the purpose of an interview.
3.7 Given that selection is necessary one must both determine who it is who is to
select the material and formulate the criteria for selection. As previously noted some
archives have selection staff who concentrate on the areas of selection and acquisition,
But selection by
while some archives use a system of selection committees.
consultation and committee is fraught with difficulty when sectional and special
interests are promoted by people from different disciplines.
3.7.1 One of the primary qualifications for the archival appraiser is objectivity. The
archivist will constantly be assailed by the sceptics who will accuse him of playing
god and question whether he is qualified to select material for retention and future
use. The archivist will certainly need qualifications in order to select materials for the
archives, and just as people should be trained to be archivists so they should be trained
in the art and craft of appraisal and selection. It is one of the most important skills of
the archivist and it needs to be part of any training programme.
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3.7.1.1 In addition any archivist should have a thorough knowledge of the subject in
order to formulate and implement selection policies. He should be qualified in the
subject he is dealing with in order to recognise the true from the false, the genuine
from the spurious, relevant subject content and intrinsic value in the particular subject
area. It could be argued that a sound archivist with a knowledge of classical music
should not select material from the popular scene, although this does not necessarily
follow. Many music or sound archivists can do both, but perhaps considering horses
for courses would be a useful maxim here. However, this is not to say that a historian
should select material for archival purposes, or a musician select music for archival
retention, without prior archival training and experience. The people involved should
be trained archivists with a background subject knowledge in the appropriate area.
3.8 The snap, crackle and pop of early recordings and the use of recording machinery
not of a particularly high standard mean that to make material accessible, in the basic
sense of being suitable for listening purposes, the material will inevitably need some
cleaning up. Early film has its problems, but if it was once of good quality this is a
good starting point for restoration. The evidence which has survived precludes an
easy answer regarding the quality of early sound recordings. The recording may have
deteriorated further in use and be difficult to reproduce. Once the material has been
cleaned up there is no guarantee that the original quality has been restored; or we may
be left with a muted heavily dampened version of the snap and crackle, and loss of
the original dynamic range which may not have been wide, but was at least wider than
the restored version.
3.8.1 Field recordings or oral history interviews tend be produced on less high quality
recordings than music, because of the nature of the recording situation and the
necessity to use highly portable equipment in often less than ideal conditions. But the
material collected is no less valuable for that reason. Oral history documents or
collections may even be counted as more complete than many archive collections of
sound recordings.
Selection should be made with the possibilities of future technology in mind. Other
criteria for selection include the determination of value in terms of recording or
rerecording technique, subject or artist. Technical specifications always have to be
taken into consideration as will the subject content of the material.
3.9 Before discussing some examples of appraisal policies in action it might be as
well to take a brief look at some of the general procedures used in appraisal.
Appraisal takes a considerable amount of time. But it is critical that a fiscal
assessment of the cost of accessioning, organising and preserving the record is
maintained. We must begin to attach price tags to selection decisions and such
decisions should be documented for referral by future archivists. Fiscal notes are
essential additions to the appraisal record. This applies to all records and will include
conservation and storage costs.
3.9.1 Some pre-archival control of the records should be exercised, and archivists
should participate in decisions about how records are stored before they come to the
archives. Modem records management techniques for handling information suggest
that there is a need to influence file organisation, access systems and the media on
which recording and storage is made. This last point will either help or hinder the
work of eventual archival preservation. For example archives should try to ensure that
material that will eventually be deposited is recorded on good quality audiotape to
minimum technical standards rather than on poor quality audiocassettes. Archives
should participate in establishing systems in the areas of technical standards or type of
documentation required. The records can then be transferred to the archive with much
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of the initial processing and preservation already paid for. This is management of the
record before it comes into the archive.
3.9.1.1 Selection techniques will vary from archive to archive and may be done at
different levels. Rolf Schuursma in an article in Selection in Sound Archives,
analyses two levels of selection which he calls coarse and fine-mesh selection.
Coarse mesh selection is the evaluation of complete collections of recordings without
investigating individual records within that collection. Fine mesh selection is based
on a record-for-record approach. The first type of selection is not very time
consuming and inevitably results in a larger but possibly less manageable collection,
especially if the accompanying documentation is less than adequate. It may also result
in a lot of rubbish and only a few valuable recordings.
The second method
necessitates withdrawing the recording and listening to it, consulting or providing
adequate accompanying documentation, and adequate cataloguing.
This fine mesh selection should be applied to records which are offered or come into
the archive individually or in small numbers, not extensive collections.
Negative selection does not necessarily mean destruction. The recordings not selected
may be stored elsewhere or offered to another more appropriate archive.
The processing of archival records may prove to be prohibitively expensive, especially
when the cost of accessioning and cataloguing overtakes that of selection. Selection,
as a general rule reduces the number of records to be stored and catalogued and
therefore helps to maintain the collection economically.
3.9.2 Another valid technique for selection in man archival situations is that of
sampling. It is of applied to large groups of materials, or collections permanently
valuable sound recordings. The classic definition of archival sampling is provided by
Lewinson:
sampling of archives consists in the selection of some part of a body of homogeneous
records files so that some aspect of an organisations governments work or the
information received developed by the organisation or government may be represented
or illustrated thereby.
Sampling has been used on large series of paper materials, but a similar technique can
be more-widely used for sound recordings, especially when one considers the huge
output of radio broadcasting stations, or the transcripts and monitoring broadcasts of
the larger series. The aim of sampling is to carry out a survey on a body of material
which is large when compared with the importance of the subject content.
Broadcasting is the major area in which the sampling technique is used for sound
recordings, as stated, for example in the policy of the Public Television Archives of
the US Public Broadcasting System :
with regard to program series, the Archives will generally preserve the first and final
episodes and such other episodes as are necessary to document changes in plot,
setting, characterization, technique etc.
Sampling is also used for preserving representative sample of regular news
broadcasts; many radio archives will retain only one news broadcast a day, that which
is designated as the main broadcast.
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3.10 From the foregoing it can be concluded that rigid criteria are going to be of little
use to the archivist; criteria will have to be flexible and take into account all related
areas of interest. What should first be investigated are the principles required for
proper appraisal of sound recordings. This is the basis on which guidelines should be
formulated. There are several governing principles which should be considered before
guidelines can be enumerated.
3.10.1 The premise upon which selection is based is that acquisitions should be
actively chosen and not merely passively accepted.
3.10.2 The necessity for selection is forced upon the archivist because Gf lack of
space and resources for preservation and lack of staff for cataloguing. The sheer
volume of audiovisual materials being produced makes it impossible to preserve
everything. But the longer we wait the less resources will be available and the more
our conscience will bother us! A well established and consistently applied appraisal
and selection policy is the best solution.
3.10.3 Criteria and techniques should first be defined at the institutional level. The
written analysis of appraisal policies is called for as a priority.
Appraisal should be done according to a well-defined policy based on national
collection in a national archive or for specialised purposes in other types of archives.
Defining the policy and making it known will assist potential donors in offering
material to the appropriate repository.
3.10.4 Selection principles for sound recordings can be considered under several
headings. The most important of these is selecting records which are medium
specific, that is presented in the particular medium most appropriate to them. Another
principle is selecting material according to the purpose and function of the archive.
Finally, the completeness of the recordings should be considered.
3.10.4.1 With regard to the specific qualities of a medium, the concern here is that the
sound recording actually has something to say over and above the printed word or the
official document. For this reason live interviews and discussions in the spoken word
category may be more useful than official speeches. But many discussions degenerate
into confused babble, to which so many talk shows, or panel discussions on radio
bear witness, not to mention proceedings from some of the worlds Parliaments where
Hansard or the written proceedings is a more comprehensible report. Medium specific
qualities also apply to music recordings, as performances cannot be replaced by the
printed music.
3.10.4.2 The intent and purpose of the archive implies that archives should collect
within a designated area and further that there should be a division of collection
policies between archives. Archives should define their collection policies to prevent
duplication.
3.10.4.3 The length and completeness of the recordings may have an important
bearing on their relevance. Records may be too short or fragmented to provide
sufficient useful information, or the materials may be merely commentaries by
frequently ill-informed persons. These are the main concerns but there are others
including the importance of the subject, especially its longer term importance. The
importance of the subject as social history is frequently the case with spoken word
recordings.
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3.10.4.4 National and international cooperation between archives is also an important

aspect of appraisal. This emphasises the need to encourage specialisation in particular
archives. In order to promote this development, more information is necessary about
the spread of holdings. The more we know about what others are holding the more
effective collection policies will be. The next stage in this process is cooperative
collection policies, and the final stage is a continuing programme of cooperative
collection. Selection should ultimately be designed to lead to increased specialisation
on several levels, local, regional and national.
3.10.4.5 This will encompass the idea that sound recordings will be appraised against
the total holdings already accessioned within the institution and any gaps identified
and the opportunity taken to fill these gaps. A sound archive should normally avoid
acquiring recordings which will duplicate the recordings of other archives. This
policy is designed to avoid duplication in the storage, cataloguing and preservation
costs required.
Given the scope and amount of commercial recordings produced annually, as well as
the longer list of unpublished recordings from radio and oral history, a scheme of
appraisal on a national level becomes an essential and obvious requirement. This has
already been suggested in other media, including the UNESCO recommendations
drawn up by the Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) in 1980. Cooperation between
established national and international sound archives is essential to reduce the amount
of duplication in collection, documentation and preservation of materials. Such a
network is already being formed in the US for sound recordings, where five
institutions are cooperating to produce an index of holdings in 78 rpm recordings.
This index will have a use not only for research but for selection staff in locating
sound recordings and helping them to develop and rationalise suitable archive
collections by applying tests of uniqueness, by allocating money for preservation
facilities, and by eliminating duplication of effort.
3.10.4.6 Archives should be acquiring recordings for preservation as close to the
original or of the best quality available. The form of the material acquired is of
paramount importance and interest to the archivist once he has decided to acquire the
material. The appraiser has to decide whether he is dealing with originals, copies, or
copies of copies in various recorded formats. The acquisition of originals will
influence the cost of preservation.
Preservation has fiscal implications for the archive and the situation may arise
whereby the archivist has to investigate the value of one set of records as a substitute
for another set which may be invaluable for preservation. In dealing with audiovisual
material the impermanence of the modem record is an important consideration. In
textual archives many records exist in faded or illegible photostat copies, on
deteriorating microfilm and non-paper records; nitrate and colour film, magnetic tape
etc., deterioration of the base on which the, record is retained causes analogous
problems. In addition modem technology produces records which can be amended or
updated, for instance the computer disc or the interactive videodisc, the magnetic tape,
and also on media which are fragile and reusable. This presents the need to accession
the records before the information disappears.
3.10.4.7 One of the aims of selection is to reduce the volume of material. The use of
micrographics and data-reduction offers a reduction of the record to a smaller, more
compact storage medium, but considerable caution should be exercised in this area.
Poor quality storage media which have been offered in the form of VHS cassettes for
film and video material, or compact cassettes for sound recordings, have to be treated
carefully. It may appear to be a temporary solution to the storage problem but that is
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indeed what it is; a temporary solution and not a solution to the continued preservation
and conservation of the record. We have been presented with disc technology in
recent years, but even here there are important reservations. It may appear that the
disc is a suitable permanent storage medium, but there are two major difficulties
involved. Firstly, the recording quality offered by the disc often far outstrips the
material which is recorded on it, and secondly, the disc carries no guarantee that it will
last longer than magnetic tape.
3.10.4.8 Preservation costs are among the most important costs an archive has to
bear, costs of staff and technical expertise and equipment necessary to preserve or
restore audio recordings are an important consideration when drawing up selection
criteria. These costs must be considered in deciding whether to keep recordings in
their original format after an archivally acceptable preservation copy has been made;
they also are important when considering the concept of intrinsic value.
3.10.4.9 The accessibility of recordings will also influence appraisal. The research
value of recordings will only be realised by the records being made accessible for
research. Long-term, indefinite or even perpetual restrictions on access and use may
reduce the value of the material. This is not always a primary factor in deciding
whether to accession material, but it must be taken into account.
3.10.4.10 Other factors which will influence how useful the material will be for
future research, and how important the materials are to the archive, will include the
uniqueness of the material and its age.
3.10.4.11 A determination of uniqueness, or the degree of rarity of the recording,
requires certain prior knowledge in the selector and on the part of the appraiser and
involves knowing whether the recordings offered are duplicated elsewhere, either in
content or format.
3.10.4.12 The age of the material may prove to be a valuable guideline to its value
and importance. But age is relative, and some recordings may be rare because of their
survival value or because of their value as survivors on particular formats.
Reappraisal and if necessary de-accessioning are other vital steps in the overall
process of appraisal. Records can, and should, be appraised at intervals for several
reasons. Passive collection or archival activity is dangerous in the modem age, and
reappraisal is an essential tool in the face of passive collection. There are dangers
however in making this policy too public. One incensed donor may put an entire
collecting programme in jeopardy as a result of a quarrel with an appraisal or
reappraisal decision. Alternatively, fashion and ideology could wipe out an important
part of the, historical record, if reappraisal is carried out too ruthlessly or too soon.
De-accessioning however does not necessarily mean the destruction of records. It can
instead have the much more positive result of reuniting divided collections by
transferring material to the most appropriate archive.
3.10.4.13 This policy supports one previously discussed, that of national and
international cooperation between archives to prevent duplicating collection and to
conserve resources by concentrating relevant copies in only a few archives. Weeding
and discarding are helpful because often material has been acquired over a period of
years without ever having had proper evaluation, Many archives have begun as
reference collections for one reason or another and only subsequently become archives
with preservation responsibilities. Therefore reappraisal becomes an essential tool for
rationalising holdings and reducing collections to manageable proportions.
Reappraisal may be needed because the original appraisal proves faulty or standards of
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appraisal and opinions may have changed as to the worth of the material. Reappraisal
is most necessary prior to permanent preservation with all its concomitant costs, or to
expenditure of funds for documentation. Not all sound recordings held in an archive
will have equal value, and therefore they should not receive equal preservation
treatment or storage space. The concept of reappraisal at regular intervals is a healthy
exercise in the archival process.
3.10.4.14 Reappraisal may be done at regular intervals. For example, the Public
Television Archives in the US have ten year reappraisal reviews to determine the
long-term significance and value of recordings. Others appraise at different intervals,
6 months, annually, 5 years, 10 years and at even longer intervals. The advantages of
this type of programme are that the records keep coming up for comparison with new
materials acquired over relatively short intervals. The collection holdings is not
allowed to stagnate and to acquire a false value.
3.11 Closely related to the problem concept of appraisal is that of intrinsic value.
Some archival materials have intrinsic value, while others do not, and this includes
many sound recordings offered for preservation. When the concept is applied to
sound recordings it should be applied at the time of appraisal and selection, so that the
recordings can be restored and retained for the value of their subject content, or, in
some instances, for their intrinsic value as original recordings on particular formats.
For example, sound recordings may have been recorded on deteriorating acetate based
tape. If a collection of these tapes is offered to an archive the normal criteria of
selection for that archive should be applied; if deemed of sufficient archival value to
warrant continued retention, the appraiser may recommend that the recordings be
transferred to an archivally acceptable medium and that the originals be destroyed, in
much the same way that a film appraiser is forced to make such recommendations for
nitrate film. Every sound archivist would quickly recognise those items in his
collection which have ,intrinsic value: the Mapleson cylinders, the wax cylinders, the
Philips and Miller recording tapes and so on, but the deteriorating, not to say
dangerously unstable, recording media will have to be transferred and then destroyed.
Tapes may not be unstable, just in bad condition and need of restoration. In these
cases the intrinsic value of the recordings may lead to the decision that they are
worth saving until technology has improved to the point where better restoration can
be achieved. The appraiser will need to have a knowledge of developing technology
in order to make informed decisions in this area, but he would be well advised to seek
technical advice in such circumstances.
4. CONCLUSIONS AND GUIDELINES
.
4.1 Appraisal is necessary for the determination of the long term value of the sound
recording. Although sound recordings are relatively new as archival materials, the
value of sound recordings when collected either separately or in conjunction with
printed and other audiovisual documents is being increasingly recognised. Controlled
or disciplined appraisal will make possible selection between and within individual
collections.
4.2 Selection using appraisal techniques and based upon established criteria and
guidelines is essential because of the volume of material both to reduce collections to
manageable proportions and to prevent a waste of financial and human resources in
retaining, documenting, preserving and restoring material which has no long term
value.
The international body of archives devoted to sound recordings, IASA (International
Association of Sound Archives) has issued a publication on the selection of material
140
for sound archives, but has not drawn up guidelines for appraisal and selection. The
following considerations offer a basis upon which more specific guidelines may be
developed.
4.2.1 Total conservation is impossible for sound recordings because of the volume of
material and resources required for this restoration and conservation. Additional
factors which make total conservation unattainable include the technical problems of
deterioration in existing recordings and the non-survival of many early recordings.
Most early recordings were made for the commercial market, or for experimental
reasons rather than for archival retention. Once the initial market was satisfied no
consideration was given to retaining the recordings, especially as very few archives
came into existence until many of the early recordings had deteriorated beyond recall.
4.3 Archival acquisitions should be actively chosen and not passively accepted.
Passive acceptance implies that the archive is a repository for all materials, not a
cohesive collection of material relevant to the function and purpose.
4.4 Selection principles are needed in the area of sound archives and sound archivists
should define and agree upon these principles as a matter of priority.
Now that a variety of sound archives have been established there is a need to
encourage greater cooperative collection on several levels, regional, national and
international, in order to rationalise the collection of sound recordings. This will have
consequences for the collection policies of individual archives and, if fully carried out,
should lead to specialised collection by archives. The results should be more effective
use of available financial resources for preservation, and the use of such funds in a
more systematic manner for restoration over a wider area of subject and material by
concentrating resources in specific archives for special areas of sound recordings and
by preventing duplication of effort and restoration.
4.5 Sound archives should be preserving sound recordings which are specifically
relevant to the medium itself. Some events, happenings or recordings are better
recorded and displayed in sound material than on film or television or in the printed
document. Such recordings need to be given high priority by all types of sound
archives.
4.6 As a general principle sound archives have an obligation to ensure preservation of
the recording by selecting the best quality copy available. However technical
developments have not yet reached the stage at which it can be said that a sound
recording can be preserved indefinitely. This has implications for preservation of
records for their intrinsic value, that is the original recording, and will influence
Nevertheless an archive has an
storage, restoration and preservation policies.
obligation to retain original recordings against the day when technology improves.
4.7 Appraisal is one of the most important and challenging tasks for an archivist.
Appraisal should be carried out according to a well defined selection policy. Some
such policies exist but few have been published outside the institutions for which they
were devised. A greater exchange of ideas and information, as well as discussion of
existing policies is necessary leading to a greater number of published policies and to
increased cooperation among archives to achieve an international network of
collecting institutions and to improve the general exchange of information, collection
and preservation of sound recordings.
An archive will collect material in accordance with its purpose and objectives, but as
these may change at intervals the selection principles will have to be flexible to
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accommodate these changes. Selection principles themselves should therefore be

subject to periodic review and re-evaluation.
It is obvious that rigid formulae are not going to suffice in this situation. Archival
appraisal will undergo change according to the needs of the times, the purposes of the
archive concerned. and the nature of the materials stored within the archives.
But some common agreement has already been achieved, and the following guidelines
for the selection and appraisal of sound recordings are offered for consideration and
adaptation to the particular circumstances of the many different types of sound
archives which exist.
GUIDELINES
4.8 The archive should select material according to the needs, purposes and intentions
of the repository and with the ultimate user in mind. Subject areas of interest may
be narrow, but the related or grey areas should not be overlooked in selection.
4.9 Material for archival preservation should be either unique to a collection or not
duplicated in several existing collections when there may be a waste of resources in
preserving the same thing. Legal deposit is a rarity and one archive cannot assume
that any other is collecting in a particular area or country of origin. In these
circumstances it becomes important for all sound archives to have an acquisitions
policy and appraisal criteria and to discuss these with other archives, both nationally
and internationally, to ensure that valuable material is kept somewhere but not in each
archive.
4.10 The principle of selection according to the quality of the recording is a relative
one and is closely related to the unique quality of the material. Ln theory the best
quality material should be selected, but when the only available material is of poor
quality its unique nature overrides the principle of quality. A closely related factor is
that of technological change which may mean a recording is only available on an
obsolete carrier. Archives should not select on the basis of whether or not they can
replay material - this is library selection, when the only material in a library relates
closely to the playback machinery available either in the library or in the users home.
An archive must consider other qualities of the material and if it is essential to the
collection, but on an unplayable medium, an archive should transfer it to a usable
medium.
Technical appraisal, that is the selection of material on the basis of quality and
whether or not to keep all the old material against the day when technology improves
to the extent that better preservation recordings can be produced is a basic
consideration. The potential technical improvement of recordings has implications for
appraisal, including intrinsic value.
Some material may be unusable because of copyright or contractual
4.11
restrictions. However copyright can lapse and one of the functions of an archive
could be expressed as outliving copyright and other such restrictions. The material is
held for the restricted period (it may be possible to use it under certain conditions
during such a period) and when copyright expires the archive will be able to grant
access. Copyright restrictions should not necessarily deter selection of valuable items
and the appraiser must think beyond the temporary restrictions.
4.12 Selection at the point of origin is a neglected area. The sound archivist who
initiates a recording needs to consider why and how the material is being recorded and
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whether or not to edit the recording and what should be its ultimate disposition.
Related to this consideration is the concept of pre-archival control, that is, controlling
the record and documentation of the record before the material enters the archive.
This can be achieved by influencing record companies to label material fully and by
requiring full documentation to be presented as well as a technical record of the
processes involved in recording the material which is deposited. It should also be
required that the recording meet a minimum technical standard.
4.13 The timing of selection is also an important consideration. Some material needs
to be kept for only short periods while checks are made on existing material which it
may duplicate. Other material should be looked at retrospectively after a period or
periods of time. Most archives which practice selection will be found to use this
policy of periodic reappraisal. Hindsight is a useful mechanism and it can be achieved
by adopting a long-term retention policy. Optimum selection decisions are best taken
after a decent interval.
The concepts of reappraisal and deaccessioning should be incorporated into the
repositorys policies and practices.
4.14 One of the main principles of selection is objectivity. Selection staff should be
as objective and free from bias as possible, within realistic parameters. A collector
may be subjective in his approach, but an archivist should be seen to be objective and
a set of principles is needed here to provide a framework for collection.
4.15 Selection out of the collection can have many end results. It may mean the
destruction of the original record and retention of the first generation recording. It
may mean the transfer of the material to another archive which has a more appropriate
collection to house and manage the material involved, eg, transfer of material dealing
with war and conflict from a national archive or broadcast company to a war museum
or of ethnographic material into a specialist collection or archive.
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SECTION IV APPRAISAL
AND SELECTION
4.2 Selection and Audiovisual
Collections
Helen P Harrison, Media Library Consultant, Open University, UK
Although this paper is written in the context of the Memory of the World programme
of UNESCO it is not intended as a recommendation of a set of criteria which the
programme could adopt, rather as an analysis of the existing need and an illustration
of how selection is carried out already in archives and collections. The type of
collection, its purpose and the context in which it functions will influence the degree,
level and philosophy of the selection process. It also deals with selection in
Audiovisual collections and the parameters involved need some explanation.
The Memory of the World project will have different priorities to those in a single
institution and will serve different ends - it is after all considering the Memory of the
World, not a particular collection whether national, regional or specialised. The
Memory of the World project will rely heavily on the existing collections to collect,
preserve and make accessible material within their particular remits. The project has
as its first task identification of the endangered collections, then selection principles
will have to be employed to decide on priorities within those collections, which to
save first - is it a case of moving them to safer areas, or better storage conditions, is it
a question of physical preservation/restoration?
Then selection of the most
appropriate means of conservation. Some of the principles of selection or more
appropriately in this case, appraisal, will stand comparison across most situations,
others will not.
What are Audiovisual
materials?
What constitutes audiovisual material? It has to be admitted that no two people quite
agree on the definition of audiovisual, much discussion is being devoted to the topic,
but no positive definition has emerged. There are several definitions of the term
including those for working purposes and those for legal purposes but it is difftcult to
pin down. One definition which has been generally accepted is that in the Kofler
study, where, to paraphrase:
Audiovisual materials are to be understood us visual recordings (with or without
soundtrack) and sound recordings irrespective of their physical base and the
recording process used. This definition is meant to cover a maximum of forms and
formats, including films, filmstrips, microfilms, slides, kinescopes, videograms,
optically readable laser discs, magnetic tapes, discs, soundtracks or audiovisual
recordings. Such definitions do not include the still photographs which many regard
as an audiovisual medium.
While a suitable definition is being worked out it is easier to mention those
audiovisual materials which will be considered here. The paper will consider the
moving images of film and videogram, the sound recordings and the still images in
whatever format or on whatever carrier they may appear now or in the foreseeable
future, including the electronic formats which are seen as high density storage media
with an increased capability of access and transmission or distribution (copyright and
neighbouring rights notwithstanding).
144
The properties of the materials can limit the selection process and set some of the
options. Each of the materials has its own physical characteristics and carriers and
this will influence selection and present different challenges on different timescales.
There are three elements in audiovisual documents and some or all have to be
accounted for in the selection process. There is:
a)
W
cl
the information content

the artefact, or carrier
the aesthetic content
Much material is collected for its information content, as a record of an event,

cultural, sporting, political, educational. The most obvious of the av materials would
be newsreels and newsfilm, but documentaries and straightforward recordings of
cultural events may be included eg. a concert performance, ballet, opera or dramatic
work recorded as the event happens.
The artefact or carrier will designate the form of the audiovisual and it will also, for
technical reasons frequently influence selection. Can this material be replayed in the
collection which acquires it, or is the carrier so esoteric it has only antique value and
the capacity to fill storage space; is the carrier in good physical condition or will it be
subject to transfer and/or restoration before or on receipt or is the damage irreparable.
This has inevitable cost implications and also implications for damage and disaster to
the rest of the collection - the canker present in one item, may spread to others if
stored untreated and without inspection. The carriers add another dimension to the
collection. Audiovisual collections have to maintain a range of playback machinery to
suit the various formats acquired. Material has to be collected and stored in a form
which will be accessible for as long as required, or at least will be available for easy
transfer when its useful life in one format comes to an end.
The last factor is extremely important when considering artworks whether it is a fine
film, selected for its performances, photography, dialogue or direction; or a particular
performance of a musical work chosen for the interpretation of an instrumentalist,
singer or conductor or for the ensemble playing, or a photograph chosen for its
aesthetic quality as an example of a particular photographers work, its subject content
or as a record of a unique event. All too often we hear that what we should be trying
to preserve is the information content and cramming work into dense formats in order
to preserve more of it at the risk of losing its intrinsic quality. Audiovisual collections
may include several interpretations of the same work, or several records of the same
event carried in different types of document: a film or video version, a sound
recording, series of photographs and so on.
Although there are many collections in which audiovisual materials may be found, in
the context of this paper we will be concentrating upon those collections which
maintain long-term goals of retention, preservation and access to the audiovisual
heritage. In effect these are archival institutions or those collections which have an
archival function.
An AV archive has been defined as: an organisation or department of an
organisation which is focussed on collecting, managing, preserving and providing
access to a collection of A V materials and the AV heritage. This will include
collections of national importance, housed in national archives and libraries as well as
the many smaller collections housed in other libraries and archives. A specialist
national collection may only collect one material eg. a film archive or a television
archive. Other institutions hold smaller, but unique collections of material in single
format, and there are other collections of national, regional, local or academic
145
importance which may concentrate on one or two materials: the moving images, the
still images and the sound recordings, or they may have a mixture of the materials.
The collections involved here can often be regarded as the collections of last resort,
they are available for access, but have other functions such as the collection of unique
or original material which is being conserved and/or preserved for posterity.
But archives are not storehouses or dumping grounds for material in the hope that it
may come in useful some day - when that day comes with audiovisual materials unless
they have been correctly selected stored and conserved, the material may have
disappeared into a sticky mess or a pile of rust.
Some form of records management is essential to impose an order upon the record and
make it manageable and accessible to future users of the archive, whether these users
are researchers, browsers, those with a commercial concern to reuse the material or
interested members of the general public. Archivists are not store-keepers. They
must impose a discipline of management on their collections, and one of the more
important disciplines will be the selection process. Selection, like management, is not
an exact science, nor is it an art. It can be argued as more of an art than a science, but
I prefer to consider selection as a craft, practised to achieve certain ends with suitable
criteria or guidelines to meet these ends.
There are inevitable constraints placed on any archive which make it necessary to
adopt selection policies. These constraints may be basic and arbitrary ones such as
space for storage or the high cost of storage, or they may be constraints imposed by
the available resources in terms of people and time as well as financial resources to
prepare the material for storage, conservation and subsequent access.
What is selection.
Selection and its related activity; appraisal, are essential elements in collections
management. Selection has an importance at all levels of collection from the lending
or access situations, either by direct physical means or provision in data banks for
electronic transmission, through to the national library and the archive. Selection is
arguably the most important and at the same time the most difficult of all the activities
of the archivist, curator or librarian, especially those dealing with audiovisual
materials and imposes a discipline on the collector almost from the beginning. The
very consideration of what to collect or how wide a range of material one includes in a
collection is one of the first principles of selection.
Appraisal.
This has been mentioned already and although it is closely allied to selection it may
occur on a different timescale and has a different purpose. It is the intellectual
decision making which should precede selection: it is the activity which attempts to
determine the value and disposition of records based on their administrative and legal
use; their evidential, informational or research value; their arrangement and their
relationship to other records. Appraisal is also aimed at determining the intrinsic
value of the material, that is records which have qualities and characteristics which
make records in their intrinsic form the only acceptable one for preservation. eg. The
presentation of a musical work as a recording or a series of pictures produced as a
motion picture has an intrinsic value in the form presented: a piece of textual
information has its own value, regardless of the form. It is argued that this concept
adds another dimension to the selection and appraisal of audiovisual materials, and it
is often a difficult decision to make for technical reasons. The form (not the format)
of presentation acquires a greater significance for audiovisual materials.
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In theory appraisal should precede acquisition, in practice it seldom does with

audiovisual documents. Appraisal is usually applied to whole collections or bodies of
material; the audiovisual archivist seldom has this amount of material to choose from,
and has to deal in what has managed to survive until the point in time he is able to
collect or preserve the material. Selection in audiovisual collections is more akin to
reappraisal to rationalise the collection.
Why Select?
Selection is an inevitable process and there are several powerful arguments for its
application.
The first could be said to be that we cannot collect and conserve
everything, it is a physical impossibility, another is that a collection has to appear as a
coherent and cohesive body of material useful for a particular purpose, usually the
collection involved, another is that if we do not select with reasonable care then what
is the point of spending resources of time and money documenting, storing and
preserving material which is not of archival value?
Selection has been made even more imperative as a result of the increased ease of
recording. As tape recording has become easier and the equipment less cumbersome
more and more recording is made possible by a greater variety of people. No longer is
it the sole province of a technician to record material for preservation purposes.
We cannot keep everything. That is rule number one. A recent World Survey carried
out by the Library of Congress produced some startling figures. Remember that we
are talking about audiovisual materials of moving image and recorded sound which
have been around for just over a century. The World Survey indicated that some
93,73 1,000 items (74,403,500 sound recordings; 10,108,500 reels of film; and
9,219,OOO video recordings) are housed in the 500 archives surveyed, let alone the
large collections. When one looks at the commercial output of moving images and
sound recordings the figures rise exponentially. There is also the mass of material
produced non-commercially, and by broadcasting, where far more material is recorded
than transmitted and untransmitted material may be potentially valuable for later
usage. Specialized subject collections may also contain recorded material or the
archivist may have conducted interviews which have been edited down for public
access purposes, but the unedited material has its own value.
It is a dereliction of our duty as information providers not to select the material for
preservation and future use. Not only is there not enough storage space, there are not
enough resources to keep all the material intact. Additionally audiovisual materials
are very slow to work with, they take real time to view, listen to and hopefully
appreciate. Selection principles try to produce a collection which is easily accessible.
Too much information can be as difficult to handle as too little - it is equally difficult
to access and discover the material which would be most useful. The idea that you
can, with the aid of modem technology, store everything easily on data banks or those
convenient little cassettes appeals to the research worker, but they forget the amount
of time needed to access audiovisual materials even with sophisticated retrieval
techniques, and also the amount of time and effort required to enter the information on
to the database in a retrievable or accessible form.
147
There are three stages in the collection and management of materials - any materials where selection is necessary.
1. Before acquisition, or on acquisition of a new collection or item, to determine
whether this item will add to the value of the collection
2. After acquisition to rationalise the collection and
3. To determine priorities for preservation and conservation of the collection whether
it is recently acquired or long received.
Each of these stages has its own requirements, rules and criteria.
Who Selects
It is necessary to establish who will select the material and then formulate the criteria
for selection. Some archives have selection staff who concentrate on the areas of
acquisition and selection, others use a system of selection committees. But selection
by consultation and committee is not necessarily a good thing. It is fraught with
difficulty when sectional interests appear and squabbles break out between people
from different disciplines.
A short piece paraphrased from a book on Archive
Administration written in 1922 by Hilary Jenkinson serves to point out the dilemma
and;
The archivist is concerned to keep materials intact for the future use of students
working upon subjects which neither he nor any one else has contemplated. The
archivists work is that of conservation and his interest in his archives as archives, not
as documents valuable for proving this or that thesis. How then is he to make
judgements and choices on matters which may not be his personal concern. If the
archivist cannot be of use, can we not appeal to the historian - he may seem the
obvious person to undertake such a task. As soon, however, as the historians claims
in this connection are investigated it becomes clear that the choice of him as arbiter of
the fate of archives is at least as open to criticism as that of the archivist. Must he not
be regarded, where his own subject is concerned, as a person particularly liable to
Surely there will always remain the suspicion that in deciding upon a
prejudice?
policy of archive conservation he favoured those archive classes which furthered his
own special line of inquiry. The very fact that a historian is known to have selected
for an archive is fatal to its impartiality.
Given the guiding principle that selection is of necessity a major concern of the
archivist it is suggested that the people responsible for the collections are best able to
judge what should be included, and all the ramifications of the selection decisions.
Specially appointed staff in the archive can see the wider implications and if
thoroughly versed in the aims and objectives of the particular archive are in a good
position to select, but to be effective they must be carefully chosen, and they should
have a set of criteria to work with.
Principles
As an essential part of archive and collections management selection has been
discussed for many years and the criteria used have been developed and in some cases
published. There is a general, and not surprising, concensus of opinion about the
essentials in many of the guidelines. There are several sources for guidelines which
have been given a wider coverage than the collections for which they were developed.
These include the RAMP studies of UNESCO for moving images, sound recordings
and photographs, by Kula, Harrison and Lear-y. Selection in Sound Archives, edited by
Helen Harrison and Sound Archive Administration by Alan Ward contain useful
148
material, in Selection in Sound Archives the National Archives and Record Service of
the USA criteria are reprinted, and the criteria used in the National Film and Sound
Archive, Australia appear in the Phonographic Bulletin.
Many of the guidelines and lists of criteria contain similar elements and these can be
summarised:
Function and terms of reference of the archive
If the first principle of selection is to produce a collection of relevance and
manageable proportions within the institution, the purpose of selection is to ensure a
balanced, representative collection of material relevant to the nature of the subject
matter of the archive concerned. This means different archives will have different
selection policies according to the intended use of the collection. Selecting material
within areas of interest of the individual archive immediately raises the question of
what is in the field of interest and what is outside? There will, almost inevitably, be
grey areas where the material could be considered of use to the archive in conjunction
with the rest of the collection.
Is the material relevant to the collection, does it add significant, or useful material of
interest to the present and future user of the collection, and if so can the costs of
storage and preservation be justified. How much can the collection cope with? If the
material is of doubtful use to a particular collection should it be referred elsewhere.
Should material already in the collection be deselected as a result of the new
acquisition?
Quantity. Many audiovisual materials may be collected in greater numbers than
others if only because several versions of an event or several interpretations of an item
have to be retained. one would not contemplate keeping only one interpretation of a
musical work, the performance has an influence and an interest. Edited and unedited,
cut and uncut versions of many audiovisual works have to be retained as the unedited
material contains far more information than was ever distributed. Unedited material
also forms the basis of many future productions. A film may be available in cut and
uncut versions, for example we are increasingly getting the directors cut for the
authentic view of the work, or the producers cut for commercial release. All these
may have their value as records of the work, or as a statement of the social aura at the
time of release. How do you choose and what do you choose? All episodes of a
television series may have to be kept - for it is always the episodes discarded which
will be remembered for something special. Serials of course have to be kept in
entirety or not at all. News items may have to be kept in several versions, perhaps in
separate collections to reflect different points of view. Newsreels are historical
records and should be kept in entirety. The same has been argued for television
newscasts and it has even been argued that complete transmissions from a year should
be kept. Television has a huge output and the selection process is usually much more
stringent than in many other collections.
Uniqueness or rarity
Material for archival preservation should be either unique to a collection or not
duplicated in several existing collections where there may be a waste of resources
preserving the same thing three or four times over. Is the material offered a rare
source of information on its subject. The audiovisual archivist has to bear in mind
that legal deposit has been rare until recently and material may have been dispersed or
collected erratically so that one archive cannot assume that any other is collecting in a
particular area or country of origin. In these circumstances it becomes important for
149
all archives to have selection policies and to discuss their policies with other archives
both nationally and internationally and ensure that valuable material is kept
somewhere, but not in each and every archive.
The status of the copies could also be taken into account, are they original recordings
or copies where the original is inaccessible for some reason.
Zntegrig. Selection has always had to be sophisticated in assessing the material for
disposal. There have been many fakes or manipulations involving av materials. This
can range from the use of substitutes to illustrate events - the substitution of the
Mauritania for the sinking of the Lusitania, pictures from one conflict used as
illustrations of another, bias created by inaccurate juxtapositions of shots and
interviews, mis-identification of people, places and things, wrong locations for films,
tidying up of performances where a musical work has literally been stitched together
making the performer sound better than they were. I watch with horror some of the
manipulation of images on a computer, just as I watch with horror the writers of
second-rate research papers plagiarising original thought, word and image, cobbling
the materials together to misrepresent and clogging up the access mechanisms. The
selector has to be aware of these manipulations and misrepresentations and try to
maintain the integrity of the collection.
htrinsic value.
This is a difficult principle to apply and it relates to many of the other principles
mentioned already. It is the archival term applied to permanently valuable records
which have qualities or characteristics that make the records in their intrinsic form the
only acceptable for preservation. Difficulties will arise with audiovisual materials for
technical reasons, but some records may be kept as examples of the artefact or
particular recording material if this can be done safely.
Quality
This is a relative principle; closely related to the unique quality of the material. In
theory the best quality or material closest to the original should be selected, but
sometimes when the only available material is of poor quality its unique nature
overrides the principle of quality. A closely related factor is that of technological
change which may mean a recording is only available on an obsolete carrier.
Archives should not select on the basis of whether or not they can replay material this is library selection. An archive must consider other qualities of the material and if
it is essential to the collection, but on an unplayable medium, an archive needs
facilities to transfer it to a usable medium. If the material is in poor condition the
selector has to be able to justify the cost of preservation work with the unique or rare
content.
Digital vs analogue. This is not the place to go into technical details, I would not
presume so far. But it is almost certain for the near future that material which will be
selected for special treatment by the Memory of the World programme will have to
remain on its original carriers for a while yet. It cannot remain so indefinitely, sooner
or later the carrier will decay the nitrate film may moulder and worse spontaneously
combust, film or magnetic tape may develop vinegar syndrome, the CDs will develop
laser rot or the surface oxidise - a recent article spoke of tell tale signs on a CD after
5 years, photographic film will deteriorate in density and colour of image. Constant
transfers of analogue data will result in a degradation of the image or sound quality,
whereas material transferred to the digital mode should at least retain its information
and not degrade. This does not necessarily mean that digital data is better than
150
analogue per se to my untutored mind, but it is better for the longer integrity of the
information.
Copyright/ownership/obligations
Legal deposit has been a rarity for audiovisual materials until recently and audiovisual
collections have other acquisition policies in force. These may come with certain
restrictions imposed by the donor. Some material may in effect be unusable because
of copyright or contractual restrictions. Restrictions imposed on the archive by the
donor may involve not permitting copying of the material for preservation purposes,
not allowing access and other strictures such as return of material on demand. If the
depositor imposes restrictive conditions then the selector must decide whether the
material is of sufficient value to justify the cost of administering the restrictions. Film
archives have some of the most difficult decisions to make in this regard. Audiovisual
collections need to select for acquisition, for preservation and for access, and all of
these may be restricted by contracts, and copyright. The decisions have to be taken
before deposit.
Timing.
The timing of selection is also an important principle. It should never be a once-andfor-all decision. Some material need be kept for only short periods while checks are
made on existing material which it may duplicate. Better quality or more complete
material may be offered. Other material can be looked at retrospectively after a period
or periods of time. Most archives which practice selection will be found to use this
principle.
Objectivic within guidelines
This is one of the main principles of selection rather than a criterion. Selection staff
should be as objective and free from bias as possible within realistic parameters.
Hindsight is a useful mechanism and it can be achieved by adopting a long term policy
of selection. Optimum selection decisions are best taken after a decent interval.
Repatriation and deselection
Deselection has already been mentioned in the context of relevance to the collection,
or the acquisition of more complete material, or better technical quality. Repatriation
is another consideration closely allied to survival, restoration, selection and
deselection. Many institutions currently hold material which belongs to another
country or a redeveloping country. Spoils of war are included in this definition, as
also are materials rescued from the ravages of neglect and natural disasters. Ethical
considerations may suggest that such materials should be repatriated to the country of
origin, but this is not always possible, and the materials may be being repatriated to an
area or institution which has neither the resources, nor the current physical or political
climate to cope. It is a dilemma for the archivist, especially when the means for
conserving all the materials, both those relevant to the collection and those of more
peripheral interest are both involved.
Related Documentation.
With audiovisual documents the documentation which
comes with the blind materials is of great importance. Without some background
materials, a shotlist, a script, a descriptive sheet, the material could be unidentifiable.
Such related material should also be retained and maintained as well as matched with
the material. If related documentation is not available the research and effort involved
in tracing the material will have to be weighed against the value of the material itself.
151
Related documentation will also have to be stored separately and kept linked to the
material on a database.
Selection of audiovisual materials and the Memory of the World project.
The Memory of the World programme is an attempt to save a proportion of the
cultural heritage and the documents which form and portray that heritage.
Audiovisual documents, most of which have been produced in the 20th century are an
important record of the cultural heritage of this century, but they are among the most
vulnerable to destruction, and/or manipulation. What should we try to save first. In
order to decide this initial steps are being taken in providing inventories of lost and
endangered collections as well as work in progress to save the material. The lost
collections will be a sad reminder of the ravages of time, chemistry, natural and manmade disasters; the endangered collections will provide the core of material to which
selection principles and priorities can be applied. The inventory of work in progress
will help to avoid duplication of effort and waste of resources. Information about
existing collections in the way of Directories of holdings can supplement these
inventories.
When considering the Memory of the World project we are not talking about all
selection - we are actually talking about more stringent decisions. It has to be left to
the established institutions and archives to look after their own materials and then
perhaps be enlisted to rescue in addition the endangered collections, for it is only the
existing institutions and commercial laboratories who can save such collections. Once
the collections are saved, restored, or whatever has to be done to them a permanent
home has to be sought to safeguard the continuing existence of such a collection.
There is little point in using resources to save a collection which then has to go back
into a situation where the prognosis for survival is poor.
Already it has been realised that selection will be of paramount importance in the
Memory of the World project and the draft report identifies certain principles of
selection for survival.
The project will also concentrate on collections, rather than individual items - they can
and should be saved by the relevant institutions. Factors to be considered in the
selection will include:
The content and its artistic, cultural, literary or scientific value, the national, regional
or international significance, the context, the physical condition, the degree of risk the
material exists in (for example, a war zone or disaster area.) and the projects
feasibility (whether it can be carried out in a reasonable period of time). Priority will
be given to activities concerning a region, a number of countries or a national project
which is of international importance and to an entire collection rather than just
individual items. Special consideration will be given to the problem of reconstituting
the memory of a people in the case of dispersed or displaced holdings. Combinations
of these criteria will determine the uniqueness of the collection or holding and the
consequences of its loss for humanity should it become irreparably damaged.IO
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4.3 ARCHIVAL
APPRAISAL
OF MOVING
IMAGES
Sam Kula
1.1. Appraisal of moving image records is a contentious issue. Archivists have just
begun to recognize their value as historic documents, and while many archives have
initiated limited programs of selective acquisition, many more have deferred action
due to the financial commitment associated with the technology involved. In the
absence of any action by national archives, and as a response to the severe losses that
occurred in the first fifty years of cinematography and in the first twenty-five years of
television broadcasting, a variety of non-governmental organizations working for the
most part with inadequate resources, have tried to restore part of the moving image
heritage and to safeguard those contemporary moving image records that have obvious
historic, social, cultural or artistic value.
1.2. These non-governmental organizations, now being joined by state archives at
both the regional and national level, are linked in their activities through the
International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and International Federation of
Television Archives (FIAT). Both these federations have been attempting to develop
appraisal standards, but there has been little consensus within each federation and
At one extreme archivists in non-governmental
between the federations.
organizations echo Sir Hilary Jenkinson and argue that any selection is wrong, that the
archivist does not have the right to play God. In the light of this position all moving
images should be safeguarded by a network of moving image archives acting in
concert.
1.3. The argument for total conservation is encountered more often in FIAF than in
FIAT where archivists have to contend with the enormous volume of moving images
generated by television broadcasting, and where archivists attached to broadcasting
networks theoretically have the entire production available as acquisitions. Selection
criteria in television broadcasting, however, is inevitably orientated to the needs of
broadcasters. Value is determined to a large extent, on the likelihood of re-use by the
That determination however, is based on the intrinsic
production organization.
historical or cultural value of the programme or sequence. In addition television
archivists add illustrative specimens of repetitive programming and programmes that
mark a significant advance in the art of the technology.
1.4. In practise all non-governmental moving image archives are selective even
though the appraisal standards are seldom precise or well-articulated. The emphasis
among FIAF member archives is on national productions that document the film and
television industries and on international productions that advance the art of the film
or which constitute important historical or cultural documents. Selection criteria for
non-governmental depositories also include moving images that are part of the oeuvre
of producers and directors whose careers are significant in the history of the film and
television industries.
1.5. Appraisal standards for governmental archives may now embody similar criteria,
but in the past they have been rooted in the classic distinction between functional or
evidential and informational value. Only a small percentage of the moving images
produced in the world today meet these criteria. The value of moving images as
historical documentation lies primarily in their informational value. They seldom
reflect the activities of a governmental or institutional entity, nor do they often offer
153
insight on the implementation

corporate policies.
of government regulations or the application
of
1.6. Moving images are, however, part of the public record, and they reflect the
ideology of their producers, whether they are government departments or private
entrepreneurs. Regardless of the mechanism of distribution - theatrical, non-theatrical
or television - they are normally intended for mass audiences and they play an
increasingly important role in determining how that audience perceives the issues of
the day and the society in which they function. Moving images may not always be an
accurate mirror of the societal structures that have generated them, and of the
audiences that have consumed them, but they always impact on societal development
and thus, for better or worse, become an integral part of that societys culture.
1.7. For state archives with a broad mandate to conserve all documents of national
historic interest the following criteria for the selection of moving images, by no means
exclusive or exhaustive, should be considered:
(1) Administrative: Moving images which are produced as a result of the activities of
government agencies and which document the policies and programs of the
sponsoring agencies, or which complement documents in other media that have been
selected and conserved. This is sometimes referred to as evidential or functional
value.
(2) Historical: Moving images which document the political, economic, scientific,
technological, social and cultural life of the country, either as actualities
(documentaries, and newsfilm) or as dramatizations.
(3) Sociological: Moving images which document the significance of the film and
television as an integral part of the public record and the popular culture, and which
function as an unofficial record of the national cultural heritage, either as actualities or
as dramatizations.
1.8 Moving image archives attached to production organizations or officially
designated as the archives of such activity in a country should also consider the
following criteria:
(1) Moving images which document the history and development of the image making
activity in terms of significant milestones in time, in form, in genre, in technology,
and in content.
(2) Moving images which document the activity in relation to a significant
personality, an image making unit, or to a regional or ethnic or racial minority
involvement.
(3) Moving images which have been distinguished by critical or popular acclaim and
which have been instrumental in influencing the nature and direction of further
production.
(4) Moving images which have a high potential for re-use by the production
organizations, or which meet perceived immediate or future research needs by the
community the archive serves.
154
1.9. Moving image archives which are private, non-profit, non- governmental
organizations with a mandateto promote and develop public appreciation of the media
as well as to conserve the media could add the following criteria:
(1) Moving images from both the foreign and domestic production that mark
significant advances in aesthetic, artistic or technological development of the media.
(2) Moving images whose production and/or distribution, both foreign or domestic,
documents major social or political changes, or which challenge contemporary
community standards and/or censorship laws on what is acceptable in subject matter,
treatment or form.
(3) Moving images that explore the relationship between the audience and the screen,
or which reflexively examine the image-making process.
(4) Variant versions of moving images regarded as classics which are valuable for
film study and for the purpose of film restoration; outtakes from such productions if
significant in documenting the process of production; and cuts made from such
productions on demand of censorship authorities.
1.10. Factors which should be considered in applying these selection criteria could
include the following:
(1) First priority should be given to the moving images of the national production,
including moving images produced in the country by visitors or under the authority of
former administrations. Where such images no longer exist in the country every effort
should be made to repatriate them as part of the national moving image heritage.
(2) Foreign films distributed in the country, especially when sub-titled or dubbed in
the language of the country, may be designated as part of the moving image heritage
and selected if they meet the appraisal standards.
(3) Specimens of repetitious or voluminous productions (serials, advertising
commercials) should be selected systematically and with sufficient frequency in order
to document the entire production schedule.
(4) Specimens of moving image production for television broadcasting, in the context
of the broadcast schedule, should be documented by recording and conserving entire
days of broadcasts with a frequency that adequately reflects schedule changes.
(5) Given the severe losses that have occurred world-wide as a result of technological
obsolescence (the introduction of sound on film) and during the nitrate era (theatrical
films on nitrocellulose stock, pre-1950) any film produced before 1930, regardless of
content, should be seriously considered for selection as a relatively rare surviving
example of a very substantial production; and all films produced before 1950 on
35mm stock should be given priority in appraisal and processing because of the
inherent instability of the stock. Special precautions must be taken to segregate film
on nitrocellulose stock in environmentally controlled vaults.
1.11. In order to achieve the orderly transfer of moving image production resources to
archives custody, the introduction of modem records management techniques should
be encouraged at the earliest stage possible in the production process. All production
elements (negatives, prints, videotapes, etc.), and related documentation, should be
identified, designated, and scheduled so that the disposition of the elements can be
controlled at every stage of the production/diffusion process. The short term (3-5
155
years) retention of the broadest possible selection of moving images should be the
objective, to provide opportunity for a final selection with some sense of historical
perspective.
1.12. Whenever possible documentation directly related to the production (scripts,
stills, posters, press books, etc.) or associated with the production (production files,
correspondence, memoranda, etc.) should be appraised at the same time as the
production itself. When selected, such documentation must be intellectually linked
with the production although it may be physically separated.
1.13. In the final analysis, the appraisal of moving images is as unscientific, as
imprecise, and as inherently frustrating as the appraisal of any type of archival record
and indeed, any judgemental process. After years of personal soul-searching, open
forums, and professional debates, archivists are still without a consensus but some
progress has been made since the first theories of modem archives administration
were being developed at the turn of the century. It is the obvious untenability of the
alternate positions - let the administrator (image maker) decide, or retain everything in
perpetuity - that has forced archivists to practise appraisal, and because the policies
have never been precise, or practical, or consistent over time, the results have
normally been a compromise fully acceptable to neither archivist nor researcher, or an
outright disaster.
1.14. Faced with an exponential increase in the volume of production that shows no
sign of levelling off (the introduction of lowcost videotape cameras and recorders
has expanded and exploded the use of moving images throughout the world), the
archivist must select, and select in a coordinated program with fellow archivists in the
home territory and with colleagues around the world. Needless duplication must be
avoided. Even with the possibility of applying the emerging technologies of the
videodisc and the digital encoding of moving images to the development of new, lowcost storage mediums and instantaneous modes of diffusion, this generation of moving
image archivists will still have to apply appraisal policies to prevent the archives from
sinking under the weight of accessions, and the researcher of the future from drowning
in a sea of redundant, and trivial images.
156
SECTION IV SELECTION and APPRAISAL

4.4
SELECTION
POLICY
TELEVISION
ARCHIVES
AND
SELECTION
STANDARDS
FOR
Sam Kula (Director, National Film, TV and Sound Archive, Canada)

Selection, or the appraisal* of documentation for archival purposes, is and always has
been the most controversial aspect of archives policy. The literature is full of
philosophical reflections on the nature of the archivists responsibility in determining
and implementing a selection policy, but there is very little in the way of practical
guidelines. There is even less on standards.
We should first distinguish between policy and standards. Policy incorporates the
decisions that have the widest possible impact on the archives programme and address
the major questions such as whether the acquisition goal with regard to any particular
aspect of programming should be comprehensive (everything is retained for an
indefinite period) or selective. If the goal is to be comprehensive with regard to the
totality of all programming by any one station or network, the policy can be simply
stated and, of course, there is no need for selection standards.
If the goal, however, is only to acquire and safeguard all programming produced in the
country then the policy is clearly to restrict acquisitions to domestic productions, and
the key selection standard is then the nationality of the production. Similarly, if the
policy is to acquire all news as broadcasts (but not necessarily all the news recorded
for broadcast), the characteristic that distinguishes those news elements that meet the
standard and that should be retained is the fact that they have actually been broadcast.
It is recommended that archives consult with others in the production organisation (if
the archive serves primarily one station or one network) and with representatives from
the academic and archival/museum/library community in developing broad policy.
The final decision must be that of the archivist as the final responsibility rests with the
archivist. Determination of selection standards and the timing on the implementation
of these standards will reflect operational requirements and should rest with the
archivists.
Policy can be very inclusive, at least in the short term. The FIAT recommendation on
selection is that everything broadcast, and recorded for broadcast, be retained for a
minimum of five years. This is to allow time for some historical perspective in
assessing the long term archival value of the documentation. This is an excellent idea
if the organisation can afford both the cost of the storage (and the cost of the
videotape if some of the videotape would otherwise be erased and re-cycled), and the
cost of servicing such a substantial volume of documentation. In fact there are those
who would argue that the time delay should be twenty years, or roughly one
generation before the selection standards are applied.
Policy can also be rooted in traditional archival practices that have withstood the test
of time. One of these is that old age should be respected. In practical policy terms
this could signify that all broadcasts: and all material recorded for broadcast, before a
certain date should be retained. The date will vary from one broadcast organisation to
another, from one country to another, with determining factors to be found in the
history of the country and the history of the broadcaster. Generally the date reflects a
change in technology or in broadcast policy which places the earlier material at risk,
or where the losses have already been so severe (the first few years of live
broadcasting before the introduction of videotape, for example) that everything that
157
has survived is regarded as valuable for the history of broadcasting, if not for its
content.
The development and application of standards is much more difficult when the policy
incorporates such terminology as historical significance, national historic value,
cultural heritage, etc. The intent may be clear, but when the recording is ambiguous
the interpretation of the meaning will vary, and the policy will not be applied
consistently. It is possible to argue, for example, that all television programming is
part of the national cultural heritage because of the size of the audience, and its
measurable impact on political and social development. The extreme view is that
everything that is broadcast is part of the public record, and that just as most countries
in the world have decreed by legislation that at least one copy of every book published
in the country should be deposited in the national library, so one copy of every
programme broadcast should be conserved in archive, organised for access and
retrieval.
Another rationale for this extreme view is the one argued by Henri Langlois, the
founder of the Cinematheque Francaise. Langlois thesis was that the archivist had no
right to play God, to decide which moving images would live, and which would be
lost to posterity. The corollary to this argument is that all judgements are rooted in
contemporary cultural biases, that we are captives of our immediate social and
political environment and incapable of objective assessments on long term value.
That there is merit in this argument is attested to by the FIAT recommendations on
postponing any selection for a number of years.
The problem with the position that the archivist has no right to make choices is that in
the real world, in the absence of a systematic acquisition and conservation
programme, the losses will occur, as they have in the past, only they will be accidental
or arbitrary and probably much more damaging to the cultural heritage. In television,
for example, losses have occurred through deliberate destruction in order to save
storage space as well as through fire and flood, and through the indiscriminate wiping
of videotape for recycling in the production process. If space and the human resources
necessary to organise and protect the acquisitions are limited (and in every archive
connected with FIAF there are limitations, sometimes severe limitations), only a
portion of the total output can be safeguarded. In the absence of a selection policy,
and workable standards, that portion will neither represent the range of programmes
broadcast, nor incorporate the significant milestones in the evolution of broadcasting
that document the history of the industry and/or the history of the nation. The
argument here is that any selection, no matter how flawed by prejudice (assuming the
policy and the standards are the consensus of several minds) is better than no selection
and the hazards of chance.
In developing policy it may be helpful to categorise the output, with the understanding
that the policy will differ from category to category, but with some key policy
decisions, such as those on age or on national production, applying to all categories.
Generally speaking there are two groups of categories; repetitive programming such as
school broadcasts and serial dramas and non-repetitive programming, such as news
and documentaries.
A good example of repetitive programming are the early morning broadcasts designed
for young children. They tend to follow a rigid format, and although the style of
presentation varies from year to year, the content remains roughly the same. Is it
necessary to conserve every broadcast ? If the policy is only to retain representative
examples of such programming, the standard could be to select one broadcast from the
beginning and one from the end of each broadcast season. Of course there is always
158
the chance that the young man in the clown costume might go on to a very
distinguished career in television, or in politics, but the archivist may have to accept
that risk. The same policy and standard might apply to game shows and to talk
shows, especially the type of early morning and late night broadcasts now common in
North America. Presentation and format vary to some extent as does the subject
content, but if the overall assessment is that such documentation is ephemeral (a term
used by librarians to refer to publications that do not warrant retention even though
they are deposited by law such as product warranties, instruction booklets, advertising
brochures, comic strips, etc.), then samples taken at the head and tail of each season
should suffice. Serial dramas, whether prime time (1900-2300 hours) phenomena like
DALLAS, or the telegrams that every country appears to offer in the afternoon and
early evening hours (known as soap operas in North America because of the
sponsors product) are more difficult to assess. The successful series are accurate
reflections of social issues, and they are arguably the most revealing commentaries on
our times. Over the years they have dealt with issues such as divorce, child abuse,
incest, abortion, environmental ethics, feminism versus traditional male/female
relationships, etc. The problems for the archivist is that their real value lies in the
subtle changes that occur from month to month and from year to year. A whole series
is thus considerably more significant as a documentary of the way these issues were
processed by the media than the individual episodes. The policy might be, therefore,
to conserve one series in its entirety, with head and tail examples of other series to
illustrate the number and the range of subject matter. Which series to select should be
determined after consultation with authorities in the field. It is important to note that
where such programming is commercially sponsored, the commercials themselves
may be more important in terms of sociological significance and cultural influence
than the programmes they separate. They are also frequently at the leading edge of the
technology, incorporating computer animation, electronic special effects, and image
manipulation that will only come into general use in television production months, if
not years later. Advertisements for phonograph companies, music videos, are
probably now the most advanced in technique and are so popular in North America
whole networks have been established to exploit them. Examples of all types of
commercials and spot announcements (the public interest messages sponsored by
government authorities and social agencies) should be retained both as separate items
and in the context of the broadcast schedule when a whole days output is recorded.
This is a policy recommended by FIAT to document the overall presentation of
television both for historical purposes (how television was received by the general
audience), and the history of broadcasting. The standard might stipulate that such
opening to closing, all-day recordings be made at least once a year, and at more
frequent intervals if the schedule changes more frequently.
Another aspect of recording for archival purposes is special event coverage (usually a
mixture of live on camera interviews/coverage and filmed or prerecorded inserts) that
lasts for several hours. Election night coverage, for example, falls into this category,
and special events such as major disasters, state funerals, coronations or presidential
inaugurations, national day celebrations, sporting events such as the Olympics or
World Cup football. The policy might be to conserve as complete a record as possible
of such events, both as broadcast, recorded as it is broadcast, and the complete film
and videotape elements that were edited for the broadcast.
Sporting events in general are much more problematical. The policy might be to
retain only championship matches, and such regular season matches that the producers
in the sports department designate as significant. The standard might then be matches
in which records have been set, or which represent milestones in the careers of
important personalities. Any sporting event which becomes a news event (a
159
spectacular racing car crash, a death in a boxing match, a riot in a football stadium)
should be appraised as a news event and,processed accordingly.
The typical broadcast schedule will probably contain other categories that present the
archivist with more difficult choices. The dramatic or comic series, for example, in
which a group of established characters appear each week in episodes that are
designed to stand alone as to plot, but which depend largely on a continuing audience
identification with the leading players. If these series are being offered for sale
abroad, or for re-broadcast within the country, the policy will certainly be to retain
them all in support of these sales. This is an example of a policy imposed on the
archives by external considerations. If there is no potential re-use, however, the
policy may be to be selective, and the standard could then be to retain only sample
episodes of each series selected at random (or the opening the closing episodes of each
season). Another approach, as in the case of continuing dramas, is to seek advice
from the broadcasting and academic community and retain at least one series in its
entirety, perhaps one that has been distinguished by awards, or a substantial quantity
of serious critical comment. If the series continues for several years the way in which
it evolves over time, the type of subjects that are treated, can be very instructive.
The policy with regard to the performing arts on television (theatre, opera, ballet, folk
dance and music, etc.) could be inclusive, particularly if there is a potential for sale or
re-use, and in many cases the broadcasts document the arts in a way that is unique (it
is the way the performance will be preserved) and should be retained for their
documentary value.
All television reflects the society in which it functions, and all programmes in some
way document that society. They are all part of the public record, a concept that
accepts the fact that while the record as presented in any one broadcast may be
incomplete, inaccurate and biased, it is still part of the public perception of the issues
due to the relatively large audience. Based on that concept, the policy with relation to
documentaries, whether or not they are dramatised, should be inclusive. All public
affairs broadcasting should be retained, in much the same way as complete files of
newspapers are held by libraries.
This includes the news as broadcast, but it does not necessarily include all the news
that is filmed or videotaped for broadcast. This is probably the most voluminous
category of material available for television archives, and selection within this
category is certainly the most contentious decision the television archivist can be
asked by make. Standards for selection could concentrate on potential use. If the
material is of such poor quality in terms of images and/or sound, for example, it is
unlikely to meet the physical standards for broadcast and therefore should be
discarded. This standard applies, of course, to news items of marginal value.
Obviously footage of very important events such as presidential assassinations or
major disasters would be retained regardless of the physical quality if it is the only
footage in existence. If the archives holds superior footage of the same event,
however, the redundant inferior footage may be discarded.
The real problem lies in news footage which is marginal in content although
acceptable as to physical quality. Marginal in this sense refers to events that are
essentially ceremonial, formal rituals that take place periodically, like laying a wreath
on the tomb of the unknown soldier, or the opening of the legislative assembly, or a
review of the troops on the national day, etc. These are events that are normally very
well covered by other media (photographs, journalistic accounts, etc.) and the public
record as broadcast may be sufficient. The same is true of footage that relates to
national and international meetings in which arrivals and departures of delegates are
160
recorded but nothing of substance as to the actual deliberation.

whether the event is documented as well in other media.
The test here is
A more difficult policy decision relates to news from outside the country. Most
television broadcasters have contractural agreements with other broadcasters and/or
with news services that result in the continual supply of foreign news stories,
If such news is incorporated in a news or
especially from areas of conflict.
documentary broadcast it should be retained as part of the public record. If the policy
is to be selective on foreign news that is not broadcast at the time it is received, the
question is how much should be retained for its potential use at a later date. It can be
argued that no selection standard with regard to news can be defined, apart from that
of physical quality. This argument holds that it is impossible to assess the potential
use of any news story, regardless of the content, and therefore everything should be
retained. Every television archivist has had the experience of an urgent request for
coverage of the most obscure official, the most innocuous event, because the sudden
prominence of the person or the place involved. These demands are impossible to
predict, and so everything must be retained in order to meet them.
This argument ignores the cost factor in storing, processing, and retrieving the
material. The burden of adding foreign news may overload a system that is barely
capable of the physical and intellectual processing necessary for domestic news. If
choices have to be made it should be preferable to concentrate on domestic news on
the understanding that the foreign news can be obtained from other archives or from
central news services, as required. This may not be as rapid and as convenient. and
may be more expensive, but this has to be balanced against the continuing cost of
maintaining the foreign news on file in the archives.
A form of cost-benefit analysis should be conducted for all archival acquisitions. The
potential for use in the medium and long term future should justify the expenditure
involved in assessing, processing and servicing the material. This is, admittedly,
extremely difficult to do for the reasons stated above (predicting potential use), but an
attempt should be made to justify the costs. To some extent this is another external
consideration that will modify the selection standards, and may affect selection policy.
Budget and storage space can be constraints on the volume of acquisitions and may
force changes in both policy and standards.
In the final analysis each archive must develop its own selection policy and its own
standards. They must first meet the needs of the organisation the archives serve,
whether it be one television station or the state, and be feasible given the resource
with which the archives has to work in terms of personnel, space and money. It
should be clear that whatever policy is adopted will be controversial. It should also be
clear that if everything cannot be safeguarded by the archives it is better to apply a
selection policy and standards so that the losses can be controlled, rather than place all
the material at risk and allow chance to determine what resources will survive ahd
which will be lost.
Footnote *Appraisal and evaluation are two roughly synonymous terms that refer to
judgements on the archival value of documentation.
They can also refer to an
assessment of monetary value, but that is another issue. Appraisal (or evaluation)
normally implies selection. There would be no point to appraisal if everything were to
be acquired. In operational terms appraisal can be defined as the application of
selection policies to assess the archival value of documentation.
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SECTION IV: SELECTION AND APPRAISAL

4.5 RECOMMENDED
FOR PRESERVATION
STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR SELECTION

OF TELEVISION
PROGRAMME
MATERIAL
FIAT Programming and Production

September 1995 Draft
Commission,
FIAT/IFTA
Handbook,
1.1 INTRODUCTION
In an ideal world, all material created for television would be preserved to the highest
possible technical standards and properly documented. In reality, of course, this is not
a practical or even necessarily desirable prospect. Financial, operational and technical
restrictions will influence the amount and nature of material retained. In these
circumstances, selection of material for retention must be subject to a consistent
policy to ensure that no material of potential value is discarded.
Selection policies will vary between different archives, according to their structures
and objectives. These range from the archives and libraries within broadcasting
organisations or independent production companies, to nationally financed bodies.
The aims of selection will thus be preservation of material for both operational and
cultural purposes.
1.2 SCOPE OF MATERIAL
All types of programme material should be covered. Although the emphasis in some
archives will be on transmitted programmes, it is essential that untransmitted material
should be considered for preservation, especially in the areas of news and factual
programmes. It is necessary to have adequate paperwork - it saves time indexing and
finding sequences. It is important to preserve regular samples of complete days of
programme output, as well as regular examples of presentational and commercial
material (advertisements). If you do have untransmitted material you have to have it
accurately documented. The application of selection policies will depend upon the
type of library or archive applying them. For example, the retention of untransmitted
material is particularly applicable to a news library, while the retention of a complete
days output will be more important to a national archive.
It is important to recognise the difference between copies of programmes, or parts of
programmes, as they were completed for transmission and copies of programmes as
they were actually seen by the audience, such as would be obtained by recording them
off-air or offtransmission. These will have different values to different sorts of
archives and different reuse potential, and the archive must work out which is the
most relevant to its purposes in each case.
1.3 TECHNICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
The technical aspects of preserving and storing television material, whatever format it
is recorded on (film, videotape and future possibilities), are detailed and complex. The
FIAT/ IFTA Technical Commission is responsible for detailed recommendations in
this area, but certain key principles must be considered a part of the selection process.
Master film and tape copies should be acquired and preserved wherever possible.
Traditionally, this has meant film originals and submasters (e.g. internegative) and
162
transmission video-tapes (or camera originals for untransmitted material). The

development of digital video tape and disc formats means that, theoretically, the
concepts of master and copy are irrelevant and care must be taken to ensure that
something is preserved.
For reuse purposes a broadcast archive will need to preserve different elements of the
production. A clean feed of the transmission of a live broadcast is necessary. If this is
not possible and only an off-air recording exists (ie. with captions etc) then the edited
transmission items played into the live programme should also be retained. Separate
copies of the sound elements such as music and effects tracks and international
versions are also required.
A major principle of preservation is that master copies should be retained only for
further copying and that duplicates on appropriate formats should be available for
operational purposes, such as viewing or transmission. Discrete inserts within
programmes (e.g. individual news stories) should be treated in the same way.
The need to transfer material due to the obsolescence of a format may also have
implications for selection policy if a need to prioritise is identified.
1.4 SELECTION PROCEDURE
In order to minimise the errors inherent in selection, a wide spectrum of views should
be taken into account as part of the process. Within a television organisation, these
views should include the programme making departments, the sales department and
technical servicing departments. In the context of a national archive it may be
necessary to take into account any statutory or legal requirements.
It is also appropriate in some circumstances to seek views outside the television
organisation.
This could be regarded as essential where the material constitutes a national archive.
In this case, interests represented should include television critics, educational users,
cultural bodies and subject specialists. However it is important that consultation does
not result in too slow and cumbersome a process.
These wide ranging views could be made available through the mechanism of an
advisory committee. It might be more practical for the advisory committee to limit its
debates to policy and leave the application of policy to specific programme material to
the television archive staff, perhaps only considering individual programmes where
difficulties, conflicting opinions and other problems arise.
Each archive should ensure that its policy is communicated to and understood and
accepted by the whole organisation of which it is a part. It should be subject to regular
revision, with any change carefully documented, and the responsibility for the
application of selection policy must be clearly established. The timescale in which
selection is made is also important. Some material can be identified as of long term
archival importance even in advance of transmission and, at the opposite end of the
scale, some material can be discarded very soon after transmission. A large proportion
of output, however, falls between these two extremes.
Financial and operational considerations, such as the need to recycle videotape, may
demand immediate decisions and it is necessary to ensure that material which needs
further evaluation at a later date survives. In general, the greater the time allowed for
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consideration, the more effective the identification of material of long term value will
be, both in terms of reuse potential and historic importance.
There are three important moments at which selections can be made or reconsidered:
immediately after transmission; five years after transmission; and when the
obsolescence of formats demands the duplication of material.
National archives will obviously take a longer term view and will not be concerned
with the operational considerations of broadcasters. For this reason co-operation
between broadcasters and national archives can result in the preservation of material
which may otherwise be discarded.
For most broadcasting organisations, the identification and discarding of material
purchased from outside the company is an important consideration and the nature of
the rights held in certain material will have a bearing on whether or not it is kept.
Where purchased material forms part of a new programme produced by the company,
the new programme should be retained by the company, which should note in its
documentation the rights held in that material. Where the company is planning to wipe
or discard copies of complete programmes purchased from an external source or tapes
containing material acquired from other companies, it should first consider whether it
may in future wish to negotiate for further transmission rights for that material, and
also whether, because of the age of the material, it may be destroying something
which no longer exists in its country of origin. Not having the rights to something is
not an automatic reason to destroy it.
To permit policy to be formulated, developed and systematically applied, it is
necessary to establish a set of selection criteria.
1.5 SELECTION CRITERIA
A list of selection criteria may be as follows:

A. Actuality material of historic interest in all fields.
B. Actuality material as a record of a place, an object or a natural phenomenon.
C. Interview material of historic importance.
D. Interview material indicative of opinions or attitudes of the time.
E. Fictional and entertainment material of artistic interest.
F. Fictional and entertainment material illustrative of social history.
G. Any material, including commercial and presentational, illustrative of the
development of televisual practices and techniques.
(NOTE: Actuality means a moving image recording in which that recorded has not
been specifically arranged to be recorded)
In most, if not all cases, transmitted material should always be kept. However, the
above criteria should also be applied to untransmitted material, though more
importantly for categories A, B, C and D. More than one category may apply to any
one item, though some categories may be of more importance than others. In all cases
the reasons for selection and their relative importance should be recorded. If applied in
the greatest possible detail, these categories could be assigned to individual sequences
or shots as well as to complete programmes or blocks of untransmitted material.
Selection criteria for untransmitted material should take account of the historic value
of the material (the importance of an individual interviewed or a situation recorded);
the uniqueness of certain irreplaceable images (such as a city before a catastrophe or
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ethnologically important material); the uniqueness of material omitted from

transmission for reasons of censorship or taste; the exceptional quality of certain
images; and reuse potential, either as stock-shots or for possible re-editing of the
programme.
2. SELECTION RECOMMENDATIONS
BY GENRE
2.1 NEWS, NEWS ANALYSIS AMD COMMENT, CURRENT ANALYSIS

2.1.1 Characteristics
News, news analysis and comment and current affairs can deal with any kind of
subject. The aim is only to enhance the publics understanding, not to influence the
public opinion or to change attitudes. Esthetic, artistic or educational purposes,
sentiment or personal views of the programme maker are absent. This differentiates
this from other programme genres dealing with similar subjects such as eg. talk shows
(entertainment), educational programmes and documentaries.
2.1.2 Typology
The genre can take on the format of a news broadcast, a current affairs magazine or a
one topic-programme of considerable length. Often interviews, panel discussions, and
statements are added. When comment is added, its origin is carefully stated. The will
to be accurate and unbiased is omnipresent: any mise-en-scene or lack of objectivity
would cause the programme to lose its status.
2.1.3 Selection
Five types of material should be distinguished:
1. Transmission tapes of the programme as broadcast;
2. Edited items;
3. Raw material, often in the shape of camera originals (rushes) untransmitted;
4. EVN -raw material
5. Viewing copies
Transmission
tapes
These tapes should always be archived as a record of the actual broadcast.

Edited items
Edited items should all be archived completely, thoroughly and extensively with the
highest priority. The information should be retrievable within two or three days.
Raw material
This kind of material is often very valuable and very suitable for reuse. Camera crews
and journalists on a larger mission, especially in more or less unusual places and
countries, often shoot extra images. Since the company itself normally owns all the
rights, this material can easily be sold to users outside the company, which is an extra
advantage.
The problem with this kind of material is that it usually arrives in the archive several
weeks, sometimes months after the edited items were transmitted. Moreover the
scope of the material often surpasses the edited items. This means that it should be
archived as a separate entity, independently from the edited items. A good shotlist,
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provided by the journalist or another person from the team is absolutely essential.
This material does not have top priority, but one should attempt to have the
information available in the database within 14 days. It should be archived just as
extensively as an edited item.
The raw material accompanying all daily routine news items should be treated
differently. The news department and the archive together should decide whether or
not the raw material related to the edited news item should be kept. This decision
should be made instantly, enabling the archivist to link the raw material with the data
(keywords) of the edited item with a minimum of extra information added and with
the same priority. Any proposal by the news department. not to archive, can be
overruled by the archive.
EVN - untransmitted
material
One can assume that the company of origin will thoroughly archive and document the
items it has made available to the Eurovision (EVN). Nevertheless easy access to this
material can be of great value for news departments, especially those short of material
shot abroad by their own camera teams. In these cases it is useful to archive the EVN
items or a selection of them as thoroughly as edited news items. Hopefully EVN soon
comes up with a plan for a centralised EVN-database.
Viewing copies of the transmission
The format of viewing copies and their use within the archive depends on specific
company policy.
VHS-copies should be kept as a record of the actual transmission for as long as
company policy or national law or regulations impose.
2.2 DOCUMENTARIES
A documentary is a non fiction audio-visual creation
A documentary is a high quality level of audio and visual representation of reality.
The making of a documentary requires the writing of a script or similar preplanned schedule.
A documentary is not studio based, nor a live transmission.
When there are interviews, in a documentary they are usually edited and may
be used throughout the programme.
A documentary gives a longer and more in-depth view of the subject as
compared to magazine and current affairs programmes.
A documentary usually presents the personal perspective of an author on
reality or facts; if compared to a written work; a documentary would be
classified as an essay.
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2.2.2 Typology
A documentary may cover any aspect of reality; science, history, natural
history, art, industry, society etc.
It can take several forms: story, profile, impressionistic work, monograph on a
country or a town, reporting etc.
Amongst the various forms of realisation it is worth mentioning:
secularised documentaries, referred to as drama documentaries, which
may include some acting;
documentaries based on archive material.
2.2.3 Selection
All transmitted documentaries must be kept because:
They are creative works.
Works can be repeated (in their entirety). Extracts can also be used. However,
secondary usage of documentaries based on archive footage is more delicate if
bought-in inserts have been included.
They are works that bear witness to the environment we live in, the evolution
of society, the behaviour of mankind at a specific time in our history.
The non transmitted material may also be kept, providing it can be
documented.
2.3 TOPICAL. MAGAZINES AND DISCUSSIONS
2.3.1 Characteristics Topical magazines and discussions are programmes which react
to the details and issues of contemporary life in all areas. They are usually studio
based, frequently live and often feature the general .public as well as personalities.
They are often used to convey information about activities. They are always up-todate and are usually presented in long-running or continuous series, with regular
presenters. They are televisions equivalent of the general interest and leisure
magazines found on news stands.
2.3.2 Typology
Topical magazines and discussions include the following:
Studio based programmes featuring interviews and edited reports on a variety
of subjects of general interest.
Magazine programmes devoted to areas of specific leisure interest, such as
travel or motoring.
Arts and entertainment magazine and review programmes.
Daytime magazine programming.
Discussion programmes featuring members of the general public.
Discussion programmes on specific subjects featuring invited experts.
2.3.3 Selection
These are often regarded as ephemeral programmes and can be used to fill large
amounts of air time as cheaply as possible. The material created is rarely re-used,
unless it features the participation of individuals of particular interest, but it can be
amongst the most indicative of contemporary issues and attitudes, and therefore of
long-term sociological interest. It is almost impossible to predict which material will
be of re-use value and long-term interest and therefore the most sensible policy will be
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to retain it all. Arts magazine and review programmes must always be kept as a
record of the history and development of the arts. If selection has to be made, priority
should be given to programmes covering subjects which have had a particularly
significant effect on society and to ensuring that a wide a range of topics is also
covered, while ensuring that all contributions by individuals of historic significance
are retained, including pre-recorded sections in documentary style. Retrospective
selection will be easier. From a distance of five years it will be more obvious which
topics were indicative of their time or which re-appear so often that they either form a
complete collection of interest or can be treated more selectively thereafter.
Selectivity will be easier in the case of leisure magazine programmes, where a
selection of examples may well prove to be satisfactory. Unused footage is rare in this
area of programming, much of which is transmitted live, and is unlikely to be of great
interest other than as stock footage taken from leisure magazine programmes.
Complete versions of significant edited interviews should be considered for retention.
2.3.4 Categories
The main categories to be used will be C and D, depending on the significance of the
participants in any discussions. Arts and leisure magazines may also involve
categories A, B and E and any innovative format will also need to be assigned to
category G.
2.4 EVENTS
Events can be simple transmissions or more elaborate programmes, including
mixture of live recordings and pre-recorded inserts.
2.4.2 Typology
Events include special programmes covering important events: political events such as
elections day or special parliament sessions, transmissions of ceremonies such as state
funerals or weddings, award ceremonies or special events produced by the television
itself such as charity shows or telethons.
2.4.3 Selection and categories
This type of programmes is of historic interest i.e. category A and illustrative of the
development of TV-history - category G. So they are to be retained, without selection,
recorded as they are broadcast, both in national archives for historical interest of the
events covered and as important items in the TV-history. And in TV-stations archives
as historical interest footage to be reused in future programming.
The edited and raw material produced for these programmes is also worth to be
preserved in TV- archives, with the same criteria and standards as news edited or raw
material.
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2.5 DRAMA AND PERFORMANCES

Drama and Performances are fiction created for television or for broadcast by
television.
Drama includes: single plays, series, serials, soaps
Performances includes: theatre, opera, ballet, music, entertainment
A high quality level of audio and visual production - The personal touch of an
artist (author, director, actor, composer, musician, dancer, choreographer etc.)
Programming of Drama and Performances are transmitted one-off or as part of a
series.
2.5.2 Typology
Dramatic works created for television. Live performances adapted for
broadcasting or transmitted by television.
Drama and Performances are reflections of social issues and they are the most
revealing commentaries on our times.
2.5.3 Selection
All transmitted programmes must be kept because:
They are creative works
Works can be are easy to repeat in their entirety. Extracts can also be used.
They are works representing the society we live in; illustrative of the evolution of
society, its behaviour and behavioural patterns at a specific time of our history.
The non transmitted material (raw material) is rare in these categories and unlikely to
be of any interest. Exceptions may be shots of rehearsals.
2.6 ENTERTAINMENT
PROGRAMMES
Programmes in this category are those designed to entertain and amuse. They will
include comic and musical performances.
These are works using the talents of performance artists. They may be a direct broadcast
or recording of an entertainment event eg.. Circus, Cabaret at a club. Otherwise they are
usually studio shows which may include inserts on film (in the past) or more usually
video. They will have been recorded in their entirety on videotape. These programmes
can be live transmissions and in the past they may not have been recorded, or recorded
on film (telerecording).
This type of programming is a significant representation of contemporary popular
culture. It should be valued as such and not regarded as ephemera.
There may well be reuse of extracts as well as complete programme reuse. With the
proliferation of broadcasting outlets - home-video, video on demand, cable, satellite,
more and more channels as a result of digital compression - the potential commercial
exploitation of this type of entertainment programming grows considerably. This may
well dictate that much more material is kept so that increasing number of outlets and
hours of transmission can be filled.
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2.6.2 Typology
Talk/Chat Shows, Variety Shows, Comedy - Stand-up, One-man Shows, Situation
Comedy, Popular Music Shows or Concerts. Quizzes and Game Shows have been
treated as a separate category. This category includes Drama Comedy which can be
made on film as a complete play as well as on video.
2.6.3 Selection
National Archives will need to reflect these types of popular culture, furthermore
broadcasting organisations need to retain this material for repeat, sale and use as stock
shots. Any Archive having to make selection for economic reason must at least cover
the following:
Examples of all types of format and presentation - archived by random
selection of at least the first, last and middle episodes/programmes in a series.
Examples of any developments in format or presentation within a series.
Any programmes that illustrate new technology or production gadgets.
Examples to show plot development - particularly for situation comedy.
Examples of situation comedy which portrays issues of social or broadcasting
significance or make reference to current events.
Programmes which are award nominations/winners or particularly badly
reviewed by critics.
Guests of contemporary fame or significance making appearances in Comedy,
Chat, Quiz, Variety, Music Shows should always be selected.
Guests talking at length about their career or significant events.
If the performance is at an unusual or notable location.
If the programme itself is a significant event eg. U.K. Royal Variety
Performance or Eurovision Song Contest. Visual performances of all top 20
singles from Pop shows should be retained.
2.6.4 Categories
This type of programming would usually be retained under categories D, E, F, G.
2.7 GAME SHOWS AND QUIZZES
Programmes within the category Game Shows and Quizzes may be considered
ephemeral due to the reuse potential and they can often be classified as light
entertainment. They will seldom be re-transmitted as a whole or in parts.
The reason to retain them for preservation - part from the reuse aspect - are the same
as for any other of television programming - for historical reasons. These
programmes are also, as all television programming, part of the public record, part of
the national heritage and reflects the society of which it is a part.
Characteristic for this category of programming is the repetitive form, mostly of a
rigid format. The content remains roughly the same within long series. Even between
countries the concepts of quizzes and game shows are often the same, because the
outlines of such programming are sold between companies.
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2.7.2 Typology
Game Shows, Quizzes - often in connection to a special topic and lottery presentations
and other sorts of gambling.
For gambling in relation to sports, see section
SPORTS.
2.7.3 Selection
A single programme may be of less interest to retain. But for the same reasons the
same element could be of great interest for comparative studies of application of a
concept and make it worthwhile preserving.
Another reason to retain this kind of material for potential reuse is the impossibility to
predict the future prominence of persons involved.
It is impossible to retain all the programming in this category so a selection has to be
made. From the national archive point of view, a selection should be made that
include:
Varied and representative examples of such programming, though within a
series sample episodes could be selected at random.
Examples of any developments in format or presentation within a series.
Any programmes that illustrate new technology or gadgets.
Reflect changes in this kind of programming from time to time
Personalities of contemporary importance and significauce
Even if it is impossible to assess the potential reuse value of such material for the
broadcaster, the above listed selection criteria could also be valid for a broadcasters
internal documentation, especially on the part of participating persons.
Since most of the programming in this area is recorded as live in a studio,
untransmitted footage is unlikely to occur or be of any interest and therefore be
retained.
2.7.4 Categories
This type of programming would usually be retained under categories D, F, G.
2.8 CHILDRENS PROGRAMMES
CHILDRENS programmes may cover all types of programmes eg.. news, sports,
entertainment etc. and all formats eg.. drama, cartoon.
2.8.2 Typology
These are programmes aimed at an audience of children.
inform as do adult programmes.
They will entertain and
2.8.3 Selection
We recommend to preserve all CHILDRENS
company and that has been transmitted.
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programmes produced by, or for the
2.8.4 Categories
These programmes should be retained under categories A to G differing
programme to programme.
from
2.9 PRESENTATION AND COMMERCIALS

2.9. Characteristics
Presentation and commercials are the bits which come between the programmes in a
television stations output, though not all channels transmit commercials. These items
are very brief and are often repeated very many times. Presentation is always
produced by the broadcasting company, even those which otherwise only transmit
acquired material.
Commercials are always produced outside the broadcasting
company and transmitted in return for payment.
2.9.1 Typology The material under consideration includes station identifications and
logos, clocks and test-cards, breakdown and other announcement material, trailers for
forthcoming programmes and newsflashes. It can also include weather forecasts and
news reports. Commercials are a separate issue but will also be considered here. Also
to be considered is the idea of making and preserving broadcast quality recordings of
complete days output or any block of recordings longer than one programme which
show how a channels output was presented on screen.
2.9.2 Selection
Traditionally, a television companys presentational material has suffered the most
archivally. Being largely created live and involving the most ephemeral material it
has been the last thing usually considered for preservation - if at all - and yet it
contains the very essence of a broadcasters or a channels identity and represents
emblems of social history. The very beginnings of many television stations often have
not been preserved.
The best, but not the only way of ensuring the preservation of the sort of material in
question is specifically to record it as it is transmitted. In the case of complete days or
blocks of programming it is the only way. This may be easier for a national archive,
which has time to consider and implement such a policy, rather than for a busy
broadcasting company, which may find other priorities pressing upon it. However, if
the archive has its own broadcast standard recording equipment, it can ensure that the
recordings are made. Archivists need to be pro-active on this issue.
Another reason why this function may be more important to a national archive is that
the material preserved is more likely to be wanted for study than for re-transmission.
The national archive would need the legal right to record transmissions for
preservation purposes, though, and, in countries which have no national archival
provision for television, the companies must fulfil the cultural preservation function
themselves.
Each television company will need to preserve examples of its own station identities
and presentation style. As these are not themselves programmes it can be difficult to
catalogue and identify them and, in the past, they have often survived by being
attached to off-transmission recordings of particular programmes. However, in order
to ensure their adequate preservation they should be properly labelled and easy to find.
This can be achieved by making the complete day or block recordings mentioned
above, which will be sure to include examples of the presentation. Ideally, such
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recordings should be made at least once a month in order to capture all the changes in
style and sufficiently varied examples.
If a national archive is making offtransmission recordings, this may not need to be done so frequently by the
broadcasting companies.
Trailers for forthcoming programmes will be pre-recorded and can be considered for
preservation in the same way as programmes, though the supply of information may
be a problem. Normally, examples of presentation trailers captured by making block
recordings will be enough, but the trailers for some particularly important programmes
or events will need to be separately preserved. The importance of the programme in
question will be a guide to the importance of the trailer. Ideally, innovations in the
style of trailers should also be noted and preserved.
Commercials have, in recent years, come to be regarded as having the same sort of
cultural and social significance as the programmes themselves. They can be more
expensive to make and employ leading film and television directors and stars. They
have their own literature, critical responses and awards and should thus, ideally, be
treated archivally in the same way as programmes.
One problem is that the commercial television companies which screen them have no
right or responsibility to retain copies of them. The producers are the advertising
agencies, who generally have little archival awareness. In these circumstances the
best bodies to preserve commercials would be central bodies set up and funded by
advertising companies, national bodies set up to regulate commercial television,
national archives or specialist archives with legal deposit responsibilities. If national
archives are keeping complete days and blocks of programming from commercial
channels, they will inevitably include much advertising material and, most
importantly, it will be in the context in which it was originally seen.
As for selection of individual commercials, though, it would be safe to say that all
commercials made for national campaigns should be kept and examples of local
advertising chosen to reflect the range of products and services being advertised. All
government and political advertising should be kept, on both a national and local
level.
2.9.4 Categories
In terms of the selection criteria, most of the material considered above will come
under category G. If it is innovative in style, which trailers and commercials in
particular can often be, then category E may apply. Commercials can also be of
enormous interest in terms of social history, though this may only be perceived in
retrospect, in which case category F will also apply.
2.10 EDUCATIONAL
PROGRAMMES
Educational programmes present knowledge and information in all areas of human
experience, eg.. natural sciences, ethnology, religion, art and culture, sports and
media. In this case, educational programmes will overlap as regards content with
other programmes that originally reflect one or more of the above mentioned genres
for entertainment, formation of opinion and information. Unlike these programme
targets, the main emphasis for educational programmes is put forward a didactic
presentation of the chosen theme to impart knowledge. The content becomes virtually
a syllabus.
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By developing new techniques in the media sector educational programmes will

experience a revolutionary development. Using multimedia elements educational
programmes will become hypermedia programmes, which will enable the viewer in an
interactive process to determine individually the knowledge to be imparted its
intensity and the amount of detail. This new programme form will have to be taken
into consideration also for the documentation and storage. Therefore, an intensive and
continuous examination/analysis of these themes has to be done in future regarding
the selection recommendations.
2.10.2 Typology
Educational Programmes are mainly produced in the form of
documentaries
features
presented magazines
production with dramatisation to illustrate the themes
computer-animated programme parts.
Through the different programme forms for the presentation of the educational
programmes as well as the contents, the whole spectrum of human knowledge is
cbvered. Educational Programming is a cross-section of all target groups and
thematic contents.
2.10.3 Selection
Basically all transmitted productions should be retained and documented. Materials,
which were not used for transmission, will only be stored, if
the producer applied for (further production plans are expected)
either the editorial staff informs the archive or the documentalist decides
basing on his experience that the material is unique and irretrievable.
The archive has always the sovereignty over the selection of material. This means that
the archive decides, if the material is for limited or unlimited storage. The archive can
also override the decisions of editorial staff to destroy.
The storage of untransmitted material is only useful, if there is documentation and
with it the access to the reuse of single takes.
Because it is possible to transmit educational programmes in different programme
slots and secondly to up-date and to use these programmes without effort whenever
needed, it would also be profitable to retain as much as untransmitted material as
possible.
Unfortunately, in reality the facts are different. Archival material has not only to be
evaluated and to be stored in the format common at the time when the programme is
produced, all not-used materials rather have to be transferred onto the changing format
standards - and this is an important cost factor.
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2.11 SPORTS
Sports programming invariably constitutes a substantial portion of most societies
television programming. Sports programming represents the most international genre
of television programming with coverage of international events and championships
shared by many countries. At the same time, national sports programming also varies
significantly from country to country and often represents the most indigenous and
original culture of a society. Sports is often the most popular programming carried by
a broadcaster and documents a societys best-known heroes and heroines, and their
exploits. Sports programming has often stimulated technological developments for
television generally and warrants extensive archival preservation.
2.11.2 Typology
Sports programming includes instantaneous coverage of sporting events as they occur,
sports news inserts, sports interview and magazine programs, and sports awards
ceremonies. Sports programming can also be categorized as international sporting
events such as Olympic Games and world championships, national leagues and
events, and local sporting events seen only in parts of a country.
2.11.3 Selection
The quantity and repetitive nature of sports programming requires selection. All
sports programming does not warrant archival retention. However, much sports
programming will have ongoing re-broadcast and potential historical value and does
need to be retained. For selection purposes sports programming can be subdivided
into the categories of: international events, national events, local events, sports news
inserts, and sports ceremonies and documentary/magazine programming.
International events:
International sporting events, both the event as transmitted and untransmitted footage,
should be retained by the country and the broadcaster originating the event.
International sporting events originating elsewhere should be retained as broadcast if
national teams or national figures are represented, if the national broadcaster provides
commentary or context, or if the national broadcaster originates footage from the
international sporting event. A wide selection of interviews with national sporting
figures should be retained as recorded.
National events:
National championships, including play-offs or elimination series, should be retained
as transmitted. For ongoing coverage of a full season of a particular sport a minimum
of one home game per season for each team should be retained. Television coverage
of unique or single events should be retained as broadcast. A wide selection of
interviews with national sporting figures should be retained as recorded.
Local events:
Local championships or unique events should be retained as transmitted. For ongoing
coverage of a local sport a minimum of one home game per season for each sport
should be retained. A selection of interviews with local sporting figures should be
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retained as recorded so that representative documentation exists for all local sporting
figures covered by television programming.
Sports news inserts:
Edited sports news packages should be retained as transmitted for international,
national and local programming.
Often such sports news could, and should be
retained, as part of the news programming generally.
Sports ceremonies:
Sports ceremonies such as opening and closing events for Olympic games and
national championships, awards banquets, player drafts or selections, etc. should be
retained as transmitted. A wide selection of interviews with national sporting figures
should be retained as recorded.
Sports documentaries and magazines:
Sports documentaries and topical magazine programming related to sports should be
retained on the same basis as this genre of programming, generally.
3. NOTES
It is important to ensure the preservation of related documentation and stills connected
with programmes and programme material being preserved. Where these are the
responsibility of different parts of the organisation, there must be liaison to ensure it
happens. Selection should also take account of specific forms of programming which
may be found in several of the genres identified. For instance animation, which may
be used for drama, childrens programming, advertising and so on, should be selected
to ensure that all kinds of animation and the work of individual animators is
preserved.
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5.1 INTRODUCTION
AND INFORMATION
to FIAF CATALOGUING
RETRIEVAL
RULES
Harriet W Harrison, Library of Congress

This manual consists of a set of rules for cataloguing materials held in moving image
archives. Its immediate purpose is to provide a means of facilitating the exchange of
information between and among archives, so that cataloguing records, created in one
archive, may be readily interpreted and understood in another. This goal supports the
basic aims of FIAF, which lists the following goals in Article I of its Statutes and
Internal Rules: to encourage all countries to create and develop cooperation between
its members and ensure international availability of films and documents, to
promote film art and culture and encourage historical research into all aspects of
cinema, and to promote the collection and preservation of films, as works of art
and/or as historical documents.
The creation of catalogues is perhaps the least visible activity of a film archive.
Cataloguing work includes the complex, professional tasks of gathering and arranging
data within system (as well as the creation of those system) upon which the entire
organization and operation of an archive depend. Indeed, accurate, well-organized
descriptions of both filmographic and technical information about an archives
collection serve as the basis for informed preservation, collections development, and
outreach or screening program. They further constitute the key to the use of
collections by scholars, researchers and the general public - both now and for future
generations.
Although not highly visible, professional cataloguing work is expensive, and
archivists have long dreamed of being able to avoid duplication of effort by sharing
completed cataloguing, work, thereby reducing costs. Developments in the related
fields of automation and telecommunication over the last three decades have now
given us the tools through which to bring this dream of shared cataloguing into the
realm of the possible.
History and Development of the FIAF Cataloguing
Rules
When FIAF established its Cataloguing Commission in 1968, the new Commission
set, as its first task, the creation of a compendium of advice on practical cataloguing
matters - including the identification of essential and desirable elements of
information, training requirements for cataloguers, location and technical controls,
machinery and methods, etc.
On completing this background work, the Commission turned, in 1980, to the next
task - that of providing precise rules for the style, content, and format of cataloguing
records. While the members of the Commission recognized that established archives,
many with long-existing formats and cataloguing systems, could not easily abandon
past practices in order to adopt an international standard set of rules, they nonetheless
felt that work on such rules was essential for several reasons:
1) Computerisation and telecommunication costs, which had initially been beyond the
means of most archives, were decreasing rapidly, bringing with them greatly increased
possibilities for effective international cooperation and communication, and effective
cooperation and communication requires the use of standards.
177
2) Developing archives, who were just beginning cataloguing work, were looking to
the Commission to provide them with recognized standards upon which they could
rely.
3) Work to provide international rules for cataloguing moving image material had
already been undertaken by professionals from the related discipline of librarianship.
The results of their work, the International Standard for Bibliographic Description for
non-Book Materials (ISBD(NBM) (London, IFLA, 1977, rev. 1987), had already
achieved recognition among library professionals worldwide.
Relationship of FIAF
Library Cataloguing
Cataloguing
Rules to ISBD (NBM)
and Principles
of
The principles of organization found in the FIAF Cataloguing Rules differ in several
respects from library cataloguing principles as codified in ISBD(NBM).
These
differences stem from the need in moving image archives to describe in one record,
data covering several physical pieces, perhaps bearing different identifying indicia, but
belonging to the same moving image title. These separate physical pieces may be
either copies (in whole or in part) of the original or they may be other manifestations;
there is little of the normal concept for a single, ideally complete, physical unit.
Catalog records for books and other non-archival library materials describe complete
items, usually produced separately, edition-by-edition (or, in some cases, issue-byissue), and thus the records reflect their different bibliographic indicia more or less
faithfully.
This normally means transcribing exactly one title, one sequence of
statements of responsibility, one edition statement, one set of publication details, and
formulating one physical description - per record.
The phenomenon of sets of single details needed per catalog record is also reflected in
archival moving image materials, as when the archive holds only the original in one
copy. Frequently, however, such simplicity is not possible. The moving image
archivist may have several manifestations of a work, each incomplete, but which when
taken together approximate a single whole item. It also may hold in separate physical
items various manifestations that are dependent, e.g. a separate sound track. Thus a
single record may include an original title and original release details, plus associated
variation information, followed by the physical descriptions for the original and later
variations with minor changes all grouped together in a listing, one physical
description after the other.
A moving image archive considers that these sets of multiple details need to be given
in one catalog record: a complete item may be the sum of these parts. Under this
concept the details relating to the original title are the basic part of the record, with
other details added for later variations - even when the original is not in the archive (in
that case a physical description for the original is omitted). All these details are given
whether or not the pieces of film or video material being catalogued actually bear
them. This introduces another major departure from traditional library cataloguing:
the recording of data from reference sources without the contradistinction normally
made between such data (off a chief source or outside the item) and data transcribed
from formal statements on the material. In most cases then, there will be no
bracketing of any data (traditionally signifying a source other than the item itself),
except possibly a word or phrase made up by the cataloguer.
Attention must be called to the multiple physical descriptions the system described
above entails. As mentioned already, not only are different pieces of various versions
accounted for in archival records but also differing copies: negative and positive
copies, master and viewing copies, etc. A film and/or television archive can have as
178
many as forty or fifty physically separate items, all of which are essential parts of a
single feature film. All elements must be described accurately and carefully, with a
shorthand which draws component parts of negatives, masterpositives, sound tracks,
prints, etc. together and provides a quick method for comparing each set, one with the
other. This interrelationship is expressed by providing multiple lines of physical
description, each arranged in a standard manner.
Edition/version/variation
As has been explained above, the incorporation of variation information into a record
enables this one record to carry within it all the details relative to the differing
components of a whole. This technique is not used for every case of different
editions, versions, or variations. A detailed explanation follows.
It is essential to users of archival moving image material that information describing
the original item and information describing the item in hand are presented in a
manner that clearly delineates this relationship. The relationship in library terms is
described as the concept of edition. For moving image materials, the terms most
analogous to edition are versions with major changes and variations with minor
changes. Separate editions of printed library materials are catalogued separately, and
usually no attempt is made to determine whether edition statements always indicate
major changes in content. In moving image archives, both the occurrence of a change
in the content and the extent of the change are important. In most cases, for moving
image materials, the changes are a function of some form of editing.
Versions with major changes. If the cataloguing agency has determined that the
item in hand differs significantly from the original work, i.e., major editing has been
done, the item is described in a separate cataloguing record. The item in hand is
designated a version of the original work with major changes, e.g., short version,
classroom version, etc., and the distribution information for the separate version is
recorded. The relationship to the original work is indicated in the edition/version
statement, and, in most instances, in a note. Distribution information relating to the
original work may also be indicated in a note.
Variations with minor changes. When the cataloguing agency determines that an
item, although designated as being reedited, e.g., a new edition, has not indeed been
changed significantly, it may express this relationship recording the statement of
responsibility for the original in area one, the variation and statement of responsibility
for the variation in area two, and the production, distribution information for both the
original and variation copies in area three. Multiple edition/version/variation
statements may be given when cataloguing multiple variations with minor changes.
Choice of original release title in country of origin as main entry
The manual includes prescriptions and guidelines for the choice of main and added
entries, which can act as index or access points to the cataloguing record. Of these,
the single most important access point - around which the entire bibliographic
description is arranged - is the main entry. These rules follow the precepts already
outlined in Film Cataloguing by defining main entry as the original release title or
broadcast title in the country of origin, i.e., the country of the principal offices of the
production company or individual by whom the moving image work was made.
Owing to the complex interrelationships of persons and corporate bodies in the
creation of a moving image work, the original release or broadcast title is chosen as
the single element which can provide the level of consistency and standardization
requisite for any national and international networking or sharing of cataloguing data.
179
Variant titles, e.g., translated titles, rerelease or reissue titles, titles on the item or
accompanying material, etc., are noted, and linking references from variant titles to
the original release title are provided.
Because, however, it is not always possible for a cataloguer to determine an original
release title, the rules also provide guidelines for choice of main entry when either:
the concept of original release title is not applicable (as in the case of unedited
footage, or when a cataloguer is unable, through research, to determine the original
release title.
Research and chief source of information
Owing to the mutable nature of film and video materials, some amount of research
must almost always be performed to identify and verify the original release title
accurately. Titles can be readily changed, misidentified by a well-meaning collector,
or completely eliminated before moving image material reaches an archive. Archival
cataloguing should include a complete filmographic description of the original work
expressed as exactly as possible. The chief source of information is not always the
item itself, but may also include the standard and specialised reference works
consulted by the cataloguer.
These rules are not intended to provide instructions on conducting intensive film and
television research because the assumption is made that cataloguers are familiar with
both the principles of cataloguing and with film and television information. Instead
the rules provide guidance in organising information obtained by viewing the material
and by examining accompanying material and other sources, for example by
prescribing that the source of the title be carefully documented in the notes area.
Choosing a form of name for added entries and providing
subject access.
These rules provide guidance concerning the types of names to be chosen as

additional access points, but exclude provisions for choosing the forms these names
should take. For guidance in choosing between various forms of names, the use of
appropriate existing national or international standards are recommended eg. IFLAs
Form and Structure of Corporate Headings and/or the Anglo American Cataloguing
Rules 2nd ed., etc. Following already recommended standards for the form of name
in chosen access points will enable data to be shared more widely through existing
national and international bibliographic information systems, while at the same time
addressing the special needs of archives through an organisation of the description
according to archival principles.
In the same way, the rules include guidance for describing the content of a moving
image work, but do not address issues related to providing subject access. Subject
indexes may be provided through the assignment of classification numbers from
standardized classification schemes such as the Universal Decimal Classification
(UDC) through the assignment of natural language terms from standardized thesauri,
or, in the case of automated records, through the use of software designed to index and
retrieve words (either singly or in a variety of combinations) already found in the
catalog record. The international standardization of subject access for moving image
archives remains an issue for discussion and future work by the Commission and other
interested moving image archivists. While certain types of subject access may be
appropriately handled through classification schemes and thesauri borrowed from
other fields (thus reaping the advantages noted above in sharing standards for form of
name), the creation of thesauri for other types of subjects, such as film and television
180
genres, film schools and movements, etc., will

cataloguing and subject specialists in our own field.
require additional
work
from
Copyright
Because national and international copyright regulations for moving image materials
govern not only the copying of materials for subsequent use, but also the screening
and/or viewing of such materials. Information concerning copyright ownership is
considered of paramount importance to most film and television archives. These rules
introduce a separate area - area four - for the recording of information about the
copyright status of moving image materials. The rules include provisions for
recording both original and current copyright ownership, as well as for indicating
when the cataloguer has not been able to find any information concerning copyright
status. Since copyright issues are complex legal matters, some archives prefer to
maintain separate legal files, or sometimes even to leave the resolution of copyright
issues entirely to the responsibility of the user or client. For these reasons, the use of
the copyright area has been designated optional.
Alternatives
and options
Certain of the individual rules or parts of rules in this manual are introduced by the
words, alternatively or optionally. Optional provisions arise from the recognition
that different solutions to a problem and different levels of detail and specificity are
appropriate in different contexts. Some alternatives and options should be decided as
a matter of cataloguing policy for a particular catalogue or archive and should
therefore be exercised either always or never. Other alternatives and options should
be exercised case by case. It is recommended that all cataloguing archives distinguish
between these two types of options and keep a record of their policy decisions and of
the circumstances in which a particular option may be applied.
The necessity for judgment and interpretation by the cataloguer recognized in these
rules. Such judgement and interpretation may be based the requirements of a
particular catalogue or upon the use of the items being catalogued. The need for
judgement is indicated in these rules by phrases such as if appropriate, if
important and if necessary. These indicate recognition of the fact that uniform
legislation of types and sizes of catalogues is neither possible nor desirable, and
encourage the application of individual judgement based on specific local knowledge.
This statement in no way contradicts the value of standardization. Such judgments
must be applied consistently within a particular context and must be documented by
the individual archives.
1. SCOPE, PURPOSE AND USE OF FIAF CATALOGUING
RULES
1.1. Scope
The FIAF Cataloguing Rules specify requirements for the description and
identification of archival moving image materials, assign an order to the elements of
the description, and specify a system of punctuation for that description. They are
designed for use by moving image archives as a guide in the preparation of
cataloguing records and as a standard for the exchange of bibliographic or
Their provisions relate to the bibliographic records of
filmographic information.
moving image materials for generalized film and television archives, and may require
elaboration in more specialized archives whose holdings are exclusively of a single
format or type, e.g., commercials, newsfilm, unedited footage, etc. Moving image
materials include a range of documents upon which sequences of visual images have
181
been recorded or registered and which create the illusion of movement when
projected, broadcast, or played back (by means of a television set or equivalent
device). such images may, or may not, be accompanied by sound. The definition
includes motion pictures and videorecordings of all types, e.g., features, shorts, news
footage (whether film or video), trailers, outtakes, screen tests, educational and
training documents, experimental or independent films or video, study films or video,
harm movies, unedited materials, television broadcasts, commercials, and spot
announcements. It also covers both live action and animation.
The FIAF Cataloguing Rules are based upon the prescriptions found in the
International
Standard Bibliographic
Description
for Non-Book
Materials
on
on:
IFLA
International
Office
for
UBC,
1977,
rev.
1987)
in order
(ISBD(NBM)) CL d
to achieve as much standardization as possible with the guidelines and principles of
the international library community. They do, however, differ in several important
ways, owing to differences between the way in which library materials and archival
moving images are produced and distributed. In its preliminary notes, the first edition
of ISBD(NBM) states that its definition of non-book materials applies for most part
to materials published in multiple copies. As regards the materials held by moving
image archives, the situation is often quite different. owing to the ease with which
moving image documents may be altered and copied in a variety of formats, copies are
often made in response to specific orders rather than in anticipation of demand. Thus,
production of copies on a one-for-one basis is not at all unusual and is particularly
characteristic of archival preservation activities. The ease with which the documents
can be altered (erased, cut, spliced, resequenced, etc. for repair or other deliberate
purposes) has led to the situation, common in archives, where there are few, if any,
examples of ideal copies, i.e., complete items, usually produced separately editionby-edition or issue-by-issue (i.e., printing-by-printing).
Archival cataloguing for moving images has therefore centered around the
construction of unitary cataloguing records based upon the description of an ideal
original release, coupled with the elaboration of details which describe the variations
represented in the holdings of archives. This principle leads to differences in the rules
for principal or prescribed source, concepts of edition and version, and in the
necessity for performing research in addition to examining items as prerequisite for
the creation of bibliographic records. These differences are reflected in the rules.
1.2. Purpose
The primary purpose of the rules is to aid in the exchange and international
communication of bibliographic data for moving image documents held international
held in archives throughout the world. This purpose is very similar to and supports
that outlined in ISBD(NBM) (2d ed.):
to (A) make records from different sources interchangeable, so that records produced
in one country can be easily accepted in library catalogues or other bibliographic lists
in any other country; (B) assist in the interpretation of records across language
barriers, so that records produced for users of one language can be interpreted by users
of other languages; and (C) assist in the conversion of bibliographic records to
machine-readable form.
It is for this reason that every effort has been made to parallel ISBD (NBM) wherever
possible, particularly as to the prescribed order of elements and as to punctuation.
182
1.3. Use
The FIAF Cataloguing Rules are intended to provide a framework for the maximum
amount of descriptive information required in a range of archival cataloguing
activities existing in a great variety of national and local environments. The elements
listed in the outline of areas and elements are therefore divided into two categories,
mandatory (if applicable) and optional. The elements listed as mandatory should be
considered the minimum necessary for the effective exchange of bibliographic
information, and archives are encouraged to include as many of the optional elements
as goals and circumstances permit.
This set of rules is intended to cover rules for description and bibliographic access;
subject access to the materials is not addressed, nor are rules presented for
standardized personal and corporate names. For guidance in these areas, archives
should refer to national or multinational cataloguing codes, such as the AngloAmerican Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. and to International Federation of Library
Associations (IFLA) publications, such as Form and Structure of Corporate Headings
(London: lFLA International Office for UBC, 1980).
2. Order of the elements of description
The order of the elements of description is based as closely as possible upon the order
prescribed in ISBD(NBM). El ements are grouped into the following areas:
Title and statement of responsibility Edition/version/variation
Production, distribution, etc.
Copyright statement
Physical description
Series
Notes
183
SECTION
V DOCUMENTATION
and INFORMATION
5.2 The Special Problems of Cataloguing
RETRIEVAL
Moving Images in an Archive
Harriet W Harrison
From Four Tasks of Film Archives - Records of the International
(Tokyo 1990)
Film Symposium
This is about cataloging in film archives. We start first by defining the word catalog
and then talk about the differences, between cataloging traditional library material,
and cataloging film and video (i.e. moving image) materials, followed with some
information about the work of the FIAF Cataloguing Committee. Next we will talk in
a more practical way about the various aspects of cataloguing works and then we will
finish with a short paragraph about the use of computers in cataloging activities.
Film archives help to preserve the heritage of moving image materials and in making
this heritage available for future generations to study and enjoy. Within the mix of
tasks required to enable us to carry out our mission, the task of cataloging is central,
for the archives catalog is the key which unlocks the collections of an archive and
makes them available to staff and users alike.
What is a catarog?
The catalog is an information tool which:
1) lists the assets or holdings of an archive,
2) describes these materials in more or less detail, and,
3) provides answers to questions about the materials.
The work of cataloging itself is the complex task of gathering, organizing and
arranging data (information) to create shorthand surrogates for documents. The
shorthand surrogates must contain enough information both to identify the
documents they represent and to relate them to other documents which have some
characteristic or characteristics in common. Access to the surrogates or catalog
records is dependent upon the arrangement of the records and upon the types, of
indexes made, either manually or in a machine environment. Thus, cataloging work
also includes the creation of information systems upon which the entire organization
and operation of an archive depends.
The differences
materials
between
cataloging
books
and
cataloging
moving
image
Catalogs are particularly important for the work of film archives, owing to the
physical characteristics of film and video materials. Unlike books, the materials we
collect are fragile, easily damaged through even normal use, and prone, to physical
deterioration. In quantity, our materials are often bulky. heavy, not easily handled nor
particularly portable. Researchers cannot browse through them as they can through
books glancing at title pages, indexes and tables of contents to find out whether or not
a particular item is wanted or may be useful. Indeed, both film and video materials
often lack these handy identifying sources of information.
Moreover, special
equipment (such as projectors, editing tables or VCRs) are required for even casual
viewing.
184
Besides physical characteristics, the work of creating film and video documents is
more complex than that typical of the creation of printed documents involving not just
writers, but instead large numbers of persons or groups who bear only partial
responsibility for their creation. In addition, patterns of production and distribution
differ markedly from those which typify the book market, where hundreds of identical
copies may be produced and marketed at a single time. Since our materials may be
copied, edited, or changed quite easily, the copies or parts of copies we hold in our
archives normally differ from one another in ways which serve to complicate the task
of organizing and describing (ie. cataloging) them.
All this has meant that the rules and techniques designed by librarians and archivists
over centuries of experience in cataloging written and printed documents, are not
adequate for archivists of moving image materials. Whereas book librarians normally
choose to arrange their records around the names of authors, utilising these names as
the central organizing point for catalog records, film archivists, whose holdings are
normally of complex authorship, prefer to organise their records around the titles of
works. Specifically, film archivists have chosen to organize their cataloging records
around the concept of original title. The practice is in response to the problems
created by the fact that copies of moving image documents frequently differ from one
International
another, and is commonly referred to as cataloging the work.
standards for cataloging books, on the other hand, permit a simpler practice of
transcribing information as it is found on the title page of the document being
described. This practice is known as cataloging the item. These differences have
broad implications for the ways in which we organize our materials and arrange our
work activities.
The work of the FIAF Cataloguing
Commission
Since its establishment in 1968, the FIAF Cataloguing Commission has taken as its
central responsibility, the task of studying the differences between film archives and
libraries, of understanding the implications of these differences for cataloging work,
and of creating both rules and systems of practices which can guide film archives in
their work. Our first publication, Film Cataloging, was a manual which sought to
provide a set of general guidelines for organizing materials in archives and creating
catalogs. My first assignment on the Commission was to edit this work and prepare it
for publication.
Once the manual, Film Cataloging, was completed, our next task became the
preparation of a rules code, based in part on the already published rules codes of the
International Federation of Library Associations, but designed specifically to meet the
needs of film archives. The work took our Commission nearly ten years to complete,
for the review processes were extensive. Also, we have only eight members, all of
whom must work first for our own archives, and can only work for FIAF during free
time. meeting together no more than once each year. The new FIAF Cataloging Rules
for Film Archives will be published this year by K.G. Saur in Munich.
Aspects of cataloging work
Next, we will turn to the practical aspects of cataloging work, and I will show you a
few examples of films which illustrate cataloging problems and demonstrate how the
work of the Commission recommends solving them.
Beginning steps - The first step in handling collections received by an archive is to
find out what the materials are. Ideally, this should be accomplished through a careful
examination of the item including a complete viewing of it, done on a machine which
185
permits stopping without causing damage to single frame or image for the purpose of
making notes the copying information. This viewing should then be coupled with
research into secondary documents such as scripts, scenarios, cameramens work
sheets, publicity materials, stills, published catalogs or filmographies, etc.
In practice, the amounts of material received by archives at any one time are often so
large that shortcuts must be found which permit an initial identification and
organization of materials without requiring extensive expenditures of research or
viewing time. The use of a multiple pass approach in which brief preliminary records
may first be created by technicians;, followed later, and at a somewhat more deliberate
pace, by careful research and analysis performed by professional staff, has often
proved to be a useful way of resolving this problem.
At a preliminary level, FIAF recommends the gathering of information (data
elements) which can be ascertained without actually having to view an item on a
machine. The basic elements which way be obtained in this way are;
1 title (from label, leader etc.)
2 generation (eg.. original negative, duplicate negative, masterpositive, viewing
COPY)
3 number or items held
4 length (estimated)
5 width or gauge
6 color status
7 sound status,
8 source and date of acquisition
9 archival location
For archive location, FIAF recommends the use of continuous numbers; to be used for
categories which may be chosen upon the basis of storage requirements for different
formats and sizes of materials. If this is not done and location is instead tied to the
number of a shelf in a particular storage area, serious problems arise when collections,
must be moved.,
Cataloging -- Once preliminary identification and accessioning has been achieved,
materials may be chosen and priorities set for cataloging. Cataloging may be done on
a range of options from very full to quite basic, again depending upon: 1) the aims and
goals of the archive, 2) the needs of users, 3) the relative importance of the materials
being described, and 4) the cataloging resources available to the archive. Information
gathered at this stage should be verified through a careful examination (viewing) of
the moving image document being cataloged, coupled with secondary research to
verify or expand the information found on the document. The information gathered
by the cataloguer may be stored in separate files or may be added to the previously
created preliminary record, updating and expanding it as necessary. In the latter case,
each record in the file should specify whether it is a preliminary or a verified catalog
record.
The types of data recorded on catalog records may be divided into four categories:
1
2
3
4
bibliographies
physical
archival control
subject
186
Bibliographic information consists of facts about the work and its creation, eg. title(s),
names of persons and groups who are responsible for its creation coupled with the
functions performed by each, and date, and locations of production/distribution.
At a
very minimum FIAF recommends the recording of the following types of
bibliographic data:
original title
country of origin
director
production company
year of production and/or release
language conditions
Let us look at the first film example. It is a video copy of an early silent film from the
Library of Congress. Example I shows a sample preliminary cataloging record and on
II, a sample full-level cataloging record for this film, formatted according to the FIAF
Cataloging Rules.
Example I:
JIMMY
Archival positive: 2 reels of 2 (ca. 1900 ft.) ; 35 mm. N., b&w, si. /IJSW NPA
4732-4733
Source of acquisition: Received 1968- 11-27 as a gift from the American Film
lnstitute who acquired the film from Joseph Franklin.
187
.ll~-ll-l_..-
.. ..- .-.....-
-.-_,-
---
_-
Example II
JIMMY / by T.H. Ince and R.V. Spencer. US: Domino Motion Picture Corporation,
[producer, distributor], 19 14. Copyright US: no registration.
Viewing print: 2 reels of 2 (1853 ft.); 35mm,: S., b&w, si. AISW FEA 3761-3762.
Duplicate negative: 2 reels of 2 (1853 ft.); 35 mm. S., b&w, si. / USW FPA 17551756.
Archival positive. 2 reels of 2 (703 ft. inc.); 35 mm. : N., b&w, si, / USW NFA
4732-4733.
NCN057623: Domino Jimmy; deteriorated portions cut from both reels, 1976- 08
&1984-05.
Summary: Jimmy, a newsboy is the sole support of his mother and crippled sister,
Mary. His mother reads of the arrival of in the city of Dr Lobel, a noted European
surgeon, and his offer to treat a number of patients at a free clinic. She and Jimmy see
this as a chance in a lifetime to have Mary cured. Mary is taken to the hospital and
while Jimmy is holding her place in the line of waiting patients , the surgeon
announces that he will not have time to treat more patients as he has to leave at once
to catch the steamship to return to Europe. Jimmy, deeply disappointed, pleads with
the surgeon. Dr Lobe1 telephones the officials of the steamship and persuades them to
hold the vessel for a half hour. After the operation, the doctor rushes to the pier in
time to see the vessel steaming down the bay, but the captain of a tugboat near at hand
loads the party into his boat and succeeds in overtaking the steamship.
Reviewed in.. Moving,Picture World, v.22, p.404
Source of acquisition. Nitrate received: 1968-l l-27 as a gift from the American Film
lnstitute who acquired film from Joseph Franklin; safety copies made by the American
Film Institute at Movielab and given to the Library: 1970-02-27.
Access points
1. Newspaper carriers - Drama. 2. Crippled children - Drama.
Subjects.
3. Surgeons - Drama. 4. Operations, Surgical - Drama. 5. Clinics - Drama. 6.
Ocean Liners - drama. 7. Tugboats - Drama.
Genres.
1. Medical films and programs. 2. Drama
I. Ince, Thomas H., direction, production. II. Spencer, R.V., direction,

Added.
production III. Domino Motion Picture Corporation IV Domino Jimmy. V.
API/Franklin, Joseph collection (Library of Congress)
Physical information consists of facts about the item as an object, its various
properties and technical characteristics and conditions.
At a minimum, FlAF
recommends the recording of the following types of physical data:
188
number of items comprising the work/number of items held

length (in feet or meters)
gauge or width
color status
sound status
film base
degree of completeness
any serious, defects
Archival control information consists of facts about when, how, and from whom an
item was acquired. Essential elements are:
date of acquisition
source of acquisition
method of acquisition (es.. . gift, deposit, purchase, exchange, etc.)
Subject information describes the intellectual or artistic content of a work. This is
generally achieved through the writing of a summary (or abstract) which outlines the
plot. subject, or nature of the work - including genres, themes, events depicted, their
time periods, and locations. Access to content information may he provided through
the use of hierarchically structured classification schemes, through relationally
structured lists of standardized terms (i.e. thesauri), or, in a computer environment,
through the use of various combinations and permutations of key-word searches.
Let us look now at another example, again an early silent film from the Library of
Congress, Lawrence Mills which poses a somewhat different problem. Examples III
and IV show preliminary and full level records for this film.
Example III: SAMPLE PRELIMINARY
LAWRENCE
CATALOGING
RECORD
MILLS
Viewing Print; 1 reel of 1 (ca. 75 ft..); 16mm : S., b&w, si. / USW FLA 1608.
Duplicate negative: 1 reel of I(ca. 75 ft.) ; 16 mm : S., b&w, si. / USW FRA 4805.
Archival positive. 1 reel of 1 (Ca. 75 ft.) ; 16 mm. - S., b&w, si. / USW FRA 4086.
Source of acquisition: All copies received 1959-03-23 from USDA lab, they replace
3 5 mm. nitrate original material which was received 1947-03-2 1 as a purchase from
the George Kleine estate. Following copying, the nitrate was destroyed.
189
Example IV SAMPLE FULL LEVEL CATALOGING
RECORD
[LAWRENCE MILLS, Lawrence, Mass.] - US : Thomas A Edison. Inc. [producer,

distributor, 1912?] - Copyright: US : registration unknown.
Viewing print: 1 reel of 1 (67 fi,) ; 16 mm. : S., b&w, si. / USW FLA 1608.
Duplicate negative: 1 reel of 1 (57 ft.) ; 16 mm. S., b&w, si. USW FRA 4085.
Archival positive; 1 reel of 1 (67 ft,) ; 16 mm,. S., b&w, Si, USW FPA 4086.
Title from leader; no inter-titles.
Production and distribution information from the corporate papers of the George
Kleine Company in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Summary: A factual film, possibly of strike activities in Lawrence, Mass., during the
textile strike of January - March 1912, led by the industrial workers of the world. A
large crowd of people hurry away from a factory and across a bridge. A group of boys
stand to one side of the bridge near the camera. As the crowd thickens, the people
move more slowly, and a man can be seen passing out leaflets. The crowd thins
again, and another man can be seen wearing a placard bearing the inscription
Shepards Pictures. Filmed from a single camera position.
Source of acquisition. All copies received 1959-03-23 from USDA lab; they replace
35mm nitrate original materials which was received 1947-03-23 as purchase from the
George Kleine estate. Following copying the nitrate was destroyed.
Access points
1. Textile workers Strike, Lawrence, Mass., 1912. 2. Strikes and
Subjects
lockouts - Textile Industry - Massachusetts - Lawrence. 3. Textile workers Massachusetts, Lawrence. 4. Textile factories - Massachusetts, Lawrence.
Genre: 1. Actualities
Added Entries 1 Thomas A Edison, inc. II Kleine, (George) collection Library of
Congress
Designing a cataloging system

Although manual systems for cataloging have existed in archives practically since the
beginning of their existence, these days, when one thinks of cataloging systems one
automatically thinks of computers. Today a wide range of alternative hardware and
software configurations exist which may he adapted for use in film archives. The
choice. of a system should be based upon a careful analysis of 1) the information
needs and goals of the archive. and 2) the flexibility and capacity of the proposed
system to supply these needs. Software/hardware factors which should be taken into
account include: main memory capacity; limitations on file, record and field length;
indexing and searching capabilities; system security; ease of use for input and update;
system maintenance and support by supplier; capabilities for importing and exporting
records and for supporting computer format standards, etc. The Cataloguing
Commission has prepared a short paper to help archives who are planning to purchase
and introduce computers into their cataloging work. (See Section VI: 6.1 for further
detail).
To close let us look at our last film example. It is a compilation film made to
celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Directors Guild of America: Precious Images.
Example V shows a preliminary cataloging record for this film, while Example VI
shows a more complete. but still not full-level record.
190
Example V: SAMPLE PRELIMINARY
CATALOGING
RECORD
PRECIOUS IMAGES
Projection print. 1 reel of 1 (538 ft.), 35 mm. S., col. and b&w, sd. / SE 17854
Source of acquisition: Received 1987-02-l 2; deposited by the Directors Guild of
America.
Example VI: SAMPLE CATALOGING
RECORD (not full-level)
PRECIOUS IMAGES/ produced and directed by Clark Workman; [function

undetermined], Robert Wise, David Shepard; assistant editor John Santos ; production
assistance Lois Anne Polan, Denise Marie Heffley, Victoria Stevenson. - US .
Directors Guild of America, 1986. -- (C): US : Directors Guild of America, Inc. DCR
1986 PUB 188cp 186: REG 30ct89; PA455-223.
Projection print: 1 reel of 1 (538 ft.) ; 35mm. : S., col. and b&w, sd, / SE17854
Projection facilities: B/G/L Post, Calliope Films, Cinema Research, Consolidated
Film Industries, Deluxe laboratories, Inc., Sound West, Inc., Todd AO.
Surnrnarv Short segments of approximately 200 feature films edited together to
produce a collage of film memories in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the
Directors Guild of America.
Source of acquisition; Received: 1987-02- 12; deposited by the Directors Guild of
191
-
-.
and INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL
5.3 Final Report on the Minimum Level of Description of a Sound Recording for
an entry in a Catalogue or a Discography August 18,1988
Mary McMullen.
Co-Ordinator (1986- 1988) of the IASA Discography/Cataloguing Working Group to
Investigate the Minimum Data Elements to Describe a Sound Recorded Event
Presented at the IASA Conference, Vienna, 1988
The Working Group believes that for such a report to be of practical use, it should be
kept as simple as possible.
The following data elements are considered to be required in a minimum level
description for a sound recorded event (and it should he noted that even so, the words
if applicable, if readily available and as appropriate follow many of the data
elements in the list):
1. Title (may be abbreviated if long, or subtitle may be omitted)
2. Responsibility (name(s) of creators of the work which has been recorded)
3. Major participants and their functions (name(s) and functions, voices or
instruments of the major participants who are heard on the recording)
4. Date and place of original recording (if readily available)
5. Date of broadcast (if applicable)
6. Date of release (if applicable
7. Label (if applicable)
8. Catalogue (i.e. issue) number (if applicable)
9. Matrix number (if applicable)
10. Broad physical description (including number of units and speed) e.g. 1 reel, 15
ips; 2 discs, 78 r-pm
Additional,
for unpublished
materials:
11. Name of Collection (as appropriate)

12. Series in the Collection (as appropriate)
13. Terms of use
192
LIST OF DATA ELEMENTS FOR CATALOGUING
SOUND RECORDINGS
Title
Program Title
Series Title
Uniform Title
Names (incl. types of functionsrelated to those names. eg:
Composer,
Author
Librettist
Artist
Orchestra
Medium of performance (eg Violin)
Name of Broadcasting Service/Station
Name of Broadcaster
Other information related to names:
Voice (eg Soprano)
Character/Role (eg Aida)
Contents listing (e.g. list of track on an LP)
Summary (eg Synopsis of text/interview)
Language
Label
Catalogue Number
Matrix Number
Shelf Location
Location of other copies
Physical Description
Format (e,g. disc, tape, etc)
Speed
Size
Mono/Stereo
Analogue (recording)
Digital (recording
Analogue (mix)
Digital (mix)
Analogue (replay)
Digital (replay)
Duration
Technical Quality
Sound quality
Physical Condition
Place of Recording
Recording Date
Broadcast Date (first date of broadcast)
Copyright holder
Embargo
Copyright
Royalties
Obligations accruing from acquiring the recording
Date of Entry
Name of Person who entered the entry to the system
193
-.-
and INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL
5.3.1 IASA CATALOGUING RULES FOR AUDIO-VISUAL MEDIA

DOCUMENTATION
COMMITTEE
PUBLICATION PROJECT
CATALOGUING
AND
Mary Miliano, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia

Report to the Open Session of the IASA Cataloguing & Documentation Committee
IAML/IASA/IAMIC
Conference, Helsinki
1.
Background
In 199 1 FIAF published The FIAF Cataloguing Rules for Film Archives compiled and
edited by Harriet Harrison for the FIAF Cataloguing Commission. It is a set of rules
for cataloguing materials held in moving image archives and its immediate purpose is
to provide a means of facilitating the exchange of information between and among
archives so that cataloguing records created in one archive may be readily interpreted
and understood in another archive. This goal supports the basic aims of FIAF as set
out in Article I of its Constitution. The need for these rules were for the following
reasons:
Computerisation and telecomunication costs were decreasing rapidly, therefore
1.1
increasing the possibilities for effective international co-operation and communication
in turn requiring the use of standards;
Developing archives, who were just beginning cataloguing work, were looking
1.2
to the Commission to provide them with recognised standards upon which they could
rely;
ISBD (NBM) had already achieved international recognition among library
1.3
While its rules, directed as they were to generalised
professionals worldwide.
collections of widely available audio-visual materials, did not solve the technical and
scholarly information needs of moving image archives, they could serve as a model
for FIAF upon which it could build and develop a set of cataloguing rules which
addressed basic principles of archival moving image cataloguing.
2.
IASA Cataloguing
Rules proposal
During the 1992 IASA/ASRA Conference in Canberra, the notion of publication of

IASA Cataloguing Rules came into sharp focus through the Open Board Session and
later in the IASA Board/Committee OfficersiNAOC meeting.
In the following months we decided to hold a one day pre-Conference Symposium at
the 1993 Helsinki Conference to discuss this proposal.
3.
Helsinki Pre-Conference
Symposium
We held the Symposium on Sunday 8 August and it was open to all interested. 15
persons from 7 countries attended. Two working papers were circulated at the
session:
A Preliminary Issues discussion paper by Mary Miliano; and cut outs in
provisional [English] transcription of the ONORM A 2653 : Formale Erfassung
audio-visueller Medien = Cataloguing of audio-visual media prepared by members of
AGAVA.
194
In addition, the recently finalised danbib-format,

Symposium.
version 1.0 was tabled at the
In summary, the Symposium was informed of the issues addressed by the GNORM
A2653 and the meeting agreed with the points raised in the first section of the
Preliminary Issues paper for the scope of the IASA Cataloguing Rules. Some small
amendments and additions were made to these. The details agreed on are as follows:
4.
Scope of the proposed IASA Cataloguing Rules

The rules are to:
4.1
complement other international standards (e.g. AACR2, ISBD, MARC );
draw on existing national and institutional concepts and solutions, etc. (e.g
4.2
GNORM A2653 (Austria) and RAK (Germany,) as well as cataloguing rules from
France, Spain, Australia, etc.);
4.3
support use of computers, exchange (and sharing) of data and networking.
They are to address:

4.4
different levels of description:

compilations of recordings (e.g. LPs, compilation preservation tapes made by
such archives at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and at the NFSA);
individual tracks/bands (analytics; multilevel description);
collections of sound recordings;
accompanying materials;
4.5
published, unpublished (including field) and broadcast sound recordings;
4.6
4.7
copyright;
audio-visual materials rather than just sound recordings. For instance, we had
4.8
asked the question:
Should the rules also address videos where the video and laser disc formats are
competing with / replacing the LP and CD formats in the market and where the
content and intent of creation of the work is possibly closer to that of recorded sound
rather than that of film - eg. opera productions, pop videos,
OR
Should we just assume that cataloguers know that they need to combine and
reconcile the rules for cataloguing music and for performances of music (i.e. for
printed music and recorded sound) with the rules for cataloguing moving image when
they work on these videos and laser discs?
4.9
4.10
4.11
4.12
ethnomusicological videos, and video histories (as against oral histories);

physical description;
series and sub-series;
description of:
commercial re-issues of recordings (confirmation of when these are the same
work and when are they different works);
digital and stereo re-mastering and re-issue of acoustic and mono recordings.
(We do not mean to imply here that this is a normal practice within technical and
publication areas of archives but that we acknowledge that it does happen and so
should be included);
195
4.13
place and date of:

recording (capture)
issue
manufacture
broadcast
4.14
how and why the recording was made;
4.15
titles:
title proper (descriptive title);
uniform title;
conventional title (i.e. for form headings);
title added entries;
cover titles (e.g. variation of title in packaging / sleeve fi-om label
title or title frames in a video record);
series titles;
parallel titles;
work title (i.e. interim title used by broadcasters);
4.16
names and functions (e.g. Composer, Interviewer, Sound Engineer, Akteur);
4.17
special examples are to be included for:

Music:
classical
popular (including jazz)
folk & ethnographic
Spoken word: readings ; speeches
interviews; oral histories
conference proceedings & lectures
Radio :
serials; radio talks
advertisements
news broadcasts
TV and Radio FM simulcasts
sport; VOXpops (i.e. short interviews with
people in the street)
Sound effects (man made and machinery)
Actuality
Wild life / Scientific recordings / Bioacoustics
Natural (environmental) sounds
Film sound tracks
Any other types of recordings deemed necessary.
4.18 We plan to prepare the rules in English and then have them translated into
French, German and Spanish.
4.19 The rules will not address subject headings. Each country should have its own
subject headings.
5.
Direction of the project
We plan the time frame to be a minimum of two years and a maximum of five
5.1
years.
5.2
An editorial committee has been tentatively established with ten participants.
196
5.3
Mary Miliano agreed to convene the project for the first twelve months and
has recommended that this be reviewed at the end of that time.
5.4
The Editorial Committee will need to liaise closely with the IASA Technical
Committee especially; and in general with the Technical Co-Ordinating Committee
(TCC) of the International Federation for Audio-Film- and Television Archives.
We warmly encourage and invite IASA members to contribute and we will
5.5
seek the support and comments from the Cataloguing Commissions of FIAF, FIAT
and IAML.
We shall depend on the support of IASA to assist us to meet and to prepare the
5.6
publication.
A definition of Audio- Visual will be necessary to help us determine the
5.7
media scope of this work. At present Audio-Visual means different things to
different people.
We shall need to clearly define key cataloguing concepts, problems and
5.8
realities for sound and other audio-visual media to be addressed in these cataloguing
rules.
6.
Intended results
The final result of this work is intended to be an internationally acceptable

publication of standards which we can all use and which will also assist cataloguing in
new audio-visual archives and in audio-visual archives in developing countries.
The following progress report on the project was presented at the IASA conference in
September 1996.
PROJECT GOAL AND PROGRESS REPORT, AUGUST 1996
1.
The IASA Board requested the development of IASA Cataloguing Rules at its
Canberra Conference in 1992. Interested persons discussed the feasibility of this
project at a Pre-Conference Seminar in 1993 in Helsinki. It was agreed to take up the
project.
2. Originally the project was to deal with the broad issue of audio visual media.
During our working meeting in Washington D.C., however, we redefined the scope of
the project so as to place special emphasis on cataloguing rules for sound recordings
rather than to pursue cataloguing rules for audio visual media in general. This was to:
*
focus on sharing our strongest area of expertise;
ensure that the project would be a manageable task and completed on
time;
*
not unnecessarily duplicate international standards and work (eg FIAF
Cataloguing Rules, Betz, E. Graphic Materials: Rules for Describing Original Items in
Historical Collections)
197
3.1 The work of this project addresses in particular:

* audio formats (published, unpublished and broadcast) and issues related to these
such as handling description of stereo or digital remastering of acoustic or mono
recordings;
* multimedia formats (eg kits. interactive CDRoms with audio content);
* juke boxes or mass storage systems with audio content; and moving image
formats where these are a natural extension of audio formats (eg. music videos. laser
discs of musical performances) or related to audio (eg. FM simulcasts)
3.2 In addition to traditional concepts of cataloguing of individual (physical) items,
this work is to address the concepts of analytic and multilevel description and
collection level cataloguing in so far as they may apply to audio materials.
3.3 It will address recordings with different types of content, for instance. music of
all genres. oral histories, interviews, radio (programmes, serials. sport, news, etc.)
wildlife,-scientific bioacoustic and natural (environmental) sounds, ethnographic
recordings and actuality.
4. The completed project will support all the purposes of IASA according to Article
II of its Constitution:
4.1. The finished work is intended to be an internationally acceptable publication of
cataloguing standards to aid the exchange and international communication of
bibliographic data for sound and related audio visual documents. It is to provide a
cataloguing guide to new and existing sound and audio visual archives in developed
and developing countries, and to assist in documenting sound and audio visual
records for the Memory of the World project.
4.2 As such it will necessarily complement existing internationally accepted
standards such as AACR2, ISBD (NBM), MARC and FIAF Cataloguing Rules. and
will support the use of computers, exchange (and sharing) of data and networking.
4.3 Through this work IASA will be able to share as widely as possible its combined
knowledge and solutions to cataloguing problems arising for sound and audio visual
media.
4.4 Therefore, the editorial group engaged in this project will also take solutions and
concepts from existing national, regional and, institutional standards. norms and
guidelines: and consult with other related organisations (IAML. FIAF, FIAT. ICA.
TCC. etc).
5. Achievements to date:
a) drafts prepared for the Introduction, Title & Statement of Responsibility,
Edition, Publication & Distribution, Copyright, Physical Description, Series. &
Notes:
b) a draft bibliography compiled of cataloguing standards, norms & codes for
sound & audio visual media.
c) cataloguing examples prepared for different types of sound recordings.
198
d) the definition of a work discussed & agreement confirmed on when a

sound recorded event is the same or a different work;
e) the sequence of events for a recorded sound production from initial capture
through to broadcast and/or commercial issue has been workshopped.
6 To achieve the above:
a>
we have held editorial pre-conference meetings, each of two days

(Bogensee. 1994, Washington D.C., 1995) to discuss concepts, drafts & comments;
b) some European members of the Editorial Group have held more frequent
meetings to progress the drafts.
c) national & institutional colleagues of some members of the Editorial Group
have also contributed to the drafts to date.
d) we have corresponded by fax, email and air mail between meetings.
7. The project commenced in 1993 and is due for completion in 1998.
199
5.4 INTELLECTUAL
AND INFORMATION
RETRIEVAL
CONTROL.
Helen P Harrison
Documents That Move And Speak ICA conference session May 2nd 1990. Consists of
introduction and conclusion to the session.
Material in an archive or library is subject to two types of control:
1.- stock control - where the material is located - is it on loan to anyone, if so whom, what format is it available in, physical description etc.
2.- Intellectual control which includes content and physical description to help the
user locate the material required in amongst a lot more material. This paper deals
with intellectual control.
Intellectual control used to be known as cataloguing and classification especially in
the library world.
A generic term was required for the control of books and
audiovisual materials - bibliographic control suggested that it was only books which
needed finding aids. But I do not think the term is here to stay as intellectual control
has overtones of big brother and forcible control, and it is bound to offend some
people some of the time. The concern during this session is the descriptive entry of
the content of the material. Sometimes the same record will be capable of containing
both stock and content control items, at other times they may be separated, especially
departments, for example a
if the material is handled by different
preservation/conservation or technical record need not be contained within a
descriptive content record although even in these circumstances, and especially in a
small collection an integrated record may be necessary. Computers may (or may not)
be able to encompass both within the same record, and if you & put it all into one
record it could put an unnecessary strain on any system. Also you do have to ensure
with the use of selective indexing and print-outs that not all the record is produced at
one time.
But what is the purpose of the exercise ? Is a description of contents of material which
is supposed to be seen and heard necessary ? The aim of descriptive cataloguing and
the retrieval of information is to produce a written or readable record of the contents
of a piece of audiovisual material which will reduce the necessity for
overviewing/listening or use to determine its contents. It should enable the user to
find his way quickly and efficiently to those items which are of particular relevance to
him in his search or research. By using a relatively simple information retrieval
system the user can decide on a topic, follow it through the catalogue and its subject
terms, to find out how many items of relevance exist and then proceed to look at
related material - either summaries of contents, scripts, transcripts or sequence lists
relining his terms as he goes until only a few relevant items may remain. Without the
aid of even an unsophisticated retrieval system the user can spend many hours viewing
for the sake of a few minutes relevant material. This may appear a simplistic
argument, but it is the one that counts - saving the users time - who may also have to
be paying viewing/listening fees as well. The more effective the retrieval system the
better in terms of human and financial resources.
Using the system of information retrieval which the archivist or librarian can build up,
however minimal these may be, or ravaged by economic expediency it should be
possible to lead the potential user to a few relevant items, or even perhaps a few
200
relevant sequences within the archive stock, and reduce the need for him to spend
precious hours viewing material which is useless for his purposes. The user has to
bring a certain amount of know-how and old fashioned intelligence to bear on his
search, but the skilled indexer can help him to pinpoint certain sections and lead him
to some of the bits he needs if he follows the signs.
Some of the questions which may be posed are:
a) The depth of indexing.
frame.
Should it be by collection, series, title, sequence, shot or
Some discipline is required - but which is the best? Should we have hard and fast
rules for control of av, and if so can they be universally applied. A pragmatic
approach is needed and systems have to be adapted to suit the conditions and
environment in which the documentalist finds himself. This question is also a matter
of economics and resources. How much time and effort can any archive afford on
producing descriptions to the nth degree, or how much support can be achieved using
related material - scripts, transcripts, synopses etc.
What of the differences of presentation, feature films, documentaries, series, serials,
newscasts, newsreels or newsclips. All require a different approach and an archive
which holds more than one type of material needs to be able to tailor the indexing to
the different materials. For example a feature film may only require technical and
production details, and credits plus a brief summary of the plot. But of course one has
to catalogue the item in hand especially within an archive - archive copies may have
bits missing, or additional to the normal distribution copies. All such details have to
be included to describe the item in hand. It is important for the researcher to know
which copy each archive has - is it the truncated, or worse, censored version; is it the
restored version, what is its ratio, is it cinemascope or normal. Is it the television or
cinema version. It is also important to include all of these elements in case the archive
should contemplate producing a published catalogue or if it intends to include the
material in a union catalogue of holdings. At such a point the mere cataloguer has to
be considering all such eventualities, if he is not to waste his present time and that of
his successors who have to fill the gaps.
b) What are the differences between describing audiovisual documents and textual
documents.
Av materials require more description and therefore more descriptive powers from the
indexer. A book has many tools to guide and inform the user as to its content:
contents list, visible title page, index and general immediate accessibility to the
content. Most av material is blind. One may be able to judge from its title, cover or
related material. But immediate information is seldom available with audiovisual
materials - they are difficult to browse. Such information has to be created or
composed by the indexer and this is where the skill come in.
c) What progress has been made towards descriptive standards for the new media
There are several standards for descriptive cataloguing already in existence. There are
rules from the British Film Institute, National Film Archive, from the Library of
Congress, Motion Picture Division, the Aslib Film Production Librarians Rules,
Library Association/National Council of Technology (LANCET) and Anglo American
Cataloguing Rules (AACR). These last two are primarily for librarians, although the
LANCET rules working party had a number of archivists as members. None of these
is wholly satisfactory but elements can be taken from several for use in todays
201
archive. Other standard rules for libraries and archives include the more recent ISBD
(International Standard Bibliographic Description) rules for different publications,
including a set for nonbook materials (ISBD-NBM).
The Museums Association in
England has a Documentation committee (MDA) which produces guidelines and
standards for description, although these are usually for still visuals and museum
objects. The International Associations of FIAF, FIAT and IASA have their own
ideas for descriptive cataloguing. All ideas are investigated and cooperative ventures
are made, but no complete solution has been found.
d) Will computerisation bring library and archive approaches together or only serve to
define the differences.
Archives and libraries are different, there should be no argument about that, but
computerisation should not have the effect of emphasising this difference. The two
types of institution could be interdependent, cooperating with one another for the
general good. Also computers are tools - very useful tools, but they should not alter
our lives to the extent of rethinking the principles of descriptive cataloguing.
Computers have a great deal to do with improving practice, but the principles will
usually remain as they were, especially if they were good principles to start with. For
example computers can help in the efficient storage and retrieval of information, but
the entry has to be produced in an understandable form for publication in
Hence the descriptive entries should be uniform across as many
bibliographies.
archives as possible, so that they can be ordered into a standard format for external
use. People tend to forget the input time and effort, but no archivist should. He is the
one who may well end up doing it!
e) Can material be accessed by users in their own homes? This was a matter for
detailed discussion in the session on intellectual control, but the potential and
possibilities are there, there is an awful lot of hardware already in place and satellite
broadcasting is making it possible with the use of decoders and other devices, to
access specific archives, databases, television stations and so on already. The
potential is there, it is only the economic resources which may be missing.
f) Are there areas of intellectual control which cannot be addressed by computers or
descriptive standards? Undoubtedly. Intellectual control is carried out by human
beings - human beings have limitations. Human beings program computers and the
database is, in the end, only as good as the people who set it up and who put the data
in.
g) How to decide on the number of levels of control and the percentage of holdings at
each level?
This is one of the main arguments, and it goes back to point a). Should the archivist
attempt to achieve maximum coverage and detailed description of each item or should
he concern himself with collections. Cataloguing a collection as an entity may be
opting out of some of the responsibility. Collections are not necessarily homogeneous
in content - therefore it becomes difficult to describe an entire collection without the
assistance of a lot of related material. We should also remember that we are dealing
with audiovisual documents which are even less easy to access than written
documents and more vulnerable to damage by casual or unnecessarily frequent
consultation.
The percentage of holdings which are catalogued and described at each level is a
corollary of the previous point. It is important to establish the differences in detail of
cataloguing which can be achieved before deciding which collections or materials can
202
be subjected to each level. This also extends into the principles of selection, another
problem for the archivist.
The archivist has to balance the ideal with the realistic. This may often be dictated by
economics, but economics should not be allowed to dictate an inadequate control. We
should be prepared to look for the minimum entries, but make sure that these are in
line with the maximum information which can be provided within these parameters.
Keywords if handled properly within a controlled thesaurus of terms can solve some
of these problems and provide both sides with some sort of a solution.
AV materials have different requirements as far as descriptive entries are concerned
and a multi media catalogue is not always helpful. Although av is searched for, first
by subject, in which case a subject enquiry is useful, but also by format. People want
to see something in moving image form, or in sound form, or in written form for their
own purposes. They seldom, except perhaps for research purposes, need to know
absolutely everything which has been produced about a particular subject.
The would-be intellectual controller of archive material walks many tightropes. How
to balance the effort of bibliographic description of the material in hand against the
possibility of future damage and destruction.
CONCLUSION
TO SESSION.
This session was a practical exercise in the principles of intellectual control. Any
archive has to consider its main functions and the potential use to be made of its stock
before embarking on a policy of intellectual control. Although the session was
concerned with film cataloguing or cataloguing of moving images, I remind
participants that the Symposium is entitled Documents that Move and Speak, many of
the principles indicated will apply to sound but the requirements of the two materials
are not necessarily identical. It may be even easier to catalogue what you can see.
Sound recordings have their own problems of versions, performances etc. and
catalogue entries can be even lengthier than those for moving images.
The session panellists came from archives sufficiently different to highlight some of
the differences in emphasis on the detail and content of the cataloguing needed to
serve the ultimate users of these archives and fulfil the purposes of the archive
We have representatives from the National Archives of Canada, a
collections.
national archive with responsibility for a range of material including broadcast and
newsreels; the Imperial War Museum - a National Archive with a specialist subject
interest; the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a broadcasting archive with special
responsibility towards production; and Cinemateca Brasiliera - a cinematheque as well
as an archive.
The extract which we were all given to analyse provided an example of many different
types of television: a newscast, a journal, a series, and a documentary. This gave
plenty of scope for variation in the cataloguing treatment.
It was an interesting exercise which helped to highlight some of the problems faced by
an archive in cataloguing its stock, keeping control over the collections and providing
information to the potential user which will assist his search for relevant material
within the often vast collections held by archives. It was also interesting in the mix of
people in the audience. This was not a case of cataloguers talking to cataloguers, an
esoteric exercise if ever there was one, rather it was an exchange of information
between the users, archivists and cataloguers, all of whom could learn from each other
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to help improve the service which intellectual control can offer.

catalogues may be too important to leave entirely to the cataloguers.
In the long run
This was therefore not just an exercise in cataloguing practice, but it was an exercise
and the results need not be held as sacrosanct. We have always to consider the nature
and purpose of the archive involved in deciding upon principles of intellectual control.
How much detail, what sort of information, who are the end user(s), and what
requirements will they have. In many ways the exercise was a false one as some of
the archives concerned would almost certainly not have gone into the requested detail
for material which was not destined to be a permanent part of their collections - for
example neither the Imperial War Museum nor the Cinemateca Brasiliera would
normally collect this material, nor would they collect material in a foreign language,
nor others would collect material which was not their own copyright material. The
CBC is the closest to the real situation here. But all this is not to denigrate the
exercise, simply to indicate that there are different levels of cataloguing which should
be applied to different situations, always bearing in mind the function and purpose of
the archive concerned.
Why catalogue.
But of what benefit is this activity of intellectual control - the fact that we all do it to a
greater or lesser degree does not automatically justify its existence. Any cataloguer
has to know why he is cataloguing material, and for whom before he can judge the
most useful method to employ. Intellectual control serves several purposes. There are
the archive requirements where control is used to determine the content of the
collection, and to prevent too frequent access to a waste of archive time, users time
and unnecessary deterioration of the material.
Material is retrieved for research, for use, for entertainment, and for information. The
existing expensively produced material is also required for new productions and in
new situations. One of the major activities of archives is preservation of material - but
for what purpose.3 So that material can be made available for future use. Exploitation
of the material helps to recover some of the cost of preservation, but in order to
exploit the materials they need to be accessed. This is where the activity of
intellectual control comes in. Making it easier for the potential user to find the
material.
Effective intellectual control assists users to locate relevant material quickly and with
reasonable accuracy. There is also the reusers requirement to know the provenance
and copyright of an item.
There is another requirement - to describe the item in a printed catalogue or on a
database holdings of a particular archive.
It has to be said that the activity of cataloguing or information retrieval is very costly
of human and financial resources. It can be relatively even more expensive than
preservation. It is a very labour intensive activity, and difficult to short cut. It is also
a very time consuming activity. Even to produce minimal entries for a piece of
material entering an archive it has to be viewed or listened to in real time. Archives
should not enter stock which has not been checked to ensure that it is correct and that
the archive knows what is in the can or on the tape. Minimal documentation including
title, origin, credits, even genre has to be extracted from the material itself, but that
may not always be complete and further information may have to be gleaned from
related materials such as a cameramans dope sheets or shotlists, scripts, production
scripts, newspaper and other clippings for new material. As we see from these entries
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it takes at least twice as long as the extract to produce even minimal entries. It can
take several hours if any detailed research has to be undertaken and some of the
maximum entries produced today will have taken a few hours to produce when one
looks at the detail taken from the tape itself, even without further research. Although
not everyone cited the time involved in producing the entry for the 16 minute extract
the Cinemateca Brasiliera took about 40 minutes to compile the minimum entry and
about 2 hours to compile the maximum entry in Portuguese.
Intellectual control is also one of those activities which does not have an immediate
dramatic appeal. It is difficult to persuade paymasters or funding agencies that this
activity is essential. Only when it is absent is it noticeable. As one observer noted at
the session up front indexing in detail is very costly - but equally costly at the
retrieval end if you do not do it in some detail.
Serendipity may be a useful attribute, as is the memory of an archivist. But if the
archivist goes under a bus (and it has happened) or the serendipity is too limited there
is trouble. This is one of the major benefits of adequate cataloguing.
Maximum vs Minimum
Entry
One of the exercises the panellists were given in preparing the session was to produce
both minimum and maximum entries. They were also asked to confess how much of
the holding of their own archive was catalogued according to these parameters. The
figures quoted range from 90% on minimum level down to NAC 25% at maximum
level, or IWM 15% at maximum. Other archives have less than 5% fully catalogued.
The detail of the cataloguing will always relate to the function and usage of the
library. If we consider this extract I would expect that the broadcasting company, in
this case CBC, would produce a full entry at some speed as opposed to a national
archive. In the first place the broadcasting company, or newsreel company would
need to produce detailed entries as quickly as possible for re-use purposes. In most
broadcasting companies the greatest re-use potential of material is within 6 months of
the action and detailed cataloguing is required to cope with this. With an archive, the
time-scale is less critical and they can afford to wait for maximum cataloguing of
news items, but minimum cataloguing is always essential to prevent the problems
involved in backlog.
There are further decisions to be made according to the type of archive holding certain
materials. How much of the detail of the extract for instance would be needed in the
different archives considered - how would they deal with this type of material and why
would they deal with it in the way that they do.
Many of the speakers indicated that they were doing things in a certain way out of
expediency. There is nothing wrong with that. Each archive must decide on its own
priorities in the light of its function, usage and resources. If it works for you, seriously
consider using it until someone comes along with a better idea, but use it; do not sit on
your hands and expect the job to be done for you - that will only result in the
nightmare backlog we all have to contemplate.
Rules and Standards.
But how to achieve this intellectual control. Are there rules and standards which can
be applied? There is one short answer to the question whether there are universally
accepted standards for archive cataloguing - No..1 But that is not to say that there are
no standards in existence which cannot be adapted to an archives needs. Each archive
will look at available rules and decide for itself which of these is useful to adopt and
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/or adapt for its own purposes. Because the rules and standards are fluid or not in
place, it is better to do the job according to these standards which will assist archives
NOW rather than wait for the ultimate or definitive standard which will never arrive,
and leave you instead with a horrendous backlog. The only way to keep pace with
avm is to do something as it is produced or acquired.
All of us on this panel are pragmatists. Take what is suitable when you can, when it is
available and adapt it to your own situation. Then improve upon it at a later date.
This implies that you need a flexible system which can be adapted. There are no hard
and fast rules which can be used and this is probably just as well because each archive
has its own constituency, its own function and its own needs. This is not to say that
anarchy should prevail because this would make for difficulty in international
exchange of materials and information.
Of course there are several rules already available and we have seen examples of
archives which use AACR2, FIAT and IFLA ISBD-NBM.
Wendy White-Hensens
Archival Moving Image Materials - a cataloguing manual based on AACR and
emanating from the Library of Congress has also been mentioned. These rules are
either specifically for archives - in the case of FIAF film (moving image cataloguing)
or for generalist collections in libraries AACR2 and IFLA. I could throw in a few
more such as LANCET, which led up to AACR2 but was specifically for non-book
materials, FIAT guidelines on data elements for the description of television materials,
MAD - Manual of Archival Description, a general archive cataloguing manual which
includes moving images, sound and photographs. And of course there are several
computer systems available for dealing with control of documents that move and
speak. None represents the universal standard, but audiovisual documentalists are
cooperating to produce standards and work is being carried out to draw the standards
together.
The state of the art of intellectual control is very fluid - it takes to adaptation - not a
reinvention of the wheel but not rigid principles either. No one set of standards or
rules will apply to all situations, but there are Minimum and Maximum parameters.
One of the archivists Yvette Hackett in NAC mentioned that NAC is working in a
certain way now, prepared to adopt new standards, but not doing their own thing or
going off at an unproductive tangent. Meanwhile they are maintaining intellectual
control over the material and providing access to it now!
Computer retrieval.
Sometimes a conflict is expressed between conventional cataloguing standards and
computer retrieval. Both of course have their own mystique, but they are not in
opposing camps.
Computer retrieval is surely a tool - if we have to amend cataloguing standards to suit
so be it - as long as the end result is:
comprehensive and produces the detail required
easy to handle and understand by the person who consults the catalogue
successful in retrieval
Dotting is and crossing ts and punctuation go out of the window today - until you
come to publication of course, where a uniform (not a pedantic) style are required.
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Most databases have a standard format which comes in the software package or can be
created and adapted by the cataloguer. There is a need to ensure that all the
information you will need to retrieve is on that format. If not, amend the record until
it is.
The clever bit comes in setting up a content description or further, constructing a
retrieval system - thesaurus, free text searching call it what you will.
Data Elements
Any catalogue entry is based on data elements and we have been shown those data
elements in some detail. Minimum data elements have been suggested as follows.
National Archives of Canada
Accession or item number
Medium of production (original)
Series
Statement of responsibility (Production Company).
Country of production
Production (film) or release/transmission date (tv).
Credits
Access/consultation
Subject description
Subject terms - indexing
Cinemateca Brasiliera.
What is material
What is it about
support
Basic characteristics
How did it come into archives
By whom
To whom does it belong
Both of these entries would also contain basic technical information. This last point
led to some discussion on the amount of technical information which should be
included in the main item record.
In the first session we noted that there are two necessary records for the material in an
archive:
that for technical or stock control and that
for intellectual control.
We have been dealing with the latter, but it should always be remembered that the
other records exist.
Detailed technical records are usually compiled outside the cataloguing area and kept
separately. Technical records would swamp an entry and apart from the immediately
available format what use is a detailed technical entry on the state of the material, or
the restoration processes to the user. All he needs to know is can he get hold of the
material to reuse or view, and of course he will not be accessing the original.
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Copyright.
A question was raised about copyright during discussion, something which could lead
to a whole nest of vipers. It was raised in the context of locating the owner of the
material shown in the extract. How much of the detail can be included in a catalogue
entry, and indeed how much should be included. It does not always concern the
viewer or user as to where the material has come from, but it does concern the person
who wishes to re-use the material, and of course the clearances given to the archive
for reuse. We may be talking about copyright, or donor rights. Both of which should
be logged somewhere but not necessarily in the main item entry.
In addition many of the broadcasting companies of course do not hold (retain)
material which is not their own copyright. It is transmitted but not retained. However
with newsfilm, current affairs, documentaries the situation becomes very complex,
and decisions have to be taken about how much copyright information to include. It
may also be very difficult to tell where all the material has come from. The company
which produced the programme would be expected to hold detailed records.
Normally archives have sales areas which deal with copyright clearances using
records other than the cataloguing record. Acquisition files, programme files, donor
files etc. Once again sufficient information may not be available to the cataloguer.
As long as information is available somewhere in the archive the catalogue record
need not show all the detail.
One other aspect was raised in questions, that of provenance. The user of an archive
needs to know exactly what he is retrieving and the cataloguer should go to some
effort to ensure that cataloguing details are accurate. The user wants to retrieve, locate
and use the genuine image - not a reconstruction or fudging of one situation into
another. No matter how hard we try there will be errors. The use of a notes field in
the entry can be invaluable to show details of where information in the entry came
from. This enables a researcher to check detail for himself and it will save the time of
future cataloguers.
Content Description
One of the most important elements in an item entry is the description of content and
the system which the cataloguer sets up for the retrieval of the subject matter of the
material. Archives dealing with any film other than fiction (which is usually searched
for by title) find that the material is searched for primarily by subject matter. We
spoke earlier about the level of cataloguing, whether it should be by shot. sequence,
item, series or collection, and most of the panellists seem to agree that researchers are
interested at item level, and need a description of content at this level.
I admire the ability of a National Archive to produce a detailed synopsis for a
relatively short piece of film, but if you consider a newsfilm agency it would probably
put even more detail into a shotlist for a 1 minute film than has gone into even the
most detailed entry here. Yet the newsfilm which goes out on syndication could be
only a minor part of an extract.
It is a matter of scale and considerable discretion on the part of the cataloguer and
archiver to achieve a balance between being overwhelmed by the minutiae or getting
the message across.
But there are probably always going to be two or more levels of description operating
in any archive. A preliminary record may be done at the of accessioning. A more
complete record by specialised cataloguers can be done at a later date. It would be a
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pity to spend resources on detailed documentation of an item which disappears

through deterioration. Conservation and preservation should go hand in hand with
documentation.
Language. Description is usually done in the language of the document. Some
archives such as those in Canada will use bilingual entries, others will use a single
language. Of course most national archives will hold material in their native
language, or if foreign language material is held it will be subtitled for exhibition
purposes. But note the difficulties which Cinemateca Brasiliera had with translation,
and the amount of time it took - 5 hours to produce an English description. Scripts
should assist here if available.
Subject Retrieval
Lastly we come to indexing. Most items of this nature will be searched for by subject.
Each archive will probably have to devise its own indexing terms as those subject
headings which exist in published form are primarily for printed materials. Free text
indexing and the use of keywords are popular methods of retrieval at present. The
terms have to be in natural language however and strictly controlled. Keywords and
thesauri are all very well if the ordinary user can understand it. One or two comments
from the floor suggested that the keywords chosen by the documentalist did not
always achieve successful hits with the researcher. This is always a problem, and
suggests that the documentalist and the user should have a closer understanding. And
any thesaurus which is used in compiling the index should be made available to the
user before he starts his search.
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5.5 TOWARDS
STANDARDS
and INFORMATION
FOR AUDIOVISUAL
RETRIEVAL
MATERIALS
Helen P Harrison
In the audiovisual world it is more accurate to consider a policy leading or groping
towards standards for bibliographic descriptions than a discussion of standards which
exist. We have no universally accepted standards as yet but that does not mean we are
not badly in need of them. The negotiating stages have proved very lengthy for
audiovisual materials, but then we started later than books and the delay is therefore
relative.
Not all of the materials need concern us in this context but there is a distinction
between what we can call the stand alone materials: - video, film, sound recordings,
and the materials often incorporated into a pack or set along with other avm and
textual material: slides, photographs, etc. The latter materials are usually published
in a recognisable book format and can be treated by normal methods of bibliographic
description using for example AACR2 or ISBD with suitable amendments for a list of
contents. Publishers of packs had to be encouraged to include detailed lists of the
contents in the packs for descriptive purposes, for listing in the notes of a
conventional cataloguing entry, as well as for the exchange or lending of material - so
that it is relatively easy to check that all items are present.
It is when we move into the stand alone materials that the problems of standards are
evident.
Visual Materials
Although moving and still visuals are all photographic processes, the end products
demand completely different approaches to bibliographic control.
Film and video are blind, you cannot tell from looking at the material without the
intervention of a replay machine what it contains. In order to ascertain the contents of
a film or video it has to be replayed or projected and apart from the fact that this may
damage the material there is a time factor involved. Film, video and sound recordings
have to be viewed and listened to in real time.
The very fact that video, audiotape and film are blind means that more has to go into
the descriptive entry, especially in the content area. Books and periodicals have
contents lists, the major av of moving visuals and sound recordings may not. AV
contained in packs, sets or kits may be included in the contents list of the pack, but it
is seldom included in any detail, even with CDs. Books also have indexes, av only
occasionally, and then it is usually in the form of burnt in codes on magnetic tape or
laser discs. There is therefore a need in dealing with av to produce summaries,
synopses even shotlists when dealing with detailed, concentrated items such as
newsclips or stockshots.
Purpose
But what is the purpose of the exercise ? Is a description of contents of material which
is supposed to be seen and heard necessary ? The aim of descriptive cataloguing and
the retrieval of information is to produce a written or readable record of the contents
of a piece of audiovisual material which will reduce the necessity for
overviewing/listening or use to determine its contents. It should enable the user to
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obtain or find his way quickly and efficiently to those items which are of particular
relevance to him in his search or research.
Indexing audiovisual and textual documents : Is there a difference?
AV materials require more description and therefore more descriptive powers from
the indexer. A book has many tools to guide and inform the user as to its content:
contents list, visible title page, index and general immediate accessibility to the
content. As we have already indicated most av material is blind. One may be able to
judge the content from its title, cover or related material, although this information is
seldom available with audiovisual materials - they are difficult to browse. Such
information has to be created or composed by the indexer.
Still visuals are quite different in this one respect. They are meant to be seen. It is a
waste of words to try and describe the content or subject of many photographs. They
have to be seen to be appreciated. You can employ a thousand words to describe a
picture but still give no real notion of the work itself. So why try. The important
aspects in cataloguing pictures are provenance, date, photographer/artist and
ownership.
Sound recordings also require the intervention of a replay machine to determine the
contents and this requires real time. There is the problem of albums or audiotapes/
cassettes or sets of recordings where a particular track is required among many. All
this needs to be indexed in detail to assist the researcher. Compact Discs now have
the advantage that they are easier to search with digital counters which can operated
by the replay machine to make life easier. But have you noticed how little
information appears on modern CDs. Gone are the detailed sleeve notes which
records used to have (probably to cut down on copyright costs) and now you are lucky
to get the work and the performers.
Bibliographic
control of av material.
Almost immediately we come up against the problem of terminology. It always seems

odd to speak of bibliographic control in connection with audiovisual materials, and yet
we persist. Recently it has been suggested that we use intellectual control instead.
Intellectual
the material
cataloguing
information
control includes content and physical description to help the user locate
required in amongst a lot more material. Intellectual control began life as
and classification, and has evolved through documentation, indexing,
retrieval, bibliographical control, and now intellectual control.
In looking for information about books librarians have had several services available,
bibliographies, guides to the literature, indexes and abstracts for a long time.
One of the main factors which often make it difficult to progress towards standards for
bibliographic description and numbering is the lack of a single national organisation
with a responsibility for collecting audiovisual materials, and a lack of a legal deposit
system for av materials.
Statutory deposit has two useful results for the documentation of materials. It means
the build up of large collections of material and ensures a central point from which to
This in turn may result in the
cull information needed by the bibliographers.
establishment of a cataloguing agency based on the collection. eg. BNB at the British
Library and the Library of Congress cataloguing agency in the US. AV materials are
not so served. There is no one collector of materials nor is there one supplier. AV
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materials are not produced by a single trade: a variety of commercial and noncommercial organisations produce materials, rather than the Publishers Association as
a single body for books.
Other factors which make it difficult to locate information about av materials include
a lack of standard numbering, and of standard descriptions and adequate cataloguing
rules.
Standard numbering systems are difficult to apply to certain of the avm when you
consider the volume of the material eg. slides and photographs, although publishers
of these materials may issue standard numbers for sets or portfolios. There are also
difficulties of deciding when an item is published or not: does publication mean that
the item is available for publication, purchase or hire, and what then do we do about
material which is capable of being recorded off-air.
Standard Cataloguing
Rules
The lack of adequate cataloguing rules or internationally accepted standard

descriptions for the stand alone audiovisual materials meant that specialist libraries
were forced to devise suitable standard rules to cope with the materials held.
Specialist codes were produced for cataloguing particular collections, especially of
moving images for example: British Film Institute, National Film Archive, the Library
of Congress, Motion Picture Division, the Aslib Film Production Librarians Rules,
The Museums Association in England has a Documentation committee (MDA) which
produces guidelines and standards for description, although these are usually for still
visuals and museum objects. The International Associations of FIAF, FIAT and IASA
have their own ideas for descriptive cataloguing.
Levels of description
Ideally standard rules should allow for minimum and maximum levels of description
and be used according to the needs of the cataloguer or bibliographer.
The user may just want to know that the material exists.
The enquirer may want to know what has been transferred to film/video, or he may
need a full description of the item. This necessitates a full description in the form of a
synopsis or sequence list or even shotlist.
The depth of description is another fruitful area for exploration.
collection, series, title, sequence, shot or frame.
Should it be by
What of the differences of presentation; feature films, documentaries, series, serials,

newscasts, newsreels or newsclips. All require a different approach and a catalogue
covering more than one type of material needs to be able to tailor the indexing to the
different materials. For example a feature film may only require technical and
production details, and credits plus a brief summary of the plot. A documentary or
education programme will need a description of the content, its pedagogical
significance, its setting, even its bias.
Some discipline is required - but which is the best? Should we have hard and fast
rules for control of av, and if so can they be universally applied. It is much more
likely that a pragmatic approach is needed and systems will have to be adapted to suit
the conditions and environment in which the documentalist finds himself. This
question is also a matter of economics and resources.
212
Another aspect of bibliographic description occurs in the catalogue of a particular

institutions holdings, eg. a National Film Archive. Here the item in hand has to be
described as such copies may have bits missing, or additional to the normal
distribution copies. It is important for the researcher to know which copy each
archive has and also important to include all of these elements in case the archive
should contemplate producing a published catalogue or if it intends to include the
material in a union catalogue of holdings.
Minimum entries with the maximum of information which can be provided within
these parameters is the aim, but is it feasible?
Exchange of bibliographic information is the first aim of the catalogue or publishers
listing but we cannot forget the physical exchange of material. This is perhaps where
books and periodicals are easier to cater for, but av is meant to be seen and heard, that
is the way the information is transmitted - by sound and vision.
Data Elements of Description
The range of data elements of audiovisual materials is different enough to that for
books to indicate that existing book-oriented standards will not suffice. Before
looking at some of the cataloguing rules it is useful to define those elements which are
thought to be essential in detailed description of audiovisual materials. Audiovisual
materials are compact and extremely efficient information carriers. The resulting
work in documenting them and particularly of describing their contents is timeconsuming and expensive. It should not be an exercise to repeat too often.
The format, system and carrier of avm is of crucial importance to the successful replay
of material in different situations. Thus the technical description or specifications, in
varying degrees of detail is an essential part of a bibliographic record.
Essential elements
Title
Date
Production Company
Producer
Contributors
Distributor
Technical specifications
Content analysis
Location number
Title. Moving images are usually known by their title, especially fiction material.
However the title may be a catchy or misleading one. There are further problems with
title in that fiction film is often released under different titles in different countries.
Some moving images of course do not have titles as such, for example stockshots,
newsfilm which have descriptive or supplied titles rather than actual titles.
Other avm are identified by a Number - eg gramophone records, which in large
collections are filed by record company and serial number. Record companies issue
by number. The TITLE of a record is not always helpful, and consider an ALBUM
TITLE which is even worse if you have 50 tracks on a CD or Disc.
The TITLE of recording is also not always helpful. eg. Sonata in G Major without a
composer, or instruments is useless.
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This all flies in the face of most bibliographic description which in conventional mode
is by Author/Name.
Production details. Producers and Distributors are very important as are details of
hire, purchase, loan, even off-air recording conditions.
Date. This one of the more controversial aspects. Does this refer to the year of
production - some av takes years to produce, the date of recording - which can bear no
relation to the date of transmission or distribution (release) in the case of film. The
date may appear as a year, or more precisely as a day, as in the case of newsclips.
Photographs also may be dated more precisely than a year,
Credits. Can be very lengthy especially for a feature film or television documentary.
Technical specifications. Physical description is essential to enable the user to know
what replay device he will need, if any, and whether the material needs to be
transferred to another format before it can usefully be used in the country of
acquisition. In addition the technical description should contain information such
duration, sound or silent, number of tracks in an audiotape recording, colour or black
and white. The list is seemingly endless and makes it difficult and confusing to
construct something like a multi-media catalogue. Audiovisual materials are more
likely to appear in published catalogues as separate media, eg. a film or video
catalogue, a sound recordings catalogue.
Content analysis. This can be at several levels, from a brief summary or synopsis to a
full sequence list or shotlist. The subject is certainly necessary, but there is a wide
variation in the amount of detail which it is possible to include in different types of
catalogue. In the case of many av a summary/synopsis is needed even to explain the
catchy title. Gramophone record sleeves do this admirably, but you camrot always
reproduce such detail in a bibliographic entry.
Location number may be required, especially if we are referring to material in a
specific collection, via a national archive or library catalogue.
As many of the cataloguing and descriptive standards for audiovisual materials have
been based on specialised collections another example can be drawn from the Manual
of Archival Description which aims to provide standards for the control of finding aid
systems in all archives including photographic, sound film and video archives.
MAD2 examined the suitability of AACR2, and while a number of common concepts
and points of similarity were found, the needs are sufficiently different to justify two
codes of practice.
MAD 2 contains lists of data elements for several special formats including
photographic, sound, film and video archives. Although these are probably too
detailed for bibliographic exchange purposes these lists can be used as MAXIMUM or
MACRO data lists.
An area in which the exchange of information is very important is that of
broadcasting, especially television, and an example of data elements was developed by
FIAT, the International Federation for Television Archives. Their Minimum Data List
has two purposes:
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1. To make sure that a certain minimum amount of information will be found in a

television archive which can be used in the exchange of information between libraries.
2. To serve as a norm for newly established television libraries.
The terms are as follows:
Title. Denominations given to a production by its producer
Given title. Denominations given by the archivist/librarian when the proper title is
missing
Subtitle. Secondary title: title of each part of a series production. Part title.
Other titles. Any other title identifying a production, including original title.
B. Producer. person who organises and directs the operations necessary to making a
programme.
Copyright. Designation of the person(s) or organisation(s) holding the rights to make
use of a production.
Other names. All names (if possible combined with functions) referring to the
realisation of a production.
C. Date of transmission. Date of first public transmission by air or by cable.
Date of shooting. Could include several dates covering shooting over a period of
time
Place of shooting. Place(s) of shooting the programme.
D. Medium. Nature of the carrier on which the production is made (film, videotape
etc). Also any comments on quality
Running time. Duration of the transmission period used for a production.
Sound recorded. Nature of the procedure of sound registration (eventually including
mute or international sound track)
Colour and/or black and white. System of colour eg. Technicolor, Ektachrome,
PAL, NTSC, SECAM
Format and Standard. Gauge of film, tape width and line standard (525, 625 line
etc.)
E. Content Summary of the subject described in a production
Keyword Each description judged to be significant, to give access to the production
mentioned.
F. Production number. Unique number given to a programme for administrative
purposes
Archive number Unique identification number given by the library/archive
Cataloguing
rules.
Bibliographic control depends to a great extent on standards embodied in cataloguing

rules, and the bibliographic description of av materials started at something of a
disadvantage. None of the existing rules were adequate. General collections looked
towards the International Rules, and at first lighted on AACR, which despite
amendments in AACR2 are still not sufficient, although used in many general
libraries. ISBD (NBM) is a developing standard which could suffice for many. In
addition the numerous different types of libraries and archives which contain av also
have their own special requirements for bibliographic description.
215
Standard Numbering.
Standard numbering plays an important role in identifying print material uniquely, eg
ISBN and ISSN, but it has not achieved widespread acceptance in the av world. If
material is published by book publishing houses the chances are they will come up
with an identifying number, eg slidesets with notes or in packs. But most av are not
published in this book sense of the word. They may be distributed, screened or
transmitted in a broadcast situation.
Attempts to provide ISBN for audiovisual
few times, but attempts have been made.
av materials makes it difficult to regulate
means no central collecting agency which
could be made to work.
materials have foundered on these rocks a

Of course the situation on legal deposit of
and control the situation. No legal deposit
could assign standard numbering even if it
One area of av which has been trying to introduce standard numbering is the record
industry. A Music Industry Code MIC was proposed to the American Standard
Institute as far back as 1970. The IS0 (International Standard Organisation) which
had already produced ISBN and ISSN was assigned to produce a scheme for an
International Standard Recording Number. This ISRN however refers to the carrier,
not to the recorded items which can be reissued in many other configurations. By
1974 IS0 decided that an JSRC (International Standard Recording Code) was required
for the recorded items. The ISRC is designed to identify each recorded item. whether
this is a symphony, an opera, or a single hit tune. The code once allocated can follow
the item through its various metamorphoses.
The ISRC is Lnternational Standard IS0 3901. The code itself consists of 12
characters, is alphanumeric using Arabic numbers and the Roman alphabet. It includes
five elements:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
country
first owner
year of recording
recording
recording item
The IFPI, International Federation of Phonogram Industries has been appointed the
International Registration Authority.
The ISRC is also used to monitor the use made of the recorded items and the next
problem comes in collecting and distributing the income. Identification of the product
is vital for the record industry. It has perhaps less relevance to the librarian at present
in exchange of bibliographic information, although IFPI would be interested in any
ideas to use the code in this area. It is such a mammoth task to collect the data and
run the scheme that the more uses it can be put to the better.
216
AND INFORMATION
5.6 THE CATALOGUING
OF Av-MEDIA
Rainer Hubert,
fisterreichische
Phonothek,
Paper presented to the Cataloguing

Conference in Helsinki 1993
RETRIEVAL
Vienna
Open session at the IASA/IAML/IAMIC
A working group for cataloguing was formed recently within IASA and this may be
the occasion to give a short glimpse of pertinent activities in Austria, for this new
working group is not so much a beginning but rather the consequence of efforts
reaching back many years. The members of this group have been working together
in another committee for AV-cataloguing rules for a rather long time and have come
to similar views towards cataloguing. Therefore it seemed logical to go on and further
with discussing the problems of AV-cataloguing - even after finishing the mentioned
rules.
So when reporting about this cataloguing group of AGAVA I will rather speak about
ideas, concepts and plans, not so much about a group of persons.
The first systematic attempt to come up with cataloguing standards for AV-media in
Austria was made in the middle of the seventies. Under the auspices of the Austrian
standards institute some AV-archivists and quite a few librarians came together and
devised provisional cataloguing rules. They were derived from the model of libraries
rules or rather overshadowed by them. The AGAVA protested and suggested some
changes and I was asked to articulate our objections and it ended as things like that
very often do: I was invited to join the group and my involvement with rules work
began. Meanwhile some other AV-guerrillas
also entered the group and so the
outlook changed a bit. New aspects were brought in: for example we added a new
field in the bibliographic description - a field to contain all data relating to the creation
of the medium. That is, this new field aimed at unpublished material, for which of
course no publication data would exist. This was necessary, because there was one in my eyes very wise - starting point of the rules, that they should concern themselves
with published as well as unpublished material. How difficult this is and what
problems arise especially when dealing with unpublished media we only realised in the
years to come. - Nonetheless we reached an encl.at last and - after pre-rules in 1979 the ONORM A 2653 - lets call it the first ONORM - was officially approved in
1983. It left a lot to be desired, but was on the other hand a first step in more or less
the right direction.(l)
Some years later a revision of the rules was necessary, mainly because so many new
media had come into being and they had to be included. The working group of the
standards institute met again - and this time there was a higher percentage of
contributors coming from AV-archives. At first we were not entirely sure if it would
make sense to go on with the work, because we saw, that the existing first ONORM
was not applied very much and that the catalogue practice of several AV-archives and
mediatheques differed widely. We were not sure, if it would be possible to bring all
the necessary factors under one heading.
When we started at last, we were convinced, that only substantial changes - not only
adding some new media - could make the revision worthwhile and only then it would
be possible to meet the case. It was far from easy to find new solutions and it was
especially difficult to attain concord in the main points of our reform. It was
217
especially difficult to attain concord in the main points of our reform. It was a very
time-consuming process which involved endless discussions, even quarreling, coming
up with new ideas, leaving them aside the next time and devising new ones, producing
version after version of a rule or of parts of it. It was stressful, sometimes boring,
quite often fascinating. It is strange, that such a remote subject as cataloguing and its
very esoteric details can produce such vivid discussions and stir up so many emotions.
But it did it alright!
In the end, after years, in 1991, we had new, second, ONORM A 2653 - and we had
found a particular outlook on cataloguing. We had come to a common position
agreeing about the main points - more or less.
All problems however are not solved with one cataloguing standard and we felt, that
we should go on with the exchange of opinions, with the discussion of experiences
with the new rules and of basic questions of AV-cataloguing. The rules work as such
ended, but we decided to continue meeting within AGAVA on an informal basis.
Before paticularizing let me summarize the main points of the standards, or the main
ideas of our group. It has to be a :
1. Multimedia1 approach, based on a special concept of the term audiovisual
2. Comprise published as well as unpublished material
3. Lnclude elements of the content analysis in the bibliographic description
4. Aimed at computer cataloguing, that is omitting some old traditions
librarianship.
of
Back to point l., the multimedia1 approach. - The reason for coming up with rules for
all AV-media is twofold - practical and philosophical:
a) Most of the institutions using AV-media have to catalogue more than one kind of
medium. It doesnt make sense to employ two or even more different cataloguing
rules for different kinds of AV-media in one institution.
b) The basic similarities between different kinds of AV-media are overwhelming: AVmedia are analogues of optical and/or acoustical processes or situations. These
analogues are produced by machinery. What constitutes an AV-media is not so much
the fact, that most of them need technical equipment for their reproduction, but that
they need it for their coming into existence, for their production. So the AV-media in
the full sense are sound recording, film, video and photography. Practical reasons
suggest however, that media like the overhead transparency should be treated
analogously.
When defining the range of cataloguing rules for AV-media this also should include
some concepts about the position of AV-media within the bigger frame of the
information media as such, that is their relationship to printed matter, paper records
and so on. One has to think about the different models, which librarianship or
archival science offer. I cannot go into this in full length. Only one remark, which is
very important to me:
There is a term, a concept, often used, especially by librarians, which I detest: Nonbook-material. This term includes a kind of division of the information media as
such: on one hand printed matter on the other the rest, all other media. The term
combines extremely heterogeneous material. It makes things unclear and sounds racist
to me: on one side there are the whites, the books, on the other all other races,
respectively media, the Coloured, the Non-book-materials.
This is particularly
218
absurd, because books make the most special field of the information media: media,
styled by the publishing process, which gives them unique hallmarks. When dividing
information media into book and non-book-material we measure the very general - all
media without books - by the very special, the printed matter. This invites disaster in
the long run. (5) Therefore when coming up with our multimedia rules we had also to
tackle some very basic questions. Having said this I have to confess, that this is my
special interest or hobby-horse and not all of the members of the group will feel so
strongly about non-book-material.
This diversion should not be misunderstood: we did not look for such basic questions:
we were driven to discuss them because of the practical problems encountered.
Now a remark about some regulations which seem necessary to us, when comprising
different kinds of AV-media or other different media in one catalogue. There is of
course one field for a detailed technical description. But this is not enough. The kind
of AV-medium in question have to be given as a final last point of the title proper as
such. Only then will the user know with what kind of medium he/she is dealing with,
when reading a list of short titles: Macbeth [tape].
Point 2. : The ONORM includes published as well as unpublished material. Cataloguing rules for published AV-media do not abound,..but they exist. For example
RAK (Rules for the alphabetic cataloguing) - on which ONORM A 2653 is based in
several respects - also contains special rules for published AV-media. These rules
however not only exclude unpublished material, they are also made from the point of
view of libraries which also have to deal with non-book-material.
So they follow
too closely the model of the cataloguing of printed matter. That at least is my opinion.
AV-archives cannot apply these rules anyway, because in their holdings, published as
well as unpublished material is mixed. It was our wish, that they all should be treated
by the rules. in order to enable us to make one catalogue for all our holdings. As far
as I know ONORM A 2653 is the first cataloguing standard to give the same weight
to unpublished as to published media.
The main problem of that approach is, that you have to make provisions for very
different needs. You have to bring together the outlook of an AV-librarian who is
only cataloguing for example music-CDs and the point of view of a cataloguer in a
research archive for example cataloguing stills of burning volcanoes.
With this we come to the next item:
Point 3: Special requirements for unpublished material, that is including content in the
bibliographic description.
When dealing with unpublished media you have to give a lot of data yourself. No
publisher puts data onto the carrier which you have only to transcribe in a particular
way. You have to give a title, a subtitle etc. by yourself.
Some special problems occur when dealing with unpublished recordings which are not
works. What do I mean with that? A work is the final product of a often long process
of forming and styling. The author, the publisher, are giving it a particular form. In
a work not only the content counts, but also the form - and it is the form, which is
used for the bibliographic description. A lot of unpublished recordings - I call them
documentary recordings - are not works in that sense. They record something which
is not shaped for being recorded. They record independent processes. - A typical
work would be a disc of an opera, a typical documentary recording would be a tape
recording of the street noise on the RingstraBe in Vienna on October, 3rd, between
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9.30 and 11 oclock. In one case - the opera - mainly formal data are catalogued, in
the other case nearly only the content itself is catalogued; the noise as such is
described. This means that the classical division between bibliographic description
and the later analysis of the content is not applicable for our needs. I should explain
here, that this division is very important and strictly executed in Austrian libraries,
especially in the big ones. The formal cataloguing, the bibliographic description, is
done by cataloguers with a high school background; the analysis of the content comes
later, sometimes weeks or month later, and is only made by cataloguers with an
academic background.
One area, where this division is especially unwise is in the author field. Normally
here only persons taking a part in the creation of a work and in its publication are
mentioned: the author, the composer, the translator, the singer etc. But what is to be
done with documentary recordings, for example the filming of an eveq-day-live
event? What is to be done with John F. Kennedy when cataloguing the famous
amateur film of his assassination ? Following the classical division between formal
cataloguing and content analysis Kennedy would be a subject heading and this
subject heading would be given only after the cataloguing. We thought that it is much
better to combine this, that is to include Kennedy in the bibliographic description as
such. We managed this by creating a new class of persons playing a role in relation to
the recording: Akteure. By this we mean persons or beings recorded in acting on
their own. Akteure do not act because they are recorded. They follow motives of
their own. Coming up with this category of persons, animals or even things is a kind
of a trick: it enables us to include hidden subject headings in the bibliographic
description.
Not only tackling documentary recordings is tricky sometimes; some other types of
work can make trouble too. I will mention here a problem not dealt with in the
ONORM - as I said the ONORM is only a beginning. Some recordings have, so to
say, different levels, different strata of works - a work within a work within a work.
This is true with books too when you take into consideration that they have the level
of the author writing a literary work and the level of the publication of the already
existing literary work, which leads to the work in its printed form. But these are only
No user has problems to
two strata and they are very easy to discriminate.
differentiate between the author and the publisher in the catalogue entry. But think of
a case like this: a play which is performed in a theater and, at the same time, is
recorded and broadcast by a televison company some days later; this transmission is
then recorded by an audiovisual archive. This makes a big bundle of data which has
to be brought into the catalogue in a way that makes clear what refers to what. There
are lots of persons referring to different work strata; there are different dates and so
on. This is not very easy to solve and no patent solution exists. To discuss problems
like that it seems important to me that our group goes on with its work.
Point 4. Our rules can be used for conventional card catalogues. We have some
special requirements for that. Basically however we aimed at computer cataloguing.
So the order of the fields is of secondary importance. No heading is necessary; we
need not trouble ourselves with the question of whether the recording will have its
entry under the heading of the author or the title (for example in the case of
anonymous works). All entries are made under the title.
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SECTION VI USE OF COMPUTERS IN AUDIOVISUAL

6.1 Evaluating
Archivists
Computer
Cataloguing
ARCHIVES
Systems A Guide
for Audiovisual
Roger Smither, Keeper of Film and Television, Imperial War Museum

INTRODUCTION
Those thinking of acquiring computer systems are liable to be submerged in a flood of
brochures and swamped by the attentions of salesmen, all determined to convince the
potential customer that the system they are promoting is uniquely. qualified to meet
that customers needs. It is all too easy, confronted by these impassioned declarations,
by incomprehensible technical specifications and, often enough, by impressive
demonstrations, to lose sight of what the system is actually offering and how that
relates to the customers real needs. The demonstrations can be particularly seductive,
since they will be conducted using information the suppliers know their system can
handle; the archives data may be significantly different. This paper offers a selection
of the kinds of considerations that are likely to arise in the context of systems for
cataloguing, and about which the customer should be aware before making up his or
her mind.
The paper is divided into two parts. The first offers definitions of the terminology
used to describe computer systems by salesmen and in promotional literature.
Although not intended to provide a full explanation of the technology of computing, it
is hoped this section will give potential purchasers an understanding of what vendors
are really offering. Such a prelude is necessary because it is this terminology that is
also inevitably used in the second part of the paper, which suggests the sort of
questions to which archivists should be seeking answers before agreeing to adopt a
system. Readers who are already familiar with the language of computers probably
need not bother with this first part, although they may wish to refer to it if they
encounter any unfamiliar terms later.
Very deliberately, this paper does not refer to specific systems. In the first place the
most important priority for archives is the quality of the data entering cataloguing
systems, not the specific system used; the transfer between systems of good quality
data compiled in accordance with a sound and logical structure does not these days
present major problems. In the second place there is no single correct answer to the
question of computer usage for film cataloguing.
The needs, the budgets, the
capabilities and the other circumstances of archives are too divergent for it to be
sensible to expect a single system to satisfy them all.
It is perhaps also worth pointing out that it may be unreasonable to expect to find a
system that scores 100% on the list of desiderata a film archive may compile
(although there is no harm in hoping). Solutions, especially solutions based on
packages for micro-computers, are likely to be reached on the basis of best- available
compromise. This paper will have achieved its purpose if it helps an archive to an
appreciation of some of the areas where it may be acceptable to make a compromise
and some where it will be necessary to draw the line.
I. DEFINITIONS
OF TERMINOLOGY
The acquisition of computers and computer systems is notorious for the amount and
complexity of the jargon attaching to it. This part of the paper tries to explain the
jargon, beginning with a few of the more fundamental concepts that the purchaser of
221
any computing system is likely to encounter and then progressing to topics more
specific to the kind of systems likely to be acquired for cataloguing. Additional
definitions are also provided in appropriate contexts in the second part of the paper.
To begin at the most obvious level: computer systems consist of combinations of
hardware and software. Hardware means the mechanical components of the system,
software the intellectual components. The effectiveness of a cataloguing system is
largely dependent on the software selected, but the performance of software in turn
depends on the hardware on which it runs.
1. HARDWARE
DEFINITIONS
Computers are traditionally described as main-frames, mini- computers (or minis) and
micro-computers (or micros).
Main-frames are big computer installations serving several large- scale applications,
typically administered by government departments, universities and research
establishments, or large corporations.
Continuous technological progress has resulted in a reduction in size and production
costs and an increase in capacity and speed of many key computer components. The
combination of capacity and speed is what is normally meant when a computers
Power is discussed.
Mini-computers are effectively scaled down mainframes; their size, cost and
comparative simplicity of operation are such as to make them available to larger
archives or to the parent bodies of smaller archives. The micro-computer originates in
a different design concept, characterised by the phrases Personal computer (PC) or
desk-top computer. This is the idea of giving individual users personal access to
systems with equivalent capabilities to those which they might have been able to use
(on a shared basis) on a larger machine. Costs of micro-computers are low enough to
put them in reach of almost all organisations.
The main hardware components of a computer are the CPU or central processing unit,
the terminal(s) where users enter commands or data and the computer displays the
results of its operations, and the disc-drives or tape-drives used for the storage of
software or data. In large computer installations these components may be
recognisably separate; in smaller systems they are often combined in a single machine.
Other hardware is usually described generically as Peripherals to distinguish it from
parts essential to the computers operations. This category includes devices for output
(printers etc.), and for communications, input and remote storage.
1A. Principal hardware components: the CPU. The most important components of
CPUs are the processors (the microprocessors or chips) and the main memory. The
circuit-board on which a micro-computers processor and memory are located is
known as the mother-board. Processors and memory are areas of rapid development
in the industry especially in microcomputers, and generate a great deal of technical
language, which it is only possible to explain briefly.
The processor is the part of the computer that actually carries out the operations
required by the program. Where microprocessors are concerned, the recent past has
seen considerable progress in the quantity of information a microprocessor can handle
at one time (8-bit, to 16- and 32-bit chips) and in the speed at which the
processor operates, measured in megahertz. These trends enhance the power of
222
computers, with higher figures indicating superior performance: such figures are
prominently featured in current brochures.
The computers central or main memory holds the software which the computer is
currently operating and the data immediately needed for processing by that software.
This memory is available for all computer operations, and is thus also known as
random access memory or RAM. Main memory capacity, like other forms of storage
is measured in Kb or Mb (standing for Kilobyte and Megabyte respectively measurements of capacity roughly equal to one thousand or one million characters of
data, program etc.), so it is the size of main memory that is being described when a
brochure mentions 640 Kb of RAM or 1 Mb of main memory.
Cache-ing uses RAM to store data for easy access when processing, thus increasing
speed of operation as the data would otherwise have to be recalled from disc: where
disc access time is measured in microseconds (ms), RAM access time is measured in
nanoseconds (ns: a nanosecond is one thousandth of a microsecond). Since these
indicate durations, they are one of the few performance measurements in computing
where less is better.
Other publicity jargon relating to CPUs includes the reasonably self-explanatory
phrase system architecture (as in revolutionary 386-based system architecture) and
the less obvious wait state, expansion slot and bus.
Wait state derives from machinery where processors operate faster than memory and
the processor has to pause for the memory to catch up, which reduces the value of a
faster processor. As with access times, the lower the number of wait states the better:
the optimum value is therefore zero wait state.
An expansion slot gives the facility to plug extra printed-circuit expansion cards or
boards into the same circuitry as the mother-board: such cards may be needed to add
extra storage or memory, to control the screen or to drive a peripheral such as a
tape-streamer (all these concepts are defined later), etc.
1B. Principal hardware components: the terminal
The keyboard is an essential part of a terminal, used by the operator to give
instructions to the computer or to enter data. It resembles the keyboard of a
conventional typewriter with the addition of several extra keys (such as programmable
function keys marked Fl, F2 etc.) providing for specific computer actions. Some
software expects the operator to use these extra keys when working with the program,
so it may be important to check that they are present and are located where operators
can use them easily. Keyboards are also normally supplied to generate the appropriate
character set of letters and symbols for the country where the machine is sold. The
vendors expectations of what is appropriate may not coincide with the expectations of
the archive or the software, so this area also requires checking.
The other part of a terminal is the screen or monitor on which the operator sees the
immediate results of the computers operations. A monitor is commonly described as
a VDU - visual display unit - or CRT - cathode ray tube. Monitors cover a range of
sophistication. from monochrome text-only to colour with high-resolution graphics
capability. Colour and graphics add significantly to the cost. The handling of text,
colour and graphics on screen is controlled by a display protocol which is usually
identified in publicity literature by a name or acronym (examples include Hercules,
CGA, EGA, VGA, etc.). Generally, colour screens and sophisticated graphics
capability are not essential for catalogue-type applications, but a lot of software is now
223
written to make use of such facilities

demonstrated without them.
and may not function
to the standard
IC. Principal hardware components: storage devices. Data and software not in use on
are kept on file storage devices - normally meaning disc or tape. Computer systems
talk of writing and reading data into or out of storage. The development of disc
storage offers fast access. Micro-computers promoted the development of the small
removable disc (known as the floppy or floppy diskette) and of the miniaturised and
robust permanent disc-drive.
Micro-computers use floppy discs with a high capacity. Floppy discs can not
automatically be used to carry data between any two machines: in addition to physical
difference in disc size (5.25 has given way to 3,25 and the CD-ROM is gaining
ground) and are formatted by different generations of machines to pack data more or
less densely and thus to fit more or less on a disc. A micro-computer that formats
discs to the high density rating of 2. Mb can frequently (but not always) read a lower
density disc, but the reverse is not true, and some machines do not read discs
formatted on another machine even of the same supposed standard.
ID. Peripheral hardware components: output devices, The purpose of an output device
is self-evident: to produce typed or printed text output, known in the industry as hard
copy, from the data held. Output devices typically connect to the computer through a
port on the CPU box: the more common interface (or linkage) is called parallel
interface but some devices will use the serial interface port. Usage of a particular port
may require the insertion of an expansion card into the computer.
To print a large report can take a long time, during which the computer may not be
available for other uses; similarly, users may find themselves queuing for a shared
device and unable to get on with other work while they wait. To resolve such
problems, manufacturers commonly offer facilities known as buffering and
spooling. Buffering provides temporary memory. which can absorb the data at the
fast speed at which a computer transmits it and pass it on at the slower speed at which
it is actually printed. Spooling adds to buffering a form of queue-management.
Printers may use either standard cut-sheet paper or the familiar fan fold continuous
computer stationery: the former is typically associated with quality, the latter with
bulk and speed. Printers using continuous stationery are described as tractor feed
because of the mechanics of paper movement.
Printers use different methods of creating characters. The principal types are:
dot-matrix printers, which make characters out of patterns of dots formed by different
arrangements of a print-head of small pins striking a ribbon (ink jet printers are
similar, except that ink is squirted onto the paper not struck from a ribbon: printing is
quieter but special paper or a heat process is often needed to accelerate ink drying);
daisy-wheel printers, which use the same technology as type-writers, i.e. cast letters
striking a ribbon (the name derives from the flower-like wheels on which different
styles of lettering may be loaded into the printer); and
laser printers, which use the movement of a laser to draw output onto plain paper and
offer, for a price, an optimum combination of quality and noise level.
224
1E. Peripheral hardware components: communication devices and networking

Communication devices enable one computer to transmit data or instructions to others
or to receive data or instructions from them. They may be simple cable linkages to
connect two computers by way of one or other of their ports, or more complex devices
such as a modem (which enables a computer to address another computer at a great
distance, commonly over a telephone line).
A special form of communications device is that linking two or more computers in a
network. Within a network, users of different computers may have access to each
others data files and disc storage and share peripheral devices, or they may share
access to one or more central CPU and storage resource devices known as file servers
as well as to peripherals. Users of tile servers may either operate on a dumb terminal
or work station (with no processing capability of their own) or on a micro-computer
linked to the network, which can both operate the shared resources and carry out its
own local processing. Literature commonly distinguishes between a local area
network or LAN, contained within a single building or set of offices, and a wide area
network or WAN involving terminals (or nodes) at more remote sites - some perhaps
participating in the network via modems.
Networking increases the theoretical benefit of computerisation by extending the
availability of a computer system beyond the single machine on which it is first
installed, and by offering the possibility of linking users to more powerful processing
or larger storage resources than could justifiably be made available to individuals.
The opportunities for networking should be explored when planning any new system.
IF. Peripheral hardware components: input devices.
A mouse and a scanner are input devices that may be offered as alternatives to the
keyboard (or communication devices) for the entry of data or instructions into
computer systems.
A mouse is a hand-held device that controls the movement of a pointer on the terminal
screen! the pointer is used to select options from a menu of possible operations.
Normally, however, the software must have been written with mouse-operation in
mind: it will not be possible to use a mouse in a system written solely for keyboard
operation.
A scanner is a machine that looks like a facsimile (fax) machine or photocopier. and
can read the contents of a page into a computer system. The typical usage in
computer applications is the capture or of transfer graphic designs, or with OCR
(optical character recognition) capabilities that will read text from a clearly printed or
typed page. Such devices may help a computerised cataloguing system catch up with
backlogs of data from well-kept manual systems.
1G. Peripheral hardware components: remote storage devices.
In addition to the storage devices built into a computer, further storage may be
provided as a peripheral. This may consist simply of extra disc-drives (floppy or hard)
to supplement those built into the computer or to act as file servers for a network (see
definition above) but other data storage technologies also exist. For example, tape
streamers offer miniaturised tape storage and can be useful methods of making
precautionary (back-up) copies of programs and data files to store in case of problems
with the copies held on the computer. Various forms of laser disc technology such as
CD-ROM offer high storage capacity for large data files, although it is an important
225
restriction that this is not yet commonly in a re-usable form (a restriction indicated by
the letters standing for read-only memory; another designation is WORM, standing
for write once, read many times)
2. SOFTWARE DEFINITIONS
Software is the generic term for computer programs - the machine- readable
instructions that enable the computer to perform the intended operations. Software is
divided between operating systems - the programs which control the computers work
whatever task it is given - and application Programs, which address the users specific
requirements (such as word-processing. accounts management or, in the context of
this paper, cataloguing).
2A. Operating systems
Operating systems are (as previously noted) the programs used within the computer to
control its operations. Application programs must be tailored to work within a
particular operating system: not all applications are available under all operating
systems, or even under all versions of a given operating system. Operating systems
evolve, with enhanced facilities in successive released versions, and applications
software often requires not just a particular operating system but a version no earlier
than a particular release. Note also that operating systems may impose limitations on
an application that are not apparent when that application is run on other systems. For
example. some operating systems impose limits on the size of file that can be handled.
If this limit is lower than one tolerated by an application program in other contexts,
users may find that program running up against limitations a demonstration had not
led them to expect.
Some operating systems are specific to individual computer types; others have
widespread currency. The first significant machine- independent operating system
was CPM, but the market leaders now are PC-DOS/MS-DOS (the system developed
for the IBM Personal Computer and now used by the whole range of IBMcompatibles) and UNIXKENLX (a system developed by Bell Laboratories/AT&T for
multi-user or multi-tasking computers - concepts considered below).
The new
generation of IBM machines will operate under a new operating system, OS/2. which
many expect to overtake MS-DOS as the effective industry standard during the next
decade. The vast majority of micro-computer software currently available, however,
runs under MS-DOS.
Hardware and operating system combinations will be a factor in determining whether
an archives use of its computer is single-user or multi-user (i.e. whether more than
one person can use the system at the same time) and whether or not the equipment can
be multi-tasking (i.e. capable of running more than one job at a time). The majority of
micro-computer systems hitherto have been single-user and single-task operations,
and have obliged their owners to come to terms with the single user bottleneck - the
difficulties arising from the fact that while the machine is in use by one person it, and
the data it contains, are not available to other would-be users. The development of
more powerful chips, of easier networking (see above), and of multi-tasking operating
systems should all make these problems easier to avoid.
It is important to remember that software must be appropriate to multi-user access as
well as the hardware. For example, the software should include file-locking or recordlocking procedures that will resolve conflicts between users seeking simultaneous
access by preventing a second user from opening a file (or, less drastically, a single
record) already opened by another.
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2B. Applications software: general introduction

One of the chief advantages of the enormous increase in usage of micro-computers
has been the reduction of the need for the majority of potential users to have to
contemplate writing or commissioning their own software. Most common uses for
computers have been identified, and a range of solutions is on offer for each. AV
archivists need to be aware, however, that their particular needs do not necessarily fit
into this category: film cataloguing is not the same as stock-taking in shops or even
book-cataloguing in libraries. AV archivists may hope to avoid writing a new system
entirely from first principles, but they should not expect to find there is no work to be
done.
The kind of software on offer to archives for cataloguing will be variously described:
the terms package, program or suite of programs may be used as well as
system. The first necessary distinction is between interactive or On-line systems
and batch- mode or off-line systems. The former offer the user the facility to
interrogate the computer to seek immediate answers to specific enquiries from the
information in its files. Off-line systems are those where a computer is used to
process a structured file to generate catalogue- and index-type listings, which
enquirers use in an essentially conventional way (although the physical format of these
listings may be less conventional than their contents). Batch-model derives from
the fact that the computer processes data in cumulative batches rather than
interactively (or as it comes). Ln fact many interactive systems will also carry out
certain functions in batch-mode if this suits the user: batches of new information may
be added to the file overnight, or long printouts generated in quiet periods, so as to
avoid tying up the computer at times when it is needed for other purposes.
Most systems currently on offer to archives for in-house use (see below) are
interactive, although usually with a report-generating capability which enables users to
produce printed catalogue- or index-listings as well as making on-screen enquiries.
Bureau-service and other remote systems may only be available off-line. Off-line
does not automatically mean inferior: many archives have made successful starts in
computerisation using generalised information-processing systems operating entirely
in batch mode.
On-line or interactive systems may run in-house or be available to the archive on a
time-sharing basis. In-house systems are, as their name suggests, entirely selfcontained within the archive, which may therefore expect considerable freedom of
choice (within organisational and budgetary limits) in their selection. The term timesharing describes the relationship where a system user is allowed or is sold on-line
access to a computer which is also (or primarily) dedicated to the needs of another
(usually larger) user, such as a university, library, government agency etc. Timesharing will commonly give an archive access to a computer of greater power than it
would be likely to acquire itself, but there may well be limitations on the choice of
software, on the times when the archive is allowed access, etc., as well as the possible
factor of connect costs - the charges levied for the time the archive spends actually
communicating with the system.
Another topic for potential confusion is the extent to which a purchased system is
generalised or customised. Commercial systems are obviously normally written for
general use: some suppliers expect the user to adapt the system to his or her own
needs while others offer to make the specific adjustments required by the buyer and
include this service in their price. Since the latter systems should be delivered in a
ready to run form, they are often known as turn-key systems. Turn-key systems tend
to be considerably more expensive than a generalised package. The extra investment
227
^,_--
-..--
.-.--
-_-
~_^II.-._.-. --
--
.-
may, however, be worthwhile: although implementation of some systems should not

defeat the intelligent amateur, others are very difficult indeed for a non-programmer to
work with. Even generalised systems can offer help to the user in coming to terms
with the system by offering on-screen help facilities.
2C. Applications software: cataloguing systems.
There are several different types of interactive system, but most of those offered as
solutions to cataloguing problems will be described either as data base or data base
management systems or as retrieval, text retrieval or information retrieval systems.
In describing a computer system, suppliers will commonly talk of the handling of
information in a vocabulary including the words fields, records and files.
Fields are the computer equivalent of the boxes on a manual catalogue card - each
field contains a single item of information so that a film catalogue might have a
Running Time field, a Date of First Screening field, a Director field, an
Archive Accession Number field, etc. For some applications, users might welcome
the possibility of using sub-fields and/or group fields. Sub-fields offer divisions of a
field, so that a Cast Credit field might be divided into sub-fields allowing both the
actors name and the role portrayed to be entered. Group-fields, as their name
suggests, hold together a coherent set of data fields and are capable of repeating as
groups so that the computer will not confuse information from two different sets: for
example, a group field might give details of festival screenings, with festival name,
date and awards held in a separate group for each festival, or describe the physical
characteristics of an archives holdings of a particular film, with details of the length,
gauge, base, sound system etc. of each copy held in a separate group.
Records, to continue the analogy, are the equivalent of the complete catalogue cards the collection of fields representing a complete set of information about a single
catalogue item. For some applications, users might welcome the possibility of using
sub-records within the main record, for example to describe individual stories within a
single newsreel issue or to describe alternative versions of a single film.
A file is a set of records: for example, an archives catalogue. Precisely how files are
stored varies between systems. Some have only a single file but most have at least
two, of which the first contains the data entered by cataloguers and the second, third
etc. are inverted files created by the computer system to act a indexes to give faster
access to the data in the main file. There may be one inverted file covering all fields
in the record, or separate inverted files for fields of different types. This type of
system is sometimes designated flat file to differentiate fi-om systems like those
described in the next paragraph.
Another approach is that described as a relational data base. In such systems, the total
information requirement is analysed in several different files. An archive, for
example, might create a film titles file, a credits file @reduction and distribution
companies. film makers and actors), a file of copyright holder and donors, a file of
subject classifications or keywords, and file of film copies. The equivalent function to
access to the full catalogue is then provided by the computer searching the different
data bases and making links between them as necessary.
Because of the way data is separated into specialised files in relational systems, data
storage tends to be more economical and searching more rapid. Another attraction of
such an approach is the possibility of maintaining in separate files details which would
be impractical to enter in generalised files - for example biographical details of film
228
makers, scope notes for subject headings, addresses for distribution companies. It
is, however important to note that, on the whole, micro-computers are not well suited
to the full complexities of relational data base usage for large collections of complex
items: the hardware tends to limit the number of files that may be opened
simultaneously the total size of each file, etc.
2D. Applications software: system weaknesses. System suppliers will normally fail to
mention the weaknesses in a system, but it would be naive to accept any product as
totally secure. Even manual systems are vulnerable to poor design (ink that fades, or
glue on labels that ceases to stick), to accident (fire or flood), or to vandalism or
carelessness (a disfigured stolen ledger, or a dropped card-index drawer). Computer
system can suffer similar physical problems (system design faults are known as bugs),
and may also be vulnerable to hazards which might seem quite trivial to those used to
manual systems. Some data bases, for example, can be damaged if there is a power
failure or other interruption while data is being entered or amended or an inverted file
is being built or restructured. It is important to know which processes place the
system most at risk of such data corruption, and what if any safeguards are available.
Two forms of vandalism specific to computers have been in the news: these are
hacking and viruses. Hacking is the morally dubious hobby of attempting to gain
access to a computer system from which outsiders are supposedly barred: the intention
is rarely malicious, but inadvertent damage may result. Viruses are deliberatelywritten computer programs whose purpose is to disrupt or destroy legitimate programs
or files and which are often written to spread (like their medical namesakes) to other
computers by replicating themselves into programs or onto discs processed by an
infected machine. Archives should be safe from hacking until they become involved
in schemes for information exchange involving a wide-area network with modem
linkages; the virus threat is more general, and the best precaution is to be strict about
forbidding staff to bring in discs from outside (of games, pirated software, etc.) to
run on the archive computer
The other vital precaution is to have back-up copies of programs and of essential files
permanently available for use in case of damage to the main copies. Systems will
frequently offer recovery facilities to lessen the damage resulting from a data base
corruption - these may be described as a salvage or rebuild data base function.
Note, however, that these will seldom be 100% effective in undoing damage, and
offer no protection against a serious hardware failure (or crash). Backing-up data - the
regular generation of copies of the data base or at least of the raw data it contains
onto removable disc or tape for storage separately from the computer - is an essential
routine precaution against loss or corruption of the main file: if a recent back-up copy
is always available, the amount of damage resulting even from a major file corruption
can be containable. To be prepared for disaster is a more constructive approach than
merely to hope a disaster will not happen.
It. QUESTIONS TO BE PUT TO SYSTEMS SUPPLIERS
1. HARDWARE
AND OPERATING SYSTEM LIMITATIONS
Computer systems are stibject to hardware constraints: a given computer system is

unlikely to be available in forms which will enable it to run on any computer, and a
given computer is unlikely to be able to run all the computer programs or software its
owners might wish to use. Among the first questions potential purchasers of systems
should investigate, therefore, is the extent to which the system under consideration is
compatible with systems already in use in or available to their organisation and with
the computerisation policy of their institution or its parent body or funding agency.
229
Even if they are operating in a true context of free choice, they should bear in mind
that their decision on a first system will place constraints on their ability to choose
future systems for different - or even for similar - applications.
It is important to check that any new system will fit in with existing systems and will
not unduly restrict freedom of choice for future applications. The following types of
issues arise.
IA. Hardware limitations.
1A 1. Is the proposed system limited to one family of hardware - either one
particular manufacturer model/range or a compatible group ? (Such limitations
should be apparent through statements like Hewlett-Packard minis and mainframes
only or IBM XT or AT and true compatibles only in descriptive or promotional
literature.)
lA2. Does the system require other operating conditions - for example a minimum
size of main memory?
lA3. Does it require a minimum capacity of hard disc storage to accommodate the
system (let alone the data) ?
1A4. Does it have any special requirements in terms of control or display capability?
1B. Operating system limitations,
IBl . Is the system limited to a particular operating system or a particular version of a
given operating system ? (Such limitations are usually phrased as, for example, MSDOS version 3.2 or later in descriptive literature.)
lB2. Does the system match the users expectations in the areas of single/multi-user
operation or multi-tasking ?
2. SIZE AND FORMAT RESTRICTIONS
All computer systems impose some restrictions on the size of the various data
elements they handle: in some cases, those limits can be set so high that the user is
quite genuinely unlikely even to notice them but in others they can be something of
which he or she must be constantly aware. Possibly the most invidious are those
limitations which are not immediately apparent. For example, a system might place
very high (and thus effectively Invisible) limits on the size of individual fields but also
have an overall limit on the total record size. The overall limit may be generously
high for the application for which the system was originally developed - book
cataloguing, perhaps - but inadequate for the requirements of av cataloguing, which
can consume a lot of space, and this shortcoming will not be apparent when the
system is demonstrated in its original form. The topic of size and format restrictions
is worth exploring with the software supplier in some detail, along the following lines.
2A. Field
2A 1. Are
maximum
characters
read 1120
characters
fields defined within the system as being of maximum length, extendable

length, or open ended? (Examples of the first type would be 1130
maximum - a hard and fast limit. For the second type, a definition might
characters extendable in multiples of 10 to 30. 40, 50 etc. In this case, 20
is expected to suffice in most cases, but the system will accept longer
230
lengths if needed. Extensions are offered in small measures to restrict the overall
growth of the file. Open ended or unrestricted means that any limit is placed so
high that there is no effective limitation on length - or at least no limit until the overall
system capabilities enter into consideration.)
2A2. If the system operates with a maximum length, how far is that length imposed
by the system rather than a requirement of the system that the user define a limit ? (In
other words, will the system not tolerate more than so many characters in any field, or
does the system simply require the user to predict that so many characters will be the
maximum space needed to record each type of information ? Note that user-defined
field limits may still have to fit within a system-defined record limit - see below. Note
also that some systems impose length limits on fields that will be defined as
searchable but will allow unlimited length or at least less restriction on those
defined as non-searchable text fields. It is also a characteristic of some systems to
state a maximum number of characters in a field that can be used for sorting purposes
even if the field itself may be of greater length: this can be significant if, for example,
an archive may have a film series where episodes are distinguished only by a number
coming at the end of a long title.)
2A3. Are fields fixed length ?
(In other words, if the actual data entered is less than the stated maximum length, does
the computer store only the data entered, or does it store the necessary number of
blank space characters to make up the difference ? If only data entered is stored, the
user can set generous limits that will allow for longest possible entries in each field:
if the computer actually stores the full specified length for each field, however, this
practice will add significantly to the total storage requirement and users will have to
be prepared to compromise. They may, for example, have to think more in terms of
catering only for high average rather than maximum lengths, and live with the need
to truncate their very long entries.)
2B. Record size.
2B 1. Does the system impose limits on the total length of a record - which could be
done by limiting the total number of characters in all fields, the total number of fields,
or the total number of types of fields ?
2B2. Can multiple, individually-addressable entries be made in single fields and/or
are individual fields repeatable within the system; if so, is there a limit in either case
on the number of such multiple entries or repeats ? (See 2C. of I. DEFINITIONS
above. Multiple entry would be required, for example, to note several people
sharing a single production role - e.g. Direction: Powell, Michael & Pressburger,
Emeric. A repeating field would be needed when there might otherwise be risk of
misunderstanding entries. For example, if an archive wished to use a field to record
both someones real name and his or her alias - e.g. Director: Walton, Joseph i.e.
Losey, Joseph - there would be scope for confusion between such usage - two names
for one person - and the usage previously illustrated - one name each for two
persons. To avoid such confusion, a repeated field may be preferable to a multiple
entry.)
2B3. If there is such a limit, is it user-defined or system- imposed?
2B4. Can users create and repeat groups of fields and/or fields containing sub-fields,
or divide a record into sub-records ? (See 2C. of I. DEFINITIONS above for examples
of possible uses of group fields, sub-fields and sub-records.)
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2C. File size.

2Cl. Does the system limit the total size of a file or data base, by placing a limit
either on the total number of records or on the total combined character length of all
records?
2C2. If the system uses an inverted tile does it maintain a single inverted tile for all
data or separate inverted files for different fields ?
2C3. Are there system limits on the number of entries allowed in an inverted file ?
2C4. If the system offers a relational data base approach, how many data bases may
be created and how many may be addressed at the same time ?
2C5. What are the restrictions (as suggested above) for each data base individually
within a relational data base system and for the total system?
2C6. Is it possible to estimate in advance the likely disk- storage requirements for the
total system or to provide rule of thumb guidelines for the relative sizes and growth
rates of and inverted files based on a notional average record?
2C7. Does the systems performance change with the growth of files (for example by
a noticeable slowing down in response when making searches) ? (See also Section 6B.
for questions relating to deterioration performance with frequent amendments to data
already in the system.)
3. SETTlNG UP THE SYSTEM
There can be a very wide difference between the experience of seeing a practiced
demonstrator putting an existing system through its paces and that of being a novice
computer owner opening a pack of floppy discs and a large but possibly poorly written
manual and seeking to create a system that will repeat with ones own data and in
ones own establishment the smooth operation that was originally demonstrated. It is
essential to establish with the potential supplier in exactly what form the system is
being offered. The following types of questions should arise.
3A. Specificity of application.
3A 1. Is the system offered in the language the user requires - e.g. Spanish or Arabic or only in English, French etc. ?
3A2. If the user requires more than one language is the system bi- or multi-lingual in
the necessary languages? (These questions refer to the visible operation of the system
- i.e. the language used in screen displays, help messages etc. rather than to the
language of the data stored, a topic considered under SC. DATA ENTRY below.)
3A3. Is the buyer offered a tailor-made or turn-key application or a generalised
system which he or she must adapt or have adapted to the specific needs of the buying
organisation (See 2B. of I. DEFINITIONS above)
3A4. If the system is a generalised one, how easy is it for a non-expert to set up the
necessary application - to create the framework of field names, types, lengths etc. that
defines the shape and performance of the file and the specifications for formats etc.
that determine display and output ? (This question should address both the actual ease
of the operation and the helpfulness of the manual which comes with the system. It is
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regrettably quite common for good systems to be let down by poor manuals - see also
3B. below.)
3AS. Whether turn-key or generalised, what are the possibilities for changing the data
structure definition once the file is active - for example by deleting a defined field or
changing its definition, or by adding a new field ? (Note that. many systems allow
new fields to be added only at the end of the existing structure.)
3A6. Can the buyer make such alterations even to a turn-key system, or must he or
she expect again to employ the services of the supplier ? (The need to re-involve the
supplier every time a system needs even minor adjustment can add appreciably to
initial costs: it may be better either to look for a system which permits small running
adjustments by the archive or alternatively to find a supplier offering attractive terms
for a software maintenance and support agreement.)
3B. System maintenance and support.
3Bl. Does the purchase price of the system entitle the buyer to benefit from any
upgrades or improvements made by the developers of that system ?
3B2. If such rights are not automatic, will the supplier provide information services
on upgrades, special prices to existing users, etc. ?
3B3. Does the supplier (and/or the original writers of the software) offer a softwaremaintenance service ?
3B4. What form does software maintenance take - response to failures only, or a
more active help line facility - and how much does it cost? (A help line is an office
which licensed users may call to receive advice on problems in using the software.)
3B5. Is there an active user group of people and organisations using the system,
which will offer a framework for exchanging experiences and ideas for improvements
to the system ?
3B6. What are relations like between the user group and the suppliers and writers of
the system?
3B7. How much training and help is offered either by the supplier or by the system
itself! (See 2B. of I. DEFINITIONS above.)
3B8. Is the system manual (instructional handbook) clearly written, helpfully laid out.
adequately thorough in its explanations, well illustrated with examples, well indexed
and (in spite of all the foregoing) still of manageable size?
3B9. Do the suppliers or writers of the software provide a sample data base to
accompany the manual and further illustrate its examples ?
3BlO. Can the suppliers of the software put potential users in touch with another
institution which is already using the system for an exactly or nearly similar operation,
so that they can discuss relevant experiences before committing themselves?
3Bll. Will the suppliers provide a copy (at least of a demonstration version) of the
system they wish the user to acquire, so that he or she can try it out at leisure with real
archive data ? (Demonstration versions are usually - and understandably - in some
way or other of reduced capability compared to the full version: for example, they may
233
not accept more than a (low) maximum number of records or size of file. It can still
be very useful for a user to have the opportunity to explore the system in contexts
other than a demonstration or sales room.)
4. SYSTEM SECURITY
The data entered into a computer system is likely to represent a very serious
investment for an archive, both in terms of the value of the hours of labour by
cataloguing staff involved in the process of input and in terms of the disruption of the
workings of an archive that has come to depend on its computer system which will
follow any breakdown of that system. it is therefore important for that archive to seek
reassurance that the investment is as safe as can reasonably be expected. Potential
suppliers should be asked about the systems ability to withstand both accidental or
deliberate damage at the hands of its users and operators and its resilience to other
types of mischance. Typical questions might include the following.
4A. Security Provisions.
Does the software incorporate any security provisions, such as password
4Al.
protection either of designated data areas or of certain operating functions ? (For
example, it may be desirable to limit access to confidential information, such as the
addresses of donors, or to restrict to designated personnel only the capability to amend
or delete data in the system. It is necessary to observe that password security especially in some micro-computer systems - is relatively illusory, in the sense that it
is not difficult to crack the password code: however, any deterrence may be better
than none.)
4A2. Does the system offer OPAC (on-line public access) facilities, with read-only
access on any terminal designated for public rather than staff use? (Such terminals
would offer no possibilities of entering, amending or deleting data, and so provide
safeguards against accidental or malicious damage to the data by non-staff users.)
4A3. Does the hardware offer any form of physical protection against data loss or
damage - such as the ability physically to lock or otherwise protect the keyboard, disk
drives, etc.) ?
4B. System robustness.
4B 1. At what stages of operation is the data in the system particularly vulnerable to
act of god or act of stupidity damage ? (See 2D. of I. DEFINITIONS above.)
4B2. How severe may the resulting damage be, and does the software offer any
damage limitation or recovery facilities?
4B3. Is the hardware vulnerable to physical conditions in the proposed working
environment such as vibration, dirty electric power (characterised by fluctuations or
noise from other users on the same circuit), static electricity, dust, smoke etc. ?
(This question should be checked with an engineer - salesmen always claim systems
are extremely robust. Suppliers should be able to recommend equipment to reduce
these dangers.)
4C. Data security.
4C 1. Does the system offer any help in producing security back- up copies of data
files, or is the user dependent on operating system facilities?
234
4C2. Does the system check (for example with the query SURE-? requiring a
positive answer) before carrying out any commands that might result in the loss of
data ? (Note that such checks can sometimes be over-protective, making It difficult to
remove data that is genuinely unwanted, but it may be better to err on the safe side.)
4C3. Does the system invite the use of any commands that could cause damage if
mistyped ? (F or example, some systems use commands that are similar to the MSDOS COPY, DEL or FORMAT commands; if typed at the wrong moment by an
inexperienced or tired operator, these might wipe out data on a large scale.
4C4. Does the system offer protection against the inadvertent double-entry of a record
or the re-use of a record identifier (This is another area where a lapse in operator
attention might result in the deletion of an existing catalogue entry if its number were
used again for some different information).
5. SYSTEM USAGE: DATA ENTRY
As previously noted, the entry of data into the system will represent a major
investment of an archives effort and staff time. It is of the greatest importance that the
system be capable of accommodating and processing all the information which the
archive will wish to load into it; it is also important that the system provide as much
help as possible to make data entry an accurate and cost effective exercise. The
following type of questions will explore the systemss capabilities in this area.
5A. Data limitations.
5Al. Does the system support the full range of characters required by the archive for
example, non-latin scripts, accent or diacritics, etc. ?
5A2. Does the system designate any punctuation or other symbols for system usage,
and if so which ones ? (For example, a system might reserve the colon as a separator
between sub-fields. the dollar sign as an end of record symbol or an asterisk as a
wildcard character (see 7A. SELECTION); in such cases, users might not be able to
use those symbols in the normal way in their own text.)
5A3. Can these symbols be re-defined if the user decides they are required within the
data?
5A4. Is the system capable of recording (or at least displaying) dates in a form with
which the archive will be content ? (Some systems require the entry of a date in a
system format which users may find unfriendly - e.g. 470206 for 6 February 1947;
some may have problems with dates earlier than 1900 or later than 2000.)
5A5. Is the system capable of manipulating dates to the level of sophistication an
archive might require - for example by working with date spans such as 1919 - 1933
or with date approximations such as circa 1906?)
5B. Record/field identifications.
5B 1. How does the system recognise the unique identity of a record: by the entry in a
user-defined field, such as inventory number or main title, or by a system-generated
reference number ? (With the use of system-generated numbers, there is not likely to
be an automatic safeguard against the double-entry of information on a film by two
cataloguers unaware of each others work; on the other hand, a requirement accurately
235
to key in the full text of a main title before a record can be re-opened for editing or
correction can be time-consuming and irritating.)
5B2. How do the system and/or the user identify individual data fieldsand sub-fields:
by field names or labels, or by combinations of numbers, letters or other symbols?
(Many systems use short tags consisting of letters and/or symbols to identify fields or
to break fields up into sub-fields: some users find these unfriendly or difficult to
learn.)
5C. Data entry facility.
5Cl. Does the system provide facilities for validation - the checking of data as it is
entered into an individual field? (Many systems offer at least the validation of data by
type, length or pattern - e.g. alphabetic or numeric characters only; exact length or
length within permitted limits; data in a specific pattern such as that required by dates;
etc. Some systems, however, do not even offer this level of checking, while others do
not extend it to all fields - for example, not to sub-fields.)
5C2. Does the system support an authority list or offer any comparable facilities: if so
may an authority list be specific to individual fields or field types (for example,
personal names) or is there one list generalised over the whole record ? (Systems may
offer checking of data against an authority list of approved terminology - terms not
found in the list are rejected or at least queried. This facility is most useful when a
field has its own specific list. Procedures to add new terms are of varying complexity.
In some of these systems there is also the facility to display the authority list for a
given field as a menu of options from which the cataloguer may make a choice when
cataloguing a film.)
5C3. Can the system facilitate data entry by automatically offering probable data for
particular fields which the cataloguer may accept or over-write ? (It might save time,
for example, if a gauge entry of 35 mm. or a language entry for the language of the
country of the archive were automatically offered in the relevant fields as most-like
options: the cataloguer would accept these entries with a single key-stroke, or
overtype with the appropriate data.)
5C4. Can data be held over from one record to the next on the same accept-or-overwrite principle, or stored for recall as constants in a holding file ? (Such facilities
would, for example, mean that a series of film might be catalogued without the
cataloguer having to re-enter t production credits and series title for each film
individually.
5C5. Does the system support a facility for recognising coded abbreviated entries
made by the cataloguer and expanding them the full text entry in the catalogue file ?
(This facility would mean, for example, that cataloguers might type entries of b or
c in the colour field and the system recognise them as meaning B&W or
Colour.)
5C6. Does the system support calculation of data for one field interpretation to
specified formulae of information entered elsewhere - for example, a calculation of
running time based on entries made for gauge and length ?
5C7. How does the system approach the question of subject or keyword retrieval:
does it require the entry of separate lists of keywords or index terms, or is it capable of
extracting keywords from text (e.g. of a summary) in which they are embedded ?
(Some systems make long text fields unsearchable: therefore, terms which need to
236
be searched for must be entered into separate fields. This represents extra work for
cataloguers/indexers though, in compensation, it gives an archive the possibility of
producing specialised indexes - of people, places, events, etc. - rather than offering- a
single generalised searching capability: it will also facilitate production of printed
indexes to accompany a printed catalogue. Other systems automatically enter in the
inverted file all words in text fields apart from those on a stored list - a list of common
words. This can give great flexibility in searching and reduces the burden on
cataloguers of repeating keywords in index-fields: however, it substitutes the
alternative burden of requiring cataloguers to write summaries in such a way that the
terminology used is appropriate for searching. It also precludes the easy generation of
actual subject indexes and tends also to increase the storage overhead of the system.
A third category of system may offer in a kind of compromise the facility to mark a
word or term in a text field as being relevant for indexing purposes.)
5C8. Is it possible (and, if possible, is it easy) to import data into the cataloguing
system from another system ? (For example, an archive may find a specific data-entry
package which offers some of the facilities listed above if they are not available in the
main cataloguing system itself. Similarly, cataloguers might find a generalised wordprocessing package more convenient for the preparation of summaries than the
systems own facilities. Finally, an archive may be offered machine-readable data
from an outside source - e.g. distributed tapes in MARC format. In all these cases, it
would be important to discover how easily the cataloguing system could batch add
(see 2B. of I. DEFINITIONS, above) the output from the other sources.)
5C9. On completion of an input cycle, the data must be compiled into the system,
with the inverted file(s) being updated etc. - a procedure which may take considerable
time. Does this process happen at the end of each record, or at the end of an input
session ?
5C10. Does the system offer facilities to defer full updating of the system after data
entry?
6. SYSTEM USAGE: DATA EDITING
However thorough their procedures for checking data on entry, archives are likely to
wish to amend or add to information already in their cataloguing systems: new
information may come to light requiring the correction of previous assumptions or the
entry of references to the new sources; the archive may acquire or make a new copy of
a film, and so on. It is therefore necessary to explore the facilities offered by the
system for editing the data it contains. Questions such as the following may be
appropriate.
6A. Editing Procedures.
6Al. How easy is it to edit a record that already exists within the system by the
addition, deletion or amendment of data in existing fields or in fields allowed in the
data structure but not previously used in the record? (The addition of fields not
previously allowed for to the structure is a matter of system change rather than mere
data amendment - see 3A. SPECIFICITY OF APPLICATION above. Changes made
to the catalogue file must be reflected in the inverted file(s), so the operation can be
less simple than may at first seem likely: hence the following three questions.)
6A2. Does the cataloguer use a familiar process (for example, the same screen layout
as is used for data entry) or is some special procedure required?
237
6A3. Can the cataloguer hunt for errors and proceed to make the necessary
amendments In the appropriate records in a single operation, or would two separate
aspects of the system involved ? (Commonly, a system will not, for reasons of
security, offer data editing facilities to those engaged on a search operation; a network
systems file-locking or record-locking protocols may also expect the two functions to
be separate. A user would thus have to search out an error, note the records needing
amendment, leave the search part of the system and enter edit, and then call up the
relevant records. This is time consuming - though the security dimension should not
be overlooked.)
6A4. Does the system offer any facilities for global editing or batch editing ? (These
would be facilities either for making the same change to all occurrences of a given
piece of data anywhere in the file - e.g. globally altering all mentions of Peking to
read Beijing - or for making a given alteration to all records in a designated area of
the file - for example, to change the copyright status of all films acquired from a
particular donor.)
6B. Editing implications.
6B 1. As noted earlier, in multi-user systems it is necessary for the system to have
protocols that resolve the conflict between two users seeking access to the same
record: is the system suitably equipped in this respect?
6B2. After the cataloguer has amended the data, the system must again update the
inverted file(s): is this procedure an automatic part of an editing operation, or can it be
deferred to a later time? (As with updating after data entry, this can be a lengthy
process which it may be more convenient to run overnight or at a time that minimises
disruption to researchers or other users.)
6B3. Does the performance of the system deteriorate if records are repeatedly edited
or amended? (With many systems, the answer to this question is yes, though
suppliers are unlikely to talk willingly about it. Whereas data is originally loaded into
a system in a reasonably coherent sequence, continuous amendment will disrupt this
sequence and it will take the system longer to track down and re-combine the elements
of data required for an operation. A common but often very time-consuming
treatment for this problem is to down-load or dump the contents of a file and then
reload it to restore something like the original coherence. The next two questions
reflect this procedure.)
6B4. Is it possible to restore deteriorating performance - for example by dumping and
reloading the data base ?
6B5. How easy (and how safe) is it to carry out a dump and reload procedure, and
how long will it take ?
7. SYSTEM USAGE: DATA RETRIEVAL
When attention moves from the entry of data into the system and the editing of data
already there to the retrieval of that data, one is finally addressing the issue of how the
system will be used in the daily operations of the archive beyond the cataloguing
section and how useful it will be in that context. It is as well to have a clear idea of
the facilities that the methods already in operation in the archive are able to provide:
how many users can be handled simultaneously, what sorts of questions can be dealt
with etc. Check that the new system is not offering any deterioration in existing
facilities before worrying about what new facilities may be on offer! Having said that,
235
it is also worthwhile to try to identify patterns of use which would be welcome in the
archive but with which present methods are able to offer little help. Use such
preparatory work to provide specific working examples for the following generic
questions, and to determine priorities among the facilities that may be on offer.
7A. Selection.
7Al. Does the system offer a search language which users in the archive are likely to
find adequately user-friendly.
7A2. Does the system search a whole record or designated fields only - or may the
user choose ?
7A3. How does the user designate the fields (or sub-fields) for a restricted search: is it
possible to work on a screen that resembles the input screen or the standard display
screen ?
7A4. If system field labels or tags must be used in designating the specific area for a
search, can the system provide on-screen information on the data structure to help the
user?
7A5. If the user is making a composite search, does the system support the usual
Boolean operators for linking search targets, and does it also offer more precise
targeting? (Boolean operators enable enquirers to link targets in composite
searches: the principal operators are AND, OR and NOT. Note that the meaning of
these words is not quite the same as that in normal grammar: for example FIND A
AND B means find records in which both A and B are present; FIND A OR B is
the correct way of indicating that all occurrences of A and B are of equal interest.
Examples of more precise targeting would be X AND Y in the same occurrence of
a repeating field or X AND Y within so many words in the same field, etc.)
7A6. Do the systems search facilities permit users to build up or refine complicated
searches in stages by using the results of previous searches ?
7A7. Can well-established search patterns be held in some suitable form for easy
access, and can complicated search formulae, which may be needed again, be stored
for use in future sessions ? (For example, an archive may wish to store as a standard
search Find films with ... listed as director; alternatively, a staff member who has
built up and successfully used a complex enquiry for example, Find films made in
[country of archive] before [date of last use of nitrate in that country] with NO [safety]
[viewing print] - might wish to store the enquiry to run again, perhaps at quarterly
intervals.)
7AS. How much flexibility does the system offer in matching targets? (The basic
method of targeting data in searches is string- matching - i.e. recognising in the
searched file the string or sequence of characters specified by the searcher. More
sophisticated methods supported by a number of systems include the following:
wild cards or masking characters - the ability to indicate in various ways that the
searcher does not care what character is found in a particular place in the string, for
example, designating the search target as organi?ation to find spellings with either s
or z, as wom?n to find occurrences of woman or women or as 195? to find any
date in the decade 1950-l 959; alternative characters - where the use of a wild card in
Jo?n intended to find John or Joan would also pick up unwanted references to Join,
some systems allow the user to specify a range of acceptable alternative characters,
239
e.g. as Jo(a!h)n; truncation - designating a search target in which all words with a
common beginning (right-truncation) or, less frequently, a common ending (lefttruncation) will be found, for example direct* to find director, directing, direction,
directed, etc. or *tography to find photography, cinematography etc.; homophones
or sounds-like - specifying an approximation of the word required if the searcher is
unsure of the spelling: one system demonstrated to the writer successfully found
Australia when given the sounds like search target OSTRALYER; creator than,
less than or from... to - searching for a numeric or alphabetic range: commonly used
for dates or dimensions - e.g. I> 1956 having the effect of after 1956, or running
time < 30 minutes - but also useful as an alternative to truncation - e.g. from BRIT
to BFZIJ to find all uses of Britain, British etc.)
7A9. How does the system treat punctuation encountered in searching, including
commas, hyphens, end of line or carriage-return symbols etc., and will this
approach affect the archives possible searching requirements ?
7AlO. Are the systems capabilities with regard to dates (as already questioned under
data entry) adequate to the archives needs ?
7A 11. Can the searcher safely halt or abandon before completion a search that he or
she realises is inadequately defined or likely to take too long ? (Note the word safely.)
7A12. Most systems search through the inverted file(s) for data selection purposes,
but some will also scan the master file if required: is this option available, and does
the system warn the searcher that the process will take some time ?
7A 13. Can the user browse the inverted file to choose search targets ? (It can save a
lot of time to know which items it is worth searching for before initiating a search.)
7Al4. Is the inverted file able to be used for any thesaurus-like operations 7 (For
example, in some systems the authority list may be used to provide a broader
term/narrower term relationship between terms so that a search for EEC would
automatically include all the individual member countries of the European Economic
Community, or to offer some kind of synonym control so that advertisement and
commercial would be cross referred.)
7A 15. Is the searcher given reports on the progress of a search (e.g. the number of
hits for each of the terms in a cumulative search) ?
7Al6. Is the searcher able to scan the results of his or her search without seeing the
whole of the record found ? (Some systems will display the record identification with
an extract from the record showing the context of the find, perhaps with the target
data highlighted. This can be helpful in rapidly identifying the useful from the less
useful.)
7Al7. If a user has a requirement where the search target is most easily specified
negatively, does the search logic cope efficiently ? (Examples of such searches might
be all films except those where the production country = USA or all films which do
not have an entry in the director field. Some systems are oriented primarily to
positive searching, and would need to precede such searches with a command that
would have the effect of find everything - a command which, however, is not always
available, and for which some of the substitutes may take a very long time to process.
Other systems find it difficult or impossible to search for an absence rather than a
presence. These are not universal problems - in many systems, these are wholly
240
irrelevant concerns; buyers should nonetheless ask the question because when it is a
problem it can be a major one.)
7B. Display.
7Bl. Can the user immediately see the results of a search - displayed on the computer
screen or printed out - or is display a separate operation from searching ?
7B2. May the results be displayed only in a standard system format (and is it
acceptable) or can they be displayed in the format used for input and/or in purposedesigned formats?
7B3. In screen-display, can the user browse backwards as well as forwards ? (In other
words, having got to screen 3 of a display can he or she return to page or screen 1
without having to re-display? Surprisingly, not all systems offer this facility.)
7B4. Can the user have search results sorted for display in an order other than that
determined by the record-identifier or by the search target ? (An example of such a
requirement would be to search for films by a named director and display the results
sorted by date.)
7B5. Does the archive have flexibility in determining how the system is to sort data
entered in catalogue records, and if so, are decisions taken once only for the whole
record, or may individual fields be defined differently ? (An archive may have
preferences as to whether, for example, text should sort alphabetically letter by letter
or word by word - in other words whether I do should precede or follow Ice. A
system may also be able to offer the option of ignoring opening definite or indefinite
articles in one or more languages so that Les automanes files under all without a
need to change the word order; care must of course be taken in multi-lingual
collections to make sure it is possible to avoid the inadvertent mis-filing of titles
beginning with words that are articles in one language but not in others, as in Les
Patterson saves the world. A third issue may be whether numeric data should file as
numbers or as decimals - i.e. in the sequence 1, 2, 11. 100 or 111. 100. 11. 2 - the
latter being required for DDC or UDC (Dewey or Universal Decimal Classification)
or similar classification schemes.)
7B6. If the system offers the archive the opportunity to design its own display or print
formats, how easy to use is this report generator component of the system ?
7B7. Will the system generate all the forms of printout the archive may require ?
(This obviously includes the field of cataloguing (for example: catalogues, indexes, or
enquiry reports - e.g. a printout of details on a particular film, or a listing for a
requested genre). Archives might, however, wish to explore possibilities useful for
administration as well. In this category might be reports such as location lists, tables
or even graphs analysing the collection by different criteria (e.g. domestic/foreign,
film/television, colour/black and white, etc.), acquisition reports for management
boards, programme notes for theatre screenings, or routine letters asking collectors to
renew the deposit of materials held by the archive on loan.)
7BS. Does the system connect satisfactorily with the range of printers available to the
archive ? (Note that special character sets or graphics capabilities may be a problem.)
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8. THE OUTSIDE
WORLD
AND THE FUTURE
Although the principal issues considered here have been the immediate internal
cataloguing needs of that archive, it is worth spending a little time considering the role
the system might play in connection with other aspects of work within the archive and
in the archives connections with the outside world. Thought should also be given to
the systems suitability for some technological developments that are imminent. Some
relevant questions might be the following.
8A. Connections with other systems.
SAl . How will the cataloguing system be able to link in with other computerised
aspects of an archives work ? (Possible areas might include interaction with the
archives acquisition procedures; loan and movement procedures; technical inspection
and preservation procedures; theatrical programming activities; records relating to the
copying of materials from the collection for television and production companies, for
individual researchers, for other archives, etc.; information systems on other
collections such as stills, posters, documentation, books; information systems on noncollection material such as filmographies; etc. These are not examined at length here,
but all might be explored with the cataloguing system supplier. At the same time,
however, the Commission would urge archives not to postpone the introduction of
efficient film cataloguing procedures because of an inability to afford or to design a
single, all-embracing information system covering all conceivable archive needs.
Collection cataloguing is too important a fundamental requirement to allow such
delays.)
SA2. If the archive thinks such usage might be advantageous, can the system accept
input other than via the keyboard ? (An archive may, for example, wish to explore the
possibilities of entering the text for summaries from old manual records via a scanner
with OCR facilities, or of offering mouse-operation on retrieval searches - see IF. of 1.
DEFINITIONS, above. Input from a bar-code reader might be important for an
archive thinking of using bar-codes for other aspects of its work.)
8B. Connections with the outside world.
SBl . Can the system output data in a format that will readily communicate with
another system if the archive is offered the chance to exchange data with other
comparable organisations ? (Existing standards for data exchange in machine-readable
formats include the MARC format and IS0 2709. Work on formats for data exchange
has also been done by IFLA in the shape of the ISBDfNBM) (International Standard
Bibliographic Description for Non-Book Materials) and by the FIAF Cataloguing
Commission which has in preparation the FIAF standard Cataloguing Rules for the
description of film in data exchange. Other customised formats may be developed by
other data centres.)
SB2. Can the system generate data in a way that could be used by a desk-top
publishing system or computerised type-setting to produce catalogues, filmographies,
viewing notes, etc. ?
SC. Connections with new technology.
SC 1. Do the suppliers of the system have any thoughts about the possibility of linking
the cataloguing system to large-volume data storage systems based on optical discs,
such as CD-ROM ? (CD-ROM - see 1G. of I. DEFINITIONS, above - and other
similar technologies constitute a possible future answer to cheap mass storage of data
242
that will not be significantly altered after its initial creation, although not an
appropriate answer for data that is frequently updated. Cataloguing information (as
distinct from administrative data) is frequently in the former category, and archives
may be interested at least in keeping the option open.)
SC2. Do the suppliers have any thoughts about the possibility of linking the
cataloguing system with systems to retrieve other forms of document or visual
material ? (Technology now available already offers two possibilities. The first is the
storage of digitally analysed still images on machine-readable storage media like the
disc on which the computer data itself is held, so that the same system can call up both
data and images - which could, in the context of a film archive, be stills, posters,
pages from scripts, letters or other documents, etc. The second possibility is to have
the computer and the system running on it control the simultaneous operation of a
linked video-disc player, so that the operator potentially has access (as well as to the
catalogue data) to sequences of moving image material (with or without sound) and to
the sorts of still image described for the previous system. Naturally, such facilities add
appreciably to the cost of the total system. As well as the extra equipment required to
generate the scanned or video images from which either system would start, the first
system requires a very substantial increase in storage capacity (storage of a single
image can require several Kb of disc space) and the second requires investment in the
necessary video-disc players etc. The former system will also require the availability
of a high-resolution screen to display the stored image - much higher in resolution
(and therefore expense) than the screen required to display text only. The same may
be true of the second system, though the alternative of twin-screen display (one for the
video, one for the computer) should also be available. These possibilities may still
seem a little far fetched at the moment, but the general history of computers suggests
that todays far-fetched dream is tomorrows commonplace, and archives would do
well to encourage suppliers to think hard about the obvious applicability of this sort of
development to the film-archive field.)
CONCLUSION
It is perhaps worth repeating that there is little chance that any system offered to an
archive will score a 100 % success rate against any list of desirable features or any
specification of requirement, and no chance at all that a single system will score
highly on all the questions raised here since some issues are mutually exclusive. The
important consideration is that the purchasing archive be aware of the potential scope
of cataloguing systems and of their potential limitations: an archives staff should not
be obliged to live with anything less than the best approximation to the ideal that can
be found within the reach and budget of that archive.
At the risk of stating the obvious, potential buyers are reminded not to be satisfied
with a theoretical discussion with a supplier. A new cataloguing system is in the
archives terms, if not necessarily in the suppliers a major commitment, and one that
needs to be very thoroughly prepared. Buyers should ask to see systems in operation:
they should ask, if possible, to be put in touch with other users, especially ones whose
needs approximate to those of their own archive; perhaps the membership of FIAF
will provide an example of an existing user. A supplier anxious to make a good
impression should be willing to provide a copy of the system on loan or at least to set
up a demonstration in the show-room so that the buyer can enter some archive data
and see how the system performs. Some systems are available in free or cheap
demonstration versions (with the computer programs adjusted to provide less than full
capability) so that a potential user may investigate those systems in his or her own
time. Any such opportunity should be carefully explored. The decision is an
important one. and it should not be rushed.
243
SECTION
VII
STORAGE,
HANDLING
AND CONSERVATION
7.1 FILM ARCHIVES

Henning Schou
1. STORAGE
1.1 Introduction
Old magnetic tape and film, especially cellulose nitrate and colour film, are among the
most unstable materials kept in an audio-visual archive. Since each successive
generation of copies involves a loss of quality (with the exception, perhaps, of digital
recordings) the principle aim of preservation is to keep the preservation copy viable
for as long as possible. In other words, to minimize the loss or deterioration of the
images and sounds recorded on the preservation, or nitrate copy. This involves the
storing of material in an appropriate environment. In addition it is necessary to
control the access to and use of the material, to reduce the risk of damage.
1.2 External Factors Affecting the Stability of Materials
The main factors affecting the stability of cinematographic film in dark storage are
temperature, relative humidity and chemical contaminants in the atmosphere. For
magnetic tape, the main factors are temperature, absolute humidity, dust and magnetic
fields.
1.2.1 Air Purity
The air in many industrial areas contains small quantities of gases such as nitrogen
oxide (also given off by nitrate film), sulphur dioxide, ozone (from photo copiers) and
hydrogen sulphide. It is important, therefore, that a vault for archival storage of film
is located where the air is clean or else the air supplied to the storage area is purified
and filtered to remove gases and dust.
1.3 Storage Conditions
for Cellulose Nitrate
The rate of decomposition of cellulose nitrate roughly doubles with every 6C

increase in temperature. Stores, therefore, need to be kept as cold as possible.
Moderate relative humidity is also necessary to prevent the nitrogen dioxide gas given
off during the deterioration of the film from reacting with the water in the atmosphere
and in the photographic emulsion to form an acid that attacks the film.
The main factors affecting the stability of cinematographic film in dark storage are
temperature, relative humidity and chemical contaminants in the atmosphere. For
magnetic tape, the main factors are temperature, absolute humidity, dust and magnetic
fields.
The FIAF Preservation Commission recommends the following storage conditions:
a. Storage Temperature
4C (39F) +/-1C on a daily basis
4C (39F) +/-2C on an annual basis
244
b. Relative Humidity
50% +/-2% on a daily basis
50% +/-5% on an annual basis
Maximum Range: 40-60% RH
c. Rate of Fresh Air Intake
The rate of fresh air intake should be such as to permit a complete airchange over a
period of 5 hours at 4C. An empirical guideline is if the nitrate can be smelt, the rate
of air change should be increased.
If the storage temperature is reduced by 6C the production of nitrogen dioxide will
be reduced by approximately 50%, ie. by lowering the temperature from 24C to 4C
the amount of nitrogen dioxide is reduced to less than one tenth of the amount
produced at 24C. This means that, if the temperature is lowered, the rate of fresh air
intake can be greatly reduced.
Nitrate films must always be stored away from other materials because of the fire
hazard and the danger of damage caused by the nitrogen dioxide formed during the
nitrate decomposition.
It is essential to be aware of, and to adhere to, the legal regulations and fire codes for
the storage and use of cellulose nitrate film. The most important of these rules is that
nitrate stores must be located at least 200 metres from the nearest accommodation and
work areas.
for Black and White Safety Film and Magnetic Tapes
a. Recommended Storage Temperature

Less than
16C (61 OF).+/- 1C on a daily basis
16C (61F) +/-2C on an annual basis
b. Recommended Relative Humidity
35% +I-2% on a daily basis
35% -t/-5% on an annual basis
Maximum Range: 30-60% RH for film
20-50% RH for magnetic tape
As specified by local health regulations.
Magnetic tapes must not be stored in the vicinity of stray magnetic fields.
245
for Colour and Diacetate Films
a. Recommended Storage Temperature

-5C (23F) +/- 1C on a daily basis
-5C (23F) +/-2C on an annual basis
b. Recommended Relative Humidity
30% +/- 2% on a daily basis
30% +/- 5% on an annual basis
Maximum Range: 15-35% RH
As specified by local health regulations
Archivists should not be disheartened by the low temperatures recommended above
but should always keep in mind that every degree that the temperature is lowered is
beneficial. It must be remembered that each 6C increase in temperature halves the
life of the material.
1.6 General Rules for Storage
a. General
As a general rule, safety motion picture film should be stored at a moderate relative
humidity and at as low a temperature as the archive can afford. The relative humidity
and temperature must be kept as steady as possible. If the air conditioning plant is set
at its lowest possible temperature setting, the result is likely to be a varying
temperature. It is preferable to accept a slightly higher, but stable, relative humidity
and temperature. The air conditioning should be provided by more than one unit to
avoid a complete failure of the system in case of breakdown or repairs.
With storage at low temperatures, precautions must be taken to ensure that the dew
point is not exceeded when the material is taken from the vault. This can be achieved
by acclimatizing the films at a temperature and relative humidity between those of the
vault and the work areas. The dew point is defined as the temperature at which
moisture in the air would condense onto the film as water.
b. Storage in Hot and Humid Climates
In hot and humid climates, preservation of the film without air conditioning is
impossible. Even cellulose acetate base degrades, becoming sticky and distorted.
This is known as the Vinegar Syndrome because of the acetic acid, with its
characteristic vinegar smell, formed during the decomposition. The emulsion layers
can separate from the base during this process and render the film unusable. Another
danger with high humidities above about 60% is growth of bacteria and mould.
c. Storage in Sealed Bags
The humidity problem can be greatly diminished by sealing stable safety film and
magnetic tape in vapour tight bags. Sealing takes place after the materials have been
stored at approximately 20C (68F) and 30-50% RH until such time as the water
246
content has stabilized. In hot and humid climates this can be achieved more easily by
using the film conditioning apparatus, known as FICA, produced by the Swedish Film
Institute. Acetate film must not be sealed in bags unless it is absolutely stable with no
sign of decomposition. The acetic acid given off during the decomposition process
will act as a catalyst and accelerate the decay of the film, especially if the acid is
trapped in a sealed bag.
Stable diacetate film may benefit from sealing in vapour tight bags as this will reduce
the evaporation of volatile plasticiser.
Wrapping of nitrate film or sealing in plastic bags is detrimental to the film. It is
important that the decomposition gases be allowed to escape otherwise it will lead to
an acceleration of the rate of disintegration of the film.
1.7 Storage Rules
1.7.1 Location
As mentioned above, nitrate and acetate materials must be stored in different
buildings because of the flammability and instability of nitrate and because of the
detrimental effects of nitrogen dioxide. Whenever possible, preservation,1 duping
and viewing copies of films should be stored separately to minimize the risk of losing
all the copies of a film in a fire, flood or some other disaster. Even separation by a
fire rated wall is better than no separation at all.
1.7.2 Method of Storage
The method of storage is also important since, in long term storage, various stresses
and strains can develop in the material. The FIAF Preservation Commission have
formulated a number of rules about the packing and storage of preservation copies of
film and video tape. The most important of these are given below:
a. Collection material must not be stored on the floor.
b. Film cans should be stored horizontally in stacks no higher than 300mm (1
foot) and, where possible, all the cans should be of the same size.
c. Video tape should be stored upright on shelves with the winding axes
horizontal. Video tapes should not be stacked on top of one another.
d. The containers should contain
i. one film and a core or spool only, or
ii. one video tape
No other material, such as paper and household plastic bags, should be placed in the
containers. In some cases it may be desirable to enclose the film in special vapourtight bags. The risk of problems from the vinegar syndrome must, however, be
considered.
e. Cans for nitrate films should have one or more holes in the side, preferably
towards the bottom, to permit the escape of decomposition gases.
247
---
--._-.
Storage areas are expensive and maximum use can be made of them by installing
mobile shelving units. These run on rails that should be installed flush with the floor.
The second best option is standard fixed metal shelving.
1.7.3 Cyclical Maintenance
Every few years, it is essential to rewind and examine each reel of film to monitor its
condition. Magnetic audio tape should also be spooled through at regular intervals to
avoid print through, ie. the unwanted transfer of the signal on a tape to the layers that
it is in contact with. The Ampex Corporation recommends that video tape be
rewound every three years. There is, however, no widely accepted practice and few
archives have sufficient staff to implement such routine procedures consistently. An
inspection of a sample of the material is better than no inspection at all.
1.7.4 The Need for Correct Handling
It should be stressed that all the above points are worthless if the material is damaged
by excessive handling. The content of a film of permanent value should only be
accessible by means of a viewing copy and by striking prints from a duping copy of
the original.
1.8 Storage Buildings
Sophisticated film and magnetic tape storage buildings are expensive, not only to
construct but also to operate. Small archives may, therefore, have to find suitable
accommodation that falls within their budget. Possible alternatives for acetate film
include air conditioned office space or well insulated rooms. Unused ammunition
storage depots, old underground shelters, caves or unused mines could be suitable for
both nitrate and acetate film as well as for magnetic materials. The risk of fire and the
general safety of the staff must, of course, be a major consideration when assessing
the suitability of such sites.
In making these decisions, the cost of purpose built facilities, the cost
installation and maintenance of air conditioning and the cost of the
administration etc. of a fully equipped archive must be set against the financial,
cultural and scientific consequences of the loss of important and irreplaceable
visual documents.
of the
general
moral,
audio-
Other considerations include, for example, the possible frequency of cuts in the public
electricity supplies. If cuts are frequent and the archive cannot afford suitable
generating equipment to provide back-up power for the air conditioning, then it may
be better not to provide air conditioning at all but to rely on good thermal insulation to
hold the vault temperature as stable as possible. Dehumidifiers can be installed to
remove excess moisture from the air. Variable temperature and humidity causes more
damage to film than a higher than ideal, but stable, climate.
The archive should also examine traditional cooling methods used in existing
buildings in the area. These could provide a generous flow of cooling, outside air
past, and often through, the structure.
The design of a sophisticated film and magnetic tape store is quite complex. It will
have specially designed and constructed buildings, air conditioning equipment,
insulated vaults of various sizes and environments. loading areas and rooms for
acclimatizing material before and, especially, after storage. It will possess fire
extinguishing equipment water, carbon dioxide or some other inert gas system, such
248
as those using halogenated hydrocarbons. It will have several alarm systems to warn
of fire, air conditioning malfunctions and illegal intrusion. In addition it will have
special facilities for the storage of cellulose nitrate film.
A nitrate film vault should be an isolated, purpose built depot exclusively used for the
storage of nitrate material. It should be a single story building that satisfies all fire
and legal requirements, including rules about the standard of fire rating for the
construction materials. The building should be partitioned into fire resistant, concrete
compartments, each of which should hold a maximum of 2,500 Kg (approximately
300,OOOm or lFOOO,OOOft)
of nitrate film. The vaults should be as small as possible.
Each vault should have doors opening outwards onto a corridor and be equipped with
pressure vents to the outside. The depot should be fully air conditioned and the
temperature and relative humidity should be continuously measured, recorded and
monitored.
The fire alarm and extinguishing system should be as sophisticated as can be afforded.
In the event of a fire, only local sprinklers in the burning vault or vaults should be
activated to cool the walls to prevent the fire spreading. Water in vaults that are not
burning would damage the remaining nitrate collection. The alarm system should
warn not only of the outbreak of fire but of the malfunction of the air conditioning and
of unauthorized entry to the storage areas.
Note I: A viewing copy is one available for general access, ideally made from a
duping copy kept specifically to make copies from. The duping copy is either a
duplicate version of the preservation copy or is a copy made from the preservation
copy. The preservation copy is the best preserved copy of the material held by the
archive. It is only used if a new duping copy has to be made to replace a damaged or
worn out one.
249
SECTION VII STORAGE. HANDLING
AND CONSERVATION
7.2 The Care of Grooved Recordings

Gilles St. Laurent et al 1995
1. Introduction
Disc and cylinder recordings are machine readable artifacts; they are documents
whose physical well being is essential to preserve the integrity of the information that
they contain. Many recordings, particularly those not produced for the commercial
market are of unique historic value and should be treated with great care.
Since the majority of sound recordings are made of polymers (commonly called
plastics), conservation must be treated as a polymer degradation problem, requiring a
different approach to that used for the conservation of paper. As with paper, the life
expectancy of a disc or cylinder is finite. The processes of chemical degradation are at
work in all existing forms of sound recording and cannot be stopped. The rate of
degradation can, however, be speeded up by poor handling and storage of recordings.
To preserve sounds for longer than the life of the disc or cylinder, the material will
have to be copied. This can be a complex task, particularly for older or fragile
recordings. In particular, seek expert advice if the collection includes cylinders,
instantaneous (acetate) discs or any discs showing physical signs of decay. The basic
message to remember is If in any doubt, get advice. It is easy to damage these
recordings but very difficult to restore them.
2. History of Cylinders and Discs
The first known sound recording was made by Thomas Alva Edison in 1876 using a
sheet of tin-foil wrapped tightly around a cylindrical metal former with the basic
groove pattern cut into it. The cylinder was turned by hand and a stylus attached to a
diaphragm at the end of a pickup horn indented the pattern of the sound waves into the
tin-foil. Initially, Edison envisaged the cylinder recording being used primarily as a
dictating machine. It was only later that the idea of mass producing prerecorded
cylinders became commercially feasible. Cylinders were made until 1929 and were
used both as a home and office recording system and, using prerecorded music, as a
form of entertainment.
The development of the gramophone disc involved more people. Although Emil
Berliner, a German immigrant to the United States of America, patented the idea in
1887, several other people had been working on the same concept. The earliest
description was written in 1876, just before Edisons Phonograph recording, by the
Frenchman, Charles Cros, who deposited a sealed envelope with the Academic de
Sciences in Paris. This was almost identical to the patent obtained later by Berliner.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and his colleagues also
developed a form of disc recording. The crucial developments of quieter, more
crackle free recordings and of the clockwork motor were made by Eldridge Johnson in
1896-7.
The commercial use of gramophone discs started in 1894 with discs produced by Emil
Berliner. The earliest players were manually driven; either by turning a handle or by a
foot operated treadle. It was not until 1897 with the introduction of quieter recordings
and the clockwork driven machines that the gramophone became popular. From the
start, the gramophone disc was used to distribute prerecorded music and songs.
250
Although disc recording machines were made, they were primarily

professional market and not the home or the office.
aimed at the
3. How Sounds Are Recorded And Played Back

All grooved recordings physically retain information in the same fashion and are
recorded in a similar manner. Acoustic recordings, (made prior to the use of
microphones, ca. 1925), recorded sound by capturing and channelling changes of air
pressure through a horn to a diaphragm with a cutting stylus mounted on it. The
diaphragm would transform the changes of air pressure into a analogous mechanical
motion while the cutting stylus etched the groove. Similarly, with the more modem
electrical recordings, when the voltage generated by the microphone (which
transforms changes in air pressure into changes in electricity) is applied to the cutting
stylus, the stylus is moved in one direction when the voltage is increased and in the
opposite direction when the voltage is decreased.
Cylinders and early Edison discs move the stylus vertically (hill-and-dale) and not
from side-to-side (laterally) as with other discs. Examples of coarse groove discs that
play from the centre outwards can also be found.
To retrieve information from a disc, a stylus is used to track the groove. The cartridge
will convert the movement of the stylus to an electrical voltage (in the same fashion
that a microphone converts mechanical motions to an electrical voltage) that can then
be amplified and used to drive speakers. The movement of the speaker will be
parallel to the movement of the stylus.
To play a cylinder, it first has to be mounted on the mandrel of a phonograph. Many
cylinders have distorted central mounting holes and can easily crack if placed on a
mandrel. The recording surface is very soft and, unless a modem, lightweight pickup
is used, the recorded information can easily be scraped off by the playback stylus.
Careful examination of all old recordings is strongly advised before attempting to play
them. If there is any visible sign of decay, seek expert advice. It is strongly
recommended that cylinders and instantaneous discs be only played by an expert using
a modem machine. If regular access to a collection of old recordings is required, then
tape or CD-R copies should be made to avoid unnecessary playing of the fragile
originals.
4. The Chemical Degradation
Mechanisms Of Grooved Recordings
4.1 General
The life-span of a polymer is largely determined at the manufacturing stage. Variables
such as basic resin, the materials added to the basic resin to alter its properties, the
lamination of materials with dissimilar properties, and the manufacturing process
itself, all directly affect the life-span of the polymer. Post-manufacture environmental
factors such as storage conditions, temperature, humidity, and handling also contribute
to the long-term stability of the polymers.
Polymers can be divided into two main classes: thermoplastic and thermosetting.
Them-to-plastics soften and flow when heated and are normally shaped by heat and
pressure. They will soften and flow again when re-heated. Vinyl, used in the
manufacturing of LPs, is a thermoplastic.
251
Thermo-setting polymers are moulded under heat and pressure. A chemical reaction
occurs so that once molded they do not soften when re-heated and will normally char
before melting. Most 78s are made of thermosetting polymers.
4.2 Mass Produced Coarse Groove Discs
4.2.1 General
Several types of mass produced discs have been manufactured during the past 100
years. The commonest are the shellac or 78. The other types are comparatively rare.
If, however, you have some of these other varieties in your collection, or you are not
sure what type of disc they are, seek specialist advice.
4.2.2 Shellac Discs
The first shellac discs date from the early 1900s. Although they are known as ~SS,
many of the early ones were designed to be played at other speeds. Speeds of between
60 and 100 rpm are known.
Shellac is a composite word; its a combination of shell and Lat. The word Lac is
the Hindu name of an insect that infests certain types of trees. The Lac draws sap
from these trees, processes it through its digestive system and secretes the sap as a
resin to form an attached protective shell around its body. The shell is generally
smaller than a grain of rice and harvest involves scraping off the encrusted shells from
twigs and branches.
After World War II, resins such as Vinsol, Valite, vinyl chloride acetate and other
commercial resins replaced organic shellac as the main binder. These polymers are
slightly more stable than organic type discs and it is often difficult to distinguish
between shellac and shellac type discs by visual inspection.
Determining the causes of shellac disc degradation is difficult because a very wide
range of qualities of shellac and fillers have been used by manufacturers. One
cannot, therefore, expect consistent behaviour from stored shellac discs. The disc
properties are as much a function of the filler as they are of the cementing agent. The
fillers used run the gamut of natural cellulosic materials as well as of minerals.
Record manufacturers would introduce scrap as filler into new mixtures. It was not
uncommon for the scrap to include soft drink bottles, litter, pieces of masonry or other
unwanted material, all of which were ground up and mixed in with the next batch of
compound. The manufacturers would also recycle returned, unsold shellac discs.
In general, shellac discs are relatively stable. The curing process of shellac during
disc manufacturing generates a chemical reaction where certain simple molecules such
as water and ammonia are eliminated. Curing causes shellac to shrink, increasing its
density and its brittleness. This shrinkage continues at a much slower rate after the
disc is manufactured. The speed at which shrinkage occurs is a function of storage
temperature, storage humidity and completeness of cure. Storage stabilities of the
fillers vary widely. Organic materials in the aggregates are susceptible to fungus
attack, while shellac itself is resistant to fungus attack.
In a proper storage environment, these discs suffer a slow, progressive embrittlement
of the shellac. This embrittlement causes a fine powder to be shed from the disc after
each play-back. The behaviour of the other aggregate components is unpredictable,
due to the wide combinations and variety of materials (and of material quality) that
were used.
252
4.2.3 Vulcanite (hard rubber) Discs (early Berliner records)

Vulcanite was the first material used commercially by Berliner and provided the
necessary basis for the exploitation of the flat disc. Vulcanite is a rubber based
composition and is stable in the dark. It retains its appearance and properties very
well, In response to light and/or heat the material loses sulphur then becomes brittle
and loses its shine. The degradation can be demonstrated when playing an afflicted
Berliner. The surface of the disc is shaved off by the pressure of the stylus against the
groove wall.
4.2.4 Columbia Discs (laminated discs)
In 1906 Columbia introduced the Marconi Velvet Tone developed by Giulemino
Marconi. The manufacturing technique involved using a craft paper core cut to
approximate record size. After the core was carefully flattened and dried, it was
covered with a powdered shellac compound of a thin uniform thickness. The dustcoated core was put in an oven and the dust fused to the core. For two-sided records,
the operation was repeated for the other side. The advantage of this construction was
that the amount of surface material needed to carry the music grooves could be kept
very small. This economy allowed the use of the best polymer available at that time.
Edison was to use this idea in 1912/l 3, in the manufacturing of his Diamond Disc.
In 1922 Columbia returned to the laminated record, this time with a coarser compound
for the powder core that was bonded between two discs of craft paper.
4.2.5 Edison Diamond Discs
The Edison Diamond Disc has the distinction of having been made of the first
completely synthetic polymer, a material called phenol (phenol was also used in the
manufacture of Bakelite). The Edison Diamond Disc is a laminated disc made up of a
thick core and thin varnish layers covering each of its sides.
Prolonged contact with moisture or severe changes in humidity may cause damage to
the surface through moisture absorption. In general, phenol is very stable and presents
no serious degradation problems, neither is it prone to attack by bacteria, fungi or
insects although, occasionally, under humid conditions moulds may grow and cause
some surface attack on a nutrient filler such as wood or cotton, or be supported by a
nutrient contaminator on the surface.
4.3 Instantaneous
Discs (Acetate Discs)
Prior to the advent of magnetic tape, instantaneous recordings were made on disc.
The chemical make up of these discs had to be a compromise between ease of
engraving and the quality of the recording that resulted. Since the 1930s most blank
instantaneous discs have been manufactured with a base, usually aluminium (although
glass and steel were used during the war years and cardboard for inexpensive home
recordings), that was coated with nitrocellulose lacquer plasticized with castor oil.
Because of the lacquers inherent properties, these acetate discs are the least stable
type of sound recording and expert advice must be sought before attempting to play
these discs.
The gradual loss of plasticizer causes progressive embrittlement and the irreversible
loss of sound information. Because the coating is bonded to a core which cannot
shrink, internal stresses result, which in turn cause cracking and peeling of the
coating. In addition, nitrocellulose acetate decomposes continuously and over time
253
reacts with water vapour or oxygen to produce acids that act as a catalyst for several
other chemical reactions. As with most chemical reactions, these reactions are
accelerated with elevated temperature and humidity levels.
Other materials were used to make instantaneous discs. Examples may be found with
a gelatine coating or made of uncoated zinc. As with acetate discs, these are usually
unique recordings and fragile. Seek expert advice before attempting to play them.
4.4 Vinyl Discs (LPs)
Thus far, vinyl has proven to be the most stable of the materials that have been used in
the manufacture of sound recordings. However, although stable, its life is not
indefinite. Pickett and Lemcoe, in Preservation and Storage of Sound Recordings,
state that failure by chemical degradation of a vinyl disc in ordinary library
environments should not occur in less than a century.
Vinyl discs are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and a small percentage (usually less
than 25%) of fillers, stabilisers, pigments, anti-static substances etc. Internal
plasticization, through a copolymerizing of vinyl acetate with vinyl chloride, is needed
to achieve the required properties for the desired application.
Polyvinyl chloride degrades chemically when exposed to ultraviolet light or to heat.
Phonograph discs are exposed to high temperatures during moulding and pressing.
Unless stopped, this heat would be a catalyst for on-going dehydrochlorination, which
is the release of hydrogen chloride (HCI, which, when combined with water, makes
hydrochloric acid) from the PVC as a result of thermo-degradation. Stabilization is
therefore achieved by adding a chemical to the resin during manufacture. This does
not prevent the degradation but controls it, mainly by consuming the free HCI.
Sufficient. effective stabilizer remains in a plastic phonograph disc to protect it for
several decades after pressing.
4.5 Cylinder Recordings
Early cylinders, both the blanks used for home recordings, and the prerecorded, were
made by coating a solid core, often made of plaster, with one of several types of
One form of coating material was a type of wax hence the
natural polymer.
commonly used description wax cylinder.
Later types, such as the Blue Amberol series of recordings, were moulded from
polymers without using a plaster core.
All cylinders are now very fragile. The polymers, both coating and monolithic, and
the core materials are decaying and irreversibly breaking down. Urgently seek advice
if you have any cylinders in your collection.
5. Preservation
of Sound Recordings
A good definition of preservation put forward by the lnternational Institute for

Conservation; Canadian Group and the Canadian Association of Professional
Conservators is that:
Preservation encompasses all actions taken to retard deterioration oJ;
or to prevent damage to, cultural property.
Preservation involves
254
controlling the environment and conditions of use, and may include

treatment in order to maintain a cultural property, as nearly as
possible in an unchanging state.
There are essentially only three concerns to consider when handling and storing discs:
* That they be kept free of any foreign matter deposits.
* That they be kept free of any pressure that might cause deformations.
* That they be stored in a stable, controlled environment.
5.1 Foreign Matter Deposits
5.1.1 The Dangers of Dirt
Dirt can be classified into two categories:
* Foreign matter deposits which are not part of the original object, such as grease
from fingerprints, soot, stains, adhesives, etc.
* Alterations of original object material through chemical reactions (whether internal
reactions or reactions with environmental agents). Metal corrosion products, palmitic
acid from acetate discs, or a gummy substance on tapes are examples of alteration in
the state of the original.
Dust is commonly a mixture of fragments of human skin, minute particles of mineral
or plant material, textile fibres, industrial smoke, grease from fingerprints, and other
organic and inorganic materials. There are often salts such as sodium chloride
(carried in from sea spray or on skin fragments), and sharp gritty silica crystals. In
this chemical mixture are the spore of countless moulds, fungi and micro-organisms
which live on the organic material in the dust (fingerprints, for example, serve as good
culture media). Much of the dirt is hygroscopic (water-attracting) and this tendency
can encourage the growth of moulds, as well as increase the corrosiveness of salts,
hydrolysis and the release of acids.
Dust (including fingerprints) will negatively affect disc preservation in a number of
ways. Dust is abrasive, and combined with the pressure exerted on the groove walls
by the stylus, can permanently etch the walls. Worse, dust can also be embedded
permanently into thermoplastic substances. Only a small point of the stylus is actually
making contact with the groove walls. A force of 15 mN (milliNewtons) or 1.5 grams
from the stylus on such a minute surface translates to several tonnes of pressure per
square centimetre. The resulting drag generates enough heat for the polymer to
partially melt (though not enough to deform), causing a microscopic flow around the
stylus into which dust can be embedded permanently.
5.1.2 To Minimize Foreign Matter Deposits
* Never touch the grooved surface of a disc. Handle by the edges.
* Remove a disc from its outer sleeve by bowing the sleeve open by holding it
against the body and applying slight pressure with one hand. Pull out the inner sleeve
and the disc by holding a comer of the inner sleeve with the other hand. Avoid
pressure on the disc itself: this would press any dust trapped inside the inner sleeve
into the record surface.
* Remove the disc from the inner sleeve by bowing the sleeve and letting the disc
slip gradually into an open hand so that the edge falls on to the inside of the thumb
255
_ _I__._,
l_l,_ . _-.-- .-.-- .-- -.
knuckle joint. The middle finger should be extended to reach for the centre label of
the disc. Never reach into the sleeve.
* To hold a disc, place a thumb on the edge of the disc and the fingers of the same
hand on the centre label for balance. Use both hands on the edge to place the disc on
to a turntable.
* Discs should not, unnecessarily, be left exposed to open air. Return items to their
sleeves when not in use.
* Do not use paper or cardboard inner sleeves and do not store records without inner
sleeves.
* Use soft polyethylene inner sleeves. Do not use sleeves made of PVC.
* Do not place discs near sources of dust including paper or cardboard dust.
* Keep the surrounding area clean. Do not consume food or beverages in the area in
which discs are handled.
* Keep storage facilities as clean and dust-free as possible. The air conditioning
system should be equipped with dust filtering equipment.
* Do not use carpets in the storage or work areas. They create and hold dust which is
blown into the air by vacuum cleaning. Carpets can also build up static electricity
charges. Use a washable flooring material which does not build up static electricity.
5.1.3 Cleaning
Please Note - Refer to manufacturer safety data sheets for information on the use of
any chemicals mentioned herein.
Since dust is usually held in place by electrostatic attraction, dry wiping does not work
effectively. The friction of the wiping action will increase the electrostatic charge and
attract dust back to the surface - often in increased quantity.
Distilled water is commonly used because:
* Its precise chemical composition is known.
* It will not leave deposits behind
* It is safe and non-toxic.
* It is inexpensive.
* It disperses static charges and counteracts the increase in conductivity from
the pick-up of salt deposits from finger prints.
Water alone cannot, however, dissolve grease. A surfacant additive is necessary,
therefore, to break the grease surface bonds and to allow the water to penetrate and
disperse the grease. Discs are best cleaned by using a machine such as the Keith
Monks, VP1 or Nitty Gritty using a surfacant in distilled water. These machines
evenly disperse the liquid over the surface of the disc and then vacuum clean the
surface leaving it clean and dry. Records should be cleaned before each playback.
An airgun or aerosol of compressed air should be kept handy to blow light dust off
surfaces.
Berliner Vulcanite discs showing signs of acid build up (loss of surface shine and
slight groove damage causing dust when played) should be cleaned with a standard
cleaning solution.
256
Acetate discs showing signs of palmitic acid deposits (a white, greasy substance on
the disc surface) should be cleaned the same way as vinyl discs. Add two parts of
ammonia to 100 parts of the standard cleaning solution.
UNDER NO
CIRCUMSTANCES
SHOULD THIS AMMONIA
SOLUTION BE USED ON
SHELLAC BASED DISCS.
5.2 Surface Deformations
Since the surface of a disc is the information carrier, it is critical that the surface is
well cared for. Physical deformations such as warping of discs or shock caused by
dropping them, will directly affect the integrity of the sound information.
5.2.1 To Minimise Deformations
* Never leave discs near sources of heat or light (especially ultraviolet light)
as polymers are adversely affected by both.
* Do not place heavy objects on top of discs. Discs should never be placed on
top of each other.
* Shelve discs vertically; do not stack at an angle or horizontally.
* Do not use shelving units with supports that put more pressure on one area
of a disc or with supports more than six inches apart.
* Do not use PVC coated shelves. The plasticisers in the PVC may soften the
polymers of the discs.
* Do not file discs of different sizes in the same shelf area. Smaller items
may get lost or damaged and larger items subjected to uneven pressures.
* Completely remove any shrinkwrap on LPs. The shrinkwrap continues to
shrink and can lead to warping of the disc.
5.3 Environment
A proper environment for the storage of sound recordings is essential to retard the
degradation mechanisms. The temperature and humidity must be controlled to
provide the correct storage environment. Elevated temperature and humidity can
affect the chemical properties of the polymers and can also encourage the growth of
fungus. Wide or rapid fluctuations in the storage environment will also accelerate
degradation mechanisms.
5.3.1 Shellac Discs
This
High humidity levels accelerate the embrittlement of shellac discs.
embrittlement causes a fine powder to be shed from the disc after each playback,
effectively scraping away groove information. The severity of the embrittlement is
unpredictable because of the wide variety, combinations and quality of materials used
during production of the discs. The average shellac content in a shellac disc is about
20% with the remaining 80% composed of aggregates or fillers. Organic materials in
the aggregates are susceptible to fungus attack but the shellac itself is said to be
fungus resistant.
257
--
_-_---
._-_l_i_ ___-_-
-.___-~_-.---
5.3.2 Acetate Discs

Shrinkage of the lacquer coating due to loss of plasticiser is the primary destructive
force of these discs. This leads to cracking of the coating without any warning and, in
extreme case, delamination of the disc. These discs must be copied as swiftly as
possible by an expert. Excess moisture will accelerate the plasticiser loss. Acetate
discs decompose continuously and, over a period of time, react with water vapour or
oxygen to produce acids that in turn act as catalysts for several other chemical
reactions. One of these is the release of palmitic acid, a white waxy substance that is
deposited on the surface of the discs. Acetate discs are very susceptible to fungus
growth. Excess heat will probably accelerate the loss of adhesion of the coating.
5.3.3 Vinyl Discs
Vinyl discs are adversely affected by ultraviolet light and thermalcycling (heat
fluctuations). The consequence of thermal cycling is that each cycle of temperature
These deformations are
change results in a small, irreversible deformation.
cumulative. Vinyl discs are resistant to fungal growth and are unaffected by high
humidity levels.
5.3.4 Correct Storage Environment
* Store discs at a stable, maintained temperature of between 15C and 20C.
The fluctuation of temperature should not slowly vary more 2C in a 24 hour period.
* The relative humidity should be maintained at between 30% and 40% with a
slow fluctuation of no more than 5% in a 24 hour period.
* Maintain proper ventilation and air circulation of the storage stacks at all
times to avoid localised variations from the optimum storage conditions
(Microclimates).
* Keep discs in darkness when not being accessed. Fit light fixtures that do
not produce ultraviolet radiation in excess of 75mW/lm (microwatts per lumen).
6. Conclusion
Over the past century, recorded sound has become an intrinsic part of our culture.
Upon hearing an early sound recording in 1888, Sir Arthur Sullivan declared I was
astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evenings experiments astonished at the wonderful power that you have developed and terrified at the thought
that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever!
Unfortunately, sound recordings are not forever. These are ephemeral documents,
both in their physical composition and, consequently, in the means by which the
sound is ultimately retained. They can have their lifespans shortened considerably by
both internal and external forces. By undertaking certain precautionary measures,
custodians of the heritage of sound can considerably lengthen their collections
lifespan and, thus, preserve a rich and invaluable world of sound.
258

7.3 Magnetic Tape Deterioration
AND CONSERVATION
Recognition, Recovery and Prevention
Gerald D Gibson, Library of Congress

Presented at the IASA Conference in Perugia, August 26, 1996
1. SCOPE OF PAPER
For the working career of everyone in this room, and for the lives of most of us,
magnetic tape is a part of our everyday world and a carrier of much of the information
and entertainment we receive. Even though it has been repeatedly identified as
unacceptable as a preservation medium while seldom if ever citing an acceptable
form - some are now speculating that tape may have a life expectancy exceeding that
of many paper documents and equal to safety-based film if handled and stored with
similar care, reason, and procedures. Regardless of your opinion of tape as a longterm data carrier, it is a fact of life which audio and video collectors, librarians, and
archivists have long accepted and with which we must work.
When compared with the early success of the cylinder, the disc, or motion picture
film, magnetic recording had a relatively slow start. The earliest evidence available
tells us that magnetic tape was introduced by Vladimir Poulsen in 1893, with a Danish
patent issued to Mr Poulsen in 1898. Numerous advances were made in magnetic
recording technology throughout the first 4 decades of this century, with some of the
most notable findings coming from Germany immediately before and during WWll.
Radio companies were using magnetic recorders from early in the process, with such
notable landmarks as BBC adding the technology in 1930, the German Radio in 1935.
Equipment of significant quality was installed in Radio Luxembourg in 1941, ABC
(American) Radio first used the technology in 1948, and the first reel of commercial
video tape being used at CBS television in 1956. Still, as far as most collectors,
librarians, and archivists are concerned magnetic tape can be considered as simply a
footnote to archival history until well after WWll.
From a relative slow beginning, magnetic tape has increased significantly in
importance in our world. ln a 1993 Library of Congress administered survey of 500
archives it was projected that there were at least 26 million audio and video tapes held
in established, working archives through the world. Of these, approximately 17
million carried audio, the rest were video, and, to a significantly lesser degree, sound
tracks to motion pictures. Even if these figures are incorrect - even by as much as
50%- we would still find over 13 million tapes in archival collections.
This paper will summarize some of the deterioration problems facing tape, give some
idea how to recognize them, what to do to recover the data and/or the tape when they
occur and how to reduce the risk of their development and allow tape to live to its full
life. Even though the observations will apply to virtually all magnetic tape regardless
of base, type of recording, or format, and because of our primary interest here - the
conclusions will be limited to that format which the Technical Committees of the
International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) and the
Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), and the Audio Preservation and
Restoration Standards Committee of the Audio Engineering Society all cite as being
acceptable for audio preservation: polyester-based, open reel analog tape. Excluded
are digital, cassette, and cartridge tapes, or magnetic media in its various other forms:
disks, wire, et al., and, with one exception which I will cite later, tape on other
backings.
259
---
____,
_.___.
-_--
_I.
-----.-
Further, as important as is the ability to retrieve data recorded onto the tape the record
or playback systems will not be considered, except as they may directly affect the
deterioration of the tape itself.
II WHAT IS MAGNETIC
TAPE?
Magnetic tape is two-or-more layers of materials, one of which is capable of retaining

a change in magnetic energy. The magnetizable layer rides on a base, with the
potential of one or more additional layers added for various purposes (such as
reducing friction, reducing static, or aiding in a more uniform tape pack).
The top layer of this sandwich is made up of magnetizable particles suspended within
a binder. The binder may be composed of various polymers, such as cellulose nitrate,
chlorine bearing vinyls, and sundry epoxy and acrylic resins. In addition to carrying
the magnetizable particles in a complete dispersion and to depositing a uniform
coating of the mixture by solvent release the binder must, also, provide a smooth
surface to ease movement of the tape through the equipment; join the various layers
securely to the base; be strong enough not to rub-off during record, playback or
storage; not adhere to adjacent winds of tape, even under strong pressure and tension;
and not craze, flake, or peel. To aid in its functions the binder has frequently had
numerous additives some successful and some unsuccessful- including lubricants to
reduce friction, cleaning agents to reduce head-clogs, carbon black to reduce static
charges, and fungicides to reduce or prevent mold growth. Currently, the binder
typically used for magnetic tape under discussion whether for audio, video, or
computer data- is a polyester urethane elastomer.
The magnetizable particles today are most commonly ferric oxide (FEE203) of
uniform shape and size. Various other materials have been used over the years, such
as chromium dioxide (Cr02) and metal particulates (MP). However, due its relative
stability, the majority of tapes of concern to us here still use iron oxides.
The first widely distributed magnetic tapes had a paper base coated with iron oxide
particles. Paper was replaced by a cellulose acetate base that was used extensively
from the 1940s into the early 1960s. Although cellulose acetate is reasonably durable,
it is more susceptible than PET to the environment in which it is stored, shipped, and
used. The acetate base can change over its lifetime and is known to dry out and
become brittle, losing its strength in the process. Since the 1960s polyethylene
terephthalate (PET, or polyester) has been adopted by most tape manufacturers
because it is strong, chemically inert, and less affected by environmental conditions
than its predecessors. Another base material used, especially within Europe, is
polyvinyl chloride.
In addition to the base and binder, most tapes produced since ca. 1980 have some type
of back coating that acts as an aid to tape packing on the hub and reel.
The dimensions of magnetic tape can vary significantly, from less than l/4-of a-mil to
1.5-mils in thickness, from about l/8 of-an-inch to 2-or-more inches in width, and
from a few feet to potentially infinite in length.
III RECOGNITION
OF DETERIORATION
Deterioration problems may be grouped by the part of the tape they seem to most
affect: Base, Oxide, or Magnetic particles. Regardless of why or on which part of the
tape it occurs, tape-to-head contact is of critical importance, since the vast majority of
260
tape problems known to us today are associated in some manner to the relationship of
the tape to the head.
Base
The deterioration problems associated with the base are physical deformation,
including stretching, breakage, and theoretically, at least, for acetate based tapesvinegar-syndrome.
Polyester, or PET, the base of most modern magnetic tape, is very stable and will
almost certainly outlast the other parts of the sandwich that make up our package.
Nonetheless, if improperly handled, stored, or used, it is vulnerable to being deformed
and, hence, of distorting the data on it and/or of preventing the tape from playing at
all. Improperly wound rolls of tape, or tapes with excessive pack stresses are likely to
become distorted and to have tracking problems when played.
Physical deformation of the base of the tape can take many forms:
* Popped strand/s
When one to several strands or wraps of tape protrude from the edge of a roll of tape.
Popped strands is/are most likely to occur when the pack is wound improperly. Since
popped strands is/are uneven winds they can produce edge damage when the tape is
played, and since they present more tape surface area to airborne particulate matter
which can damage the oxide and/or the backing and reduce tape-to-head contact.
Further, deformed tape can cause tape-to-head contact problems, tape- head spacing
problems. Tape with popped strands is more easily damaged by improper handling,
since the edges of the tape are standing out from the tape pack.
* Pack slip
A lateral movement of sections of the tape roll causing high and/or low spots in an
otherwise smooth tape pack. Pack slip is most likely to occur when the pack is wound
improperly. Like popped strands, since it causes the tape to unwind unevenly, pack
slip can cause edge damage when the tape is played or cause the tape to play at an
uneven speed because of a shift in pack density, resulting in either data dropout in data
tapes, or wow on analog tape. In addition, pack slip presents more tape surface area to
airborne particulate matter which can damage the oxide and/or the backing, as well as
reduce proper tape-to-head contact.
Though different from pack slip, and though creating other problems, interleaving
tape of different widths of tape into a roll - acetate and polyester tape for example
where the polyester is slightly narrower that the acetate - or improperly made splices
can have a similar effect on tape integrity as pack-slip.
* Cinching:
The wrinkling or folding over of tape on itself, usually when a loose tape pack is
stopped suddenly. It can cause creasing of the tape, which contributes to peeling or
shedding tape and, because of bad tape-to-head contact, to dropouts.
* Stretched tape:
The elongation of parts of the tape, across the full width of the tape or -most likely- on
one or the other side of the tape, usually results from either improper wind or from
261
faulty equipment. May cause long-edge or curvature problems, and distort the signal,
but the data can generally be retrieved from an analog tape, usually with a decrease in
signal quality.
* Breaking:
The separation of a piece of tape into two or more parts, usually resulting from very
sloppy handling or use of equipment.
* Flange pack
A state where the tape roll is good (no popped strands, etc., but is wound up against
one or the other of the sides of the tape reel. Generally caused by either
malfunctioning equipment or loose wind, flange pack can damage the edges of the
tape.
Although outside the scope of this paper. I feel it imperative to mention a potential
problem with acetate based tape, used extensively in the 1940s and 50s. I say
potential since I am not personally aware of actual examples where acetate-based
magnetic tape as distinct from magnetic-stripe or magnetic sound tracks of motion
picture film- have actually been shown to suffer from vinegar syndrome. For those of
you who have not experienced it, vinegar-syndrome in motion-picture film is an
autocatalytic self-decomposition process of acetate cellulose based materials under the
evaporation of acetic acid. Affected thus far are motion picture films and some
microfilms, but the presumption is that all cellulose acetate based materials will go
through the same process. Some have said that it gives off a faint-odor of vinegar.
My experience is very different: motion picture film with vinegar-syndrome gives off
a very strong smell of vinegar. There is absolutely no question that you are smelling
acetic acid -vinegar- when you are around film that is decomposing in this manner. If
you are unsure, sniff a little vinegar, wait a few minutes so that your sense of smell
can properly recover, and then smell your tape: if the smell isnt very, very similar
your tape probably does not have vinegar syndrome.
Since I have not seen vinegar syndrome in magnetic tape I can not describe it with
confidence. However, in motion-picture films it first makes itself known by a very
strong smell of vinegar, then progresses to the point where the film is discoloured and
frequently unable to support the emulsion, advances to a state where the emulsion is
very brittle, and finally gets to a point where the emulsion breaks if handled or jarred.
If you locate vinegar syndrome in your collections remove the sick objects and store
them separately to prevent the contamination of other materials by acetic acid. To
slow the on-set and/or the advancement of vinegar syndrome, the consensus is that all
acetate based materials will eventually develop vinegar syndrome, but it can be
delayed for literally hundreds of years if properly maintained - store the materials at
temperatures below 40F, and below 25% relative humidity (RH) (do not freeze tape,
as some manufacturers used a lubricant which reportedly solidifies on the surface
below 32F). There is no known method of reversing vinegar syndrome once it
begins. If found in time before the base shrinks too much, or is unable to support the
oxide, or becomes too brittle- with any luck you should still be able to play and rerecord the information.
Binder
Even though all of the physical parts of magnetic tape will deteriorate and can
breakdown over time, it is universally agreed that with modem PET-based tape the
262
binder is the weak link, and is generally the part of the tape which creates the most
problems. It should be noted that the term binder is used here to mean the adhesive
which is used to hold two layers of the tape together: ie. oxide to base, and/or
backside coating to base. Deterioration of the binder can cause many problems and
can take many forms, including blocking, creasing, friction problems, lubricant loss,
oxide loss, sticky-tape, sticky-shed, and tape squeal, to name a few.
* Blocking:
The sticking together of two or more winds in a tape pack, most often resulting from
deterioration of the binder, storage at high temperature and/or under excessive pack
pressure.
* Creasing
The folding of sections of tape such that it is ridged or wrinkled; can be caused by
hub-slots, by cinching, or by mishandling of tape. Creasing can cause oxide loss
and/or tape-to-head contact problems; these, in turn, can lead to dropouts and data
loss.
* Lubricant
loss:
The depletion of that substance or substances that allow the tape to move through its
necessary path with a minimum of friction. Like sticky- shed, lubricant loss appears
to be an inevitable part of the aging of modern magnetic tape, with the rate and
severity of the loss being related to storage and use conditions. Lubricant loss will
cause increased friction of the tape, resulting in increased headwear, contributing to
sticky tape, sticky-shed, oxide loss, tape squeal, and head clog; the results can include
mistracking. This can sometimes be temporarily corrected by judicious application of
lubricants, such as a silicone solution or Krytox applied with a wicking or cotton ball
applicator.
* Mistracking
The inaccurate adaption of tape to its intended path through the tape machine, usually
because of some physical deformation or damage to the base or edge of the tape, such
as curvature. If severe, the tape will not play properly - or at all - and recorded
information may either be distorted or, in extreme cases, lost. Rewinding and
environmental staging of the tape may help. In some cases improperly slit tape can
produce hardbands which can cause the tape to mistrack.
* Oxide loss
The separation of the oxide from the base. It may result from a number of different
things, including poor binder adhesion and unnecessary friction and scratching of the
tape. Once oxide loss occurs it is not easily - if ever - correctable and generally meets
even the most stringent definitions of tape failure.
* Sticky tape:
The adhering of one or another parts of the tape to other surfaces. Generally caused
by breakdown of either the back coating or the binder, it may cause nitpicking,
blocking, head clogs, oxide loss, and, like sticky-shed, alternate sticking and slipping
of the tape as it goes across the heads, and tape squeal. Tapes reported in 1988 by
Kent Scott as having sticky problems include Ampex 406, 407, and 456; AGFA 369
263
and 469; and 3M 226, 250, and 256. Like sticky-shed, tape can generally be
recovered for a short time by either cleaning or various environmental treatments
(extended storage at low temperature and RH, placing tape under a vacuum, or
baking).
* Sticky-shed
Deposits from magnetic tape - usually the oxide or the backing - that rub or wear off
onto the various parts of the equipment when a sticky tape is played. Sticky-shed can
cause mistracking, blocking, head clogs, oxide loss, and, alternate sticking and
slipping of the tape as it goes across the heads. It may result in tape squeal.
* Tape squeal
The high pitched noise that is made when sticky tape or sticky shed tape alternately
sticks to then rapidly releases from the various stationary surface in its path, including
record or playback heads and guides.
Magnetic Particles
The primary problems which occur with recorded signals during storage are
demagnetization and the introduction of magnetization other than that originally
recorded.
* Print-through:
The recording of low frequency signals from one or more windings of tape onto
adjacent layers. It is described as a ghost signal heard slightly before the actual audio
recording. The strength of such a signal is generally proportional to the strength of the
original signal which it is copying.
* Demagnetization
The loss of recorded signal, can generally be dismissed fairly easily for tape in
storage: it does occur, but it is not common. If it occurs it will, most normally, affect
the high frequencies of the recording, and not its intelligibility.
If a tape is properly
recorded and stored - even if only in normal office environment - the amount of
magnetic field decrease will be unnoticeable.
* Dropouts
Brief signal losses caused by either a tape head clog, missing oxide, a defect in the
tape, debris on the tape or machine and any other situation that reduces the head-totape contact. I am always surprised when I review the comparative size of the tape
and tape head with some of the materials flying around in the air. When we realize
that even the smallest of airborne particles can cause a dropout it is amazing that this
technology works at all. The solution appears to be to keep the tape as clean as
possible, storing and using it only in a clean environment, and cleaning and
maintaining the equipment as recommended by the manufacturer.
Recovery
Recovery of deteriorated tape and/or signal is an intricate process: what works on one
problem may well destroy, or at least exacerbate a seemingly similar problem. Sticky
tape can be caused by either binder breakdown, lubricant loss and exuding, or
264
problems with the backing. Dont assume that all problems are the same just because
they create similar complications.
When carrying out any actions that might
reasonably be irreversible - such as baking, or chemical treatments, or buffing the tape
- be sure that you are treating the correct illness and are not destroying the very thing
you are trying to save.
* Baking
One of the methods used to temporarily improve binder problems, allowing sticky
tapes to be played. The information from Ampex - the developer of the tape-baking
procedure - on how long and at what temperature to bake has been variously quoted at
several conditions. I checked with Quantegy/Ampex for this paper and they tell me
that their recommendations are to a) leave the flanges on the hubs/reels, b) use a highquality convection type oven or an environmental chamber, and c) bake a sticky tape
at 113F/45C to 13 1F 155C for up to 36 hours (no R/H given) will sufficiently firm
up the binder so that the tape can be played. For 114 audio tape, baking for 6 to 8
hours is normally adequate; the longer baking times are for wider tape widths, such as
2 video or audio multi-track masters. Quantegy/Ampex warn, however, that the
effect of the treatment is temporary, and it is recommended that the tape be copied
within one to two weeks. Although some report having 20-or-more successful bakes,
there is no published or documented information on how many times a tape can be
baked, cycling back and forth between the sticky-firm-sticky succession before it fails
completely or before the signal is distorted or altered beyond use. Care should be
taken that the temperature is well controlled. One of the specific questions raised is
about the potential affect of increased print-through from the baking process. There
have been no reports of significant problems, but one source recommends lowering
the heat (for example, from 55C to 45C) and extending the baking time if there is
concern. Regardless of the time and temperature selected, do NOT, I repeat NOT,
rewind the tape before baking as this will almost certainly increase print-through
problems, according to Quantegy/Ampex. Specifically, unless there is absolutely no
other option, the hair-dryer-in-a-box solution does not give adequate environmental
controls and is not a recommended solution. Regardless of the sophistication of the
oven used, be sure and allow the tape to re-acclimatise before handling it, much less
playing.
* Environmental
conditioning/staging
Some have reported notable success with environmental conditioning/staging tape

instead of either baking or treatment with chemicals. If time allows, try staging sticky
tape at 40F/4.4C and 20- to-25% RH (the environment that is being considered for
long term storage by a number of the collections represented here today) for several
weeks to several months before undertaking more aggressive measures.
* Chemical treatments, including addition or replacement of lubricants, is another
process that has been developed to recover tape with sticky oxide or loss of lubricants.
Like baking, it should be used with the greatest of care. The only such processes
known to me are proprietary and have not been made available for public use in any
detail.
* Cleaning
In general, tape cleaning should follow the same basic premise as for any other
delicate item: use ONLY as much effort and force as is absolutely necessary. To do
even that will probably shorten the life expectancy of the tape; to do more will
probably actively destroy it. In general, clean with soft, lint-free cloth, such as 3Ms
265
Pellon or 3Ms #610 Tape Cleaning Fabric. Use moisture and chemicals sparingly, and
only after testing on disposable tapes. Buffing/scraping tape is generally rejected by
all with whom I have spoken, unless all other efforts have failed.
* Rewinding:
Careful rewinding of physically deformed tape (warped, wrinkled, or creased tape, as
well as tape with popped strands, pack-slip, cinching, or flange packed tape) should be
attempted before more aggressive measures - such as pressing or ironing the tape - are
tried. If the tape is really important to you or your collection, get professional advice,
dont wing it alone. Rewinding is useful for resolving another problem: Print-through
can generally be removed by rewinding the tape before playing and is frequently given
as an additional reason for storing audio tapes tails-out. If rewinding fails to remove
enough of the ghost signal, selective erasure is possible, although it should not be used
indiscriminately or carelessly. NB If the tape has sticky problems and baking is the
chosen solution to make the tape playable, it should be baked before the tape is
rewound!
* Splicing
Though it is not recommended for archival or master materials, splicing is available to
mend broken or cut tapes, as well as those so badly damaged in other ways that
portions of the recording must be sacrificed and discarded in order to salvage the
greater part. If splices are necessary, always use tape specifically made for this
purpose, make the splice as neat as possible, and -if the recording is really importantmake an un-spliced copy of the repaired tape for archival storage.
Prevention
Since magnetic tape is a physical object, and since all - yes ALL- physical objects
deteriorate, magnetic tape will deteriorate regardless of what is done to it or with it.
As Pickett and Lemcoe observed in their 1959 study, Preservation and storage of
sound recordings. J the resistance of an article to degradation is built into [it] at the
time of its manufacture. While we can not change the article after it is received, we
can do things which will allow it to realize its full life potential rather than shortening
it. For example, the methods we use and the manner in which we handle, package,
store, record, and/or play a magnetic tape will almost certainly have a significant
effect on whether that tape develops sticky-shed problems in five years or in the lives
of our great- great-grandchildren.
To have the greatest confidence that your tape will last, I suggest the following:
* Selection.
Use only good quality, low-print through, polyester based tape, 1.5 mils thick, no
splices, even for leader, heads or tails.
* Handling.
Handle a tape as little as possible, preferably always wearing clean, lint free gloves.
Never touch the actual surface of the tape or the edges of the tape unless absolutely
necessary. Handle a tape reel carefully, be sure not to press the flanges to the edges of
the tape or to damage the flanges. Replace packaging box, reel, hub and flanges
immediately if they become bent or out of line. Do not drop or throw a tape,
regardless of how well it is packaged.
266
* Packaging.
Use only open reels with an unslotted hub of NAB design of the largest possible
diameter, preferably 10.5 or larger. Be sure that the flanges of the reel are easily
removable so that they can be replaced without doing unnecessary damage to the tape
if they become deformed or out-of-plane. Leave tape -ALL tape, even cassettes- in the
play-through, or tails-out, position. In other words, do not fast forward or rewind a
tape that is going into storage. Play-wind 1.5 mil tape on a well adjusted machine at
no more than 30-ips from start-to-finish before placing it in storage (Pickett and
Lemcoe specify a wind of constant-torque the type of wind most often used as tape
leaves the factory- of 3-to-5 ounces at the hub of a 10.5 reel).
Secure the ends of the tape with either a tape made specifically for this purpose (such
as 3Ms #8125 Hold Down Tape, common called zebra-stripe tape, or by a tie-down
collar that is wrapped around the tape and secured inside the tape flanges. Do not use
such as adhesive, cellophane, or most plastic-based tapes.
Place the tape in a good quality container, preferably one that will not shed or
breakdown. The 3M Library Box is one of the best designed audio tape boxes I know.
Unfortunately, it is unclear whether 3M will continue to make this box available, or
will allow others to do so, after they leave the magnetic tape business later this year.
A call to your local 3M representative or Quantegy - the U.S. company which took
over Ampex.
* Storage.
Store tape standing upright -not laying flat or leaning- on solid shelving in a dark,
clean, dust-free area -dont allow any food, drink, or smoking in the area of tape
preparation, use, or storage. Store at an environment as low as you can manage:
40F/4.4C and 25% relative humidity for archival storage. Keep the environment as
stable as possible, preferably with a maximum fluctuation off 5F and 10% RH in a
24 hour period. In fact, if the storage area is not this stable, or if you cannot get the
environment down to these settings, select an environment up to 65F/l8.3C and
50% RH -an acceptable environment for working collections - where stable
environment is possible. If you select a warmer and/or wetter environment be aware
that the warmer and/wetter the conditions the shorter the life of your tape. For
example, the IPI Storage Guide for Acetate Film estimates that new acetate based
motion picture film will develop vinegar-syndrome in less than 20 years if stored at
80% RH and 70F/21C, or it will be postponed for over 1,200 years if stored at
2O%RH and 35F/2C.
All indications are that similar life-extensions of magnetic
tape will occur under similar storage conditions.
Though accidental erasure or damage to the signal is almost unheard of, the storage
area should be free of external magnetic fields (nor should they be allowed in
playback or packaging areas). Maximum flux density permitted should be 10 gauss.
Airport walk-through metal detectors, like x-rays and radiation from radar antennas
(unless strong enough to be damaging to people) are reported to have no effect on
recorded or unrecorded magnetic tape. The only reported problems come from some
hand-held metal detectors with powerful magnetic fields -used in some airports: these
may partially erase recorded information. A separation of even 2 or 3 inches is
adequate to protect tape from all but the strongest of electrical fields.
267
* Playing
To play or inspect the tape, stage it out of the storage area for from 1 to 50 days.
dependent upon the width of the tape and the storage environment. An audio cassette
can acclimatize in approximately 6 hours, a l/4 open reel tape in 24 hours, and a 2
reel-to-reel tape will require up to 50 days. The chart shown at the end of the paper
from John van Bogarts book, Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling, is very helpful.
If you are using the 40F/4.4C and 2O%FW environment recommended above, stage
in a two-step operation: first move the tape to a controlled environment area (with the
temperature mid-way between the colder and dryer area and the intended use area) for
the specified period of time, then stage in the environment of the, intended use area
for a similar period of.time.
Keep your playback area clean, cool and dry. The temperature should never exceed
75F/23.8C and 60% RI-I, and should, preferably, be 65F/18.3C and 50% RI-I,
making sure that the RH does not drop too much below 20% to help insure against
static discharge problems.
Playback equipment should be maintained per manufacturers recommendations.
Take the tape from its container only when needed, and return it as soon as it has been
played (and, of course, properly wound). Use the time that the tape is out to inspect
for all the things that can go wrong: bad wind, sticking, bad reel, flanges, or hub, print
through, dirt or debris on the tape, etc.
* Inspection/rewind.
Even after 50 years, the jury is still out on periodic inspection of tape. Some say it
places the tape in greater danger since the most damage will usually occur during
handling and/or playing. Others strongly recommend that tape be inspected every two
to three years.
The debate may be a moot point, since the reality of the matter is that most of us do
not have the time or the resources to periodically go through our tapes and inspect,
clean, repackage, and/or retension them. Possibly the compromise solution may be to
monitor the environment of the storage area daily -or at least weekly- basis; when the
occasion calls for the tape to be pulled, always handle, package, and clean it as though
you were carrying out a scheduled inspection, keeping your eyes and ears open to
potential problems. Properly rewind, clean as needed, package, and shelve any tape
that is pulled from storage for any reason. Use the pulled items as a sample of the
items around it: if you see something unusual, for example, if you notice the hopefully- first signs of sticky-shed, examine other tapes in the area, particularly those
that are from the same manufacturer and the same stock, especially if they were
recorded and placed in storage at about the same time. If you find problems, take care
of them as soon as possible, since they will probably only get worse.
If all else fails, schedule a periodic blind-sampling of the collection. There are several
sources that can help you assure that you are not subconsciously pre-selecting
materials.
CONCLUSION
Thus, within the maximum life built into the tape at its manufacture, it is up to you
how long you want your tape to last. Like all other data dependent upon the life of an
object to carry the data, tnagnetic tape is not permanent and is susceptible to physical
268
The rate at which such decay takes place is directly

and chemical breakdown.
connected to how such carriers are packaged, handled, used, and, especially, to the
environment in which they are stored.
General Principles:
If in doubt, apply the same methods you would use for the recovery of microfilm or
movie film to magnetic tape since it is chemically similar and uses same or very
similar film substrates.
Do NOT automatically use methods employed for books and paper since there are
different chemistries involved, wet tapes are less critical than wet books (i.e wet tapes
are less critical than wet paper and do not need the immediate attention generally
associated with wet paper), and tapes are more sensitive to damage by heat and/or
cold than paper.
WET PAPER RECOVERY
PROCEDURES
APPLIED
YES
Action
NO
X
X
X
Air drying
Dehumidification
vacuum drying
Freezer drying
Vacuum thermal drying (@ >75F/24C)
Vacuum freeze drying (@ <32F/OC)
X
X
X
269
TO WET TAPE
Recovery Techniques of Optical and Magnetic Media from Water, Fire, Dust,
Mold, and Shock
Problem
Tape
Compact Disks
Water
Damage:
Fresh water
keep in clean, cool water until

ready to work
rinse in distilled water at
room temperature
dry at ambient storage conditions
or use dehumidification
rinse in room temperature

distilled water
avoid rubbing the disk as grit
can scratch the surface
dry at ambient storage room
conditions or use
dehumidification
take care not to scratch the media
always brush/wipe radially
(from center of disk to edge)
Water
Damage :
Mud/Sewage
place in clean, cool water until

ready to work
use soapy water at room
temperature to remove debris
rinse with distilled water
dry at ambient storage
conditions or use dehumidification
use room temperature soapy

water to remove debris
avoid rubbing the disk as grit
can scratch the surface
dry at ambient storage room
conditions or use
dehumidification
take care not to scratch the media
Water
Damage :
Sea
Water
place in clean, cool water until

place in clean cool tap water
ready to work As Soon As Possible As Soon As Possible
place tape in mild HCI solution
to remove debris left by sea creatures dry at ambient storage room
rinse with tap water
conditions or use
dry at ambient storage conditions
dehumidification
or use dehumidification
Fire
Damage :
Heat
spool tapes onto new reels if

flanges are warped/replace damaged
or warped cassette housing
if tape is badly blocked, use back-up
a slightly warped CD may still

be playable
recovery of a badly warped CD
is probably impossible
Fire
Damage :
Smoke/Soot
vacuum soot/ash from tape package

and/or tape pack if package is
not wet, avoid getting it wet
wipe remaining soot/smoke
residue from package and/or
cassette housing with damp cloth,
changing cloth often
avoid direct contact with tape
as much as possible
use of a winder/cleaner may be
necessary to remove remaining
soot/smoke residue
vacuum or brush soot

from the surface
use special care to avoid
scratching the disk
wipe remaining debris from disk
with a clean soft cloth dampened
with distilled water
270
Dust
Debris
vacuum as much of the

dust/debris as possible from the
package/reel
if package is not wet, avoid
getting it wet
wipe remaining dust/debris
residue from package and/or
cassette housing with damp cloth,
changing cloth often
avoid direct contact with tape
as much as possible
use of a winder/cleaner may be
necessary to remove remaining
dust/debris
MOW
Fungus
isolate tape and its package

isolate disk and its package
from unaffected materials
from unaffected materials
keep at humidity ~50% RH and at keep at humidity ~50% RH and
temperature ~75 F/24 C
at temperature <75 F/24 C
vacuum loose mold from tape
vacuum loose mold from disk
package and tape pack,
and package
avoid direct contact with the tape
avoid blowing on the disk to
avoid blowing on the tape to clean clean it as this will only spread
it as this will only spread
the mold, and may be harmful to
the mold, and may be harmful to
staff
staff
gently brush remaining debris
gently brush remaining debris
from package and disk
from package and tape pack
run the tape through a
winder-cleaner with a suitable fungicide
copy the tape, thoroughly
cleaning the machine immediately
afterward with a suitable fungicide
Shock
re-tension the tape pack

re-spool onto a new tape
reel/cassette
splice tape fragments together
use thermal conditioning to
flatten wrinkled tape
271
vacuum or brush dust/debris

from the surface
use special care to avoid
scratching the disk
wipe remaining debris from disk
with a clean soft cloth dampened
with distilled water
a shattered CD can not be

repaired

7.4 Permanence, Care, and Handling
and Kodak Photo CD
AND CONSERVATION
of CDs including
CD-ROM,
Writable
CD,
Kodak Imaging in Action, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester 12/1995 *
Collections of audio CDs, CD-ROM multimedia titles represent significant

investments of money and efforr. Users of writable CDs often are especially
concerned for their unique data and pictures.
Long Life for any information storage medium is always a combination of
manufacturers and users responsibilities.
As a manufacturer of recordable CD
products, Kodak believes strongly in sharing information that helps users of CD
technology understand all aspects of CD longevity.
LIFE EXPECTANCY
OF CDs
Compared with other digital storage media (eg., magnetic tape), CDs have much
longer life expectancies. Accelerated-aging, tests, which speed up the reactions of
decay, can determine the rate at which slow chemical changes can make discs
unreadable. When tested this way, Kodak writable media stored under archival
conditions showed a life expectancy of around 200 years. By contrast, magnetic tape
storage media (according to a recent report by the Commission on Preservation and
Access) will only last a few decades. While this is a powerful advantage for CD data
storage, there are other important aspects to consider.
Data stored on CDs is encoded in digital form. First the data must be read then it is
converted into music, text, pictures, and so on by software programs. Because the real
goal is access to the discs contents, not merely the preservation of the discs - the
survival of playback hardware devices and software formats is key. Migration of
digital data from one storage medium or software standard to another is essential.
Because migrating data requires effort and expense, there is a risk that it will be
neglected. History teaches that many things are preserved only by accident, merely
because they were tough enough to endure until they could be valued once more by
new owners, who saw them through new eyes. It is comforting to know that CDs,
because of their century or more life expectancy, will physically survive long enough
to be rediscovered by new generations. At the same time, it is prudent to create
redundant copies of stored digital data. If images or data, for example, are recorded
on film as input or output from digitization, the film serves well as a collection backup. Having, two copies in different forms and in different physical locations increases
the chances that the information will survive.
In addition to redundancy, a key aspect of archiving information on writable CD is the
principle of master copies and derivatives. The power of writable CD technology is
the ability to store so much information on durable discs, together with the easy
generation of additional copies. This means, for example, that multiple departments
of an institution can have and use their own CDs, all for very low cost. These copies,
used for different purposes, are the derivatives. Someone should have responsibility
272
for the creation and physical care of a master. This master copy should be stored
properly, be physically secure, and be handled only to make derivative copies. Such a
strategy will help to ensure both long life and economical access to stored data for
many years.
CD TAPES.
CD-ROM
AND WRITABLE
CD (CD- RECORDABLE)
The CD is a new medium, but several different types already exist. The References
in technology between read-only CDs (for example, those used for audio discs and
multimedia publishing) and writable CDs (for example, those used as data storage and
for image storage on Kodak Photo CD) need to be understood. Among CD types, not
all discs are created equal, from a permanence point of view. It is important for those
concerned about CD longevity to know certain things, so that they can make the best
selection among available product types and brands. It is also important that they
know about the special handling and storage requirements of each CD type.
CDs of all types share certain features: they all have the same physical dimensions, are
made at least partially from clear polycarbonate plastic, and have a metallic layer to
reflect the laser beam that reads the data. All CDs are groovy they have a
microscopic spiral - groove pattern molded into the polycarbonate plastic. The lines
of this spiral are so small and close together that they act like a diffraction - rating.
This creates the shimmering lines of rainbow colours that emanate from the centre
hub toward the outer edges on the bottom side of every CD. The spiral groove is
continuous on writable CDs because its needed to guide the laser during writing.
The major identifying difference between currently manufactured read only discs
(CD-ROM) and writable CD discs can be seen at first glance: CD-ROMs have a
silver metallic sheen on both sides, whereas writable CDs are typically metallic gold
on the top and green or green-golden on the bottom. The top of a CD bears a label,
logo, or other printed information. The bottom has no markings except in the area
near the centre hub. The laser reads the disc from the bottom, so labels or inks on that
side would get in the way. Because the bottom is always unobstructed, its overall
colour - whether silvery (CD- ROM) or green/green-golden (writable CD or CDRecordable) provides quick identification.
THE NATURE OF CD-ROM
DISCS
The two types of CDs, read-only and writable, differ in structure, materials, and
manufacturing technology. When large numbers of copies are needed, CD-ROM is
the natural choice because the discs are stamped from molds. The molding process
(which is not unlike how phonograph records are made) forms a polycarbonate disc
that makes up the bulk of the finished CD. This molded disc has a spiral track of pits
impressed on one side; these pits embody the encoded data. As the laser beam in a
CD is guided alone the length of the track, it is interrupted by the pits and these
interruptions are decoded into music, text, or pictures.
After a CD-ROM leaves the mold, its only a clear plastic disc with tiny pits; if you
tried to read it on a CD player, the reading laser would pass through it, never seeing
a difference between a pit and a land pass (a smooth area). Thats why CD-ROMs
have their silvery metallic coating. The metallic layer forms a reflective surface from
which the laser light bounces back into a light-sensing detector. When the tightly
focused laser beam reflects off a land, the light-sensing detector sees the beam.
273
When the beam encounters a pit, no laser light is reflected into the light-sensing
detector.
The metallic reflective layer has been the source of problems in disc longevity, CD
ROM technology, which originated around 1980, is older than writable CD
As with any new product, there were lessons to be learned and
technology.
improvements to be made. The reflecting layer was a case in point. In CD-ROMs, the
reflecting layer is actually aluminium or a chrome-aluminium alloy, not silver. The
metal is applied to the pit side of the molded polycarbonate disc by means of sputter
coating, wherein atoms of metal are deposited as a very thin film using a high vacuum
chamber. Thin metal films are semitransparent. Familiar examples are mirror
sunglasses and the golden faceplates of space suits.
Oxidation
of Metallic Reflecting Layers
If the metallic layer in a CD ceases to be reflective, then there can be problems in

In some early CD-ROMs (and possibly some still being
reading its data.
manufactured by lower-quality producers), the metallic layer, gradually lost its ability
to reflect the laser beam, especially when discs were stored in warm or humid
conditions. The problem was oxidation of aluminium metal, a slow chemical change
that robbed the layer of its reflecting properties. Oxidation made the discs more
transparent in the affected areas, sometimes almost clear. The use of aluminum alloys
improved oxidation resistance.
The tendency of CD-ROM metallic layers to oxidize over time can be measured with
accelerated-aging tests. Todays CD-ROMs from quality manufacturers have a
predicted life of over one hundred years (in normal storage conditions) without danger
of data loss because, of oxidation. How can a consumer judge when a CD is
manufactured to the highest standard of quality. Unfortunately, it is as not possible to
tell definitively by just looking. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain some clues.
The metallic layers of CD-ROMs have varying degrees of transparency. By holding a
CD-ROM up close to the eye in front of a strong, light source, one can determine how
transparent the metallic layer is (unless a label or heavy printing prevents this). Some
CD-ROMs are opaque, some almost opaque, and others almost transparent. Those
that are quite transparent may be more susceptible to oxidation damage. (This does
not apply to writable CDs because they have gold metallic layers. Gold is well known
for superior oxidation resistance.) The presence of obvious pinholes in the metallic
layer is another undesirable feature.
SCRATCHES.
TOPANDBOTTOM
The metallic layer in all types of CDs needs protection from physical wear and tear as
The sputtered metal film is
well from as oxidising or airborne contaminants.
physically delicate and would be damaged quickly if touched or rubbed. For this
reason CDs have a clear layer of lacquer covering the metallic reflecting layer. It also
forms a surface upon which the label informations can be printed.
The molded polycarbonate substrate layer is on the bottom of a CD (the side from
which the laser reads the data). The pits must be read through it. This part of a CDs
design helps make it tolerant of scratches. The lens of the reading laser focuses the
beam directly on the pits, through the 1.2-millimeter thickness of the polycarbonate.
The beam looks past scratches on the bottom of the disc, unless they are really deep.
274
This first line of defense against scratches is not the only one. There is a second in the
software that decodes the data stored on the disc. Known as error detection and
correction, this technology is able to deal with errors in the data because some degree
of redundancy and cross-checking is built into the encoded data in the first place.
Together, the acrylic layer, the out-of-focus scratches, and software error correction
add up to formidable physical robustness for all types of CDs, especially when
compared with phonograph records or magnetic media. (Writable CDs are somewhat
different in structure from CD-ROMs and have some special handling considerations see below.) However, physical damage from scratches or other kinds of mishandling
is still a serious threat. Proper handling, including appropriate storage containers for
CDs, is a vital contributor to CD longevity.
RJMLMBILITY.OR
WHENIS A CDs LIFEREALLY
OVER?
Still, nothing lasts forever, and it is important to know what the inherent life
expectancy of a CD disc actually is. As mentioned, life expectancy at moderate
storage conditions can be determined by means of accelerated-aging, tests, and most
manufacturers provide such data to consumers upon request. To understand the test
results, one has to know what was considered the end of life for test purposes and, of
course, what the predicted life expectancy turned out to be. End of life for a CD disc
seems a simple concept - when the disc can no longer be read, its useful life is over.
Readability, however, is not a simple thing, to measure. The readability of a CD is
determined partly by the disc and partly by the player device. It can be difficult to
know whether a disc itself has deteriorated or whether hardware or software problems
in the playback system are involved. Audio CDs are perhaps the most familiar
example of the problem; most people who own several CD players have had the
experience that some discs play well on one player but not on another. All types of
CD players are electromechanical devices with complex moving, parts that must
operate within very close tolerances, and it is easy for misalignments or other troubles
to occur. For data discs that are read on computers, software problems could also
make a particular disc unreadable. As a practical matter, an unreadable CD more often
indicates player problems than physical or chemical deterioration of the disc.
In life testing, manufacturers take great pains to make sure that their playback
hardware gives a reliable indication of a discs readability.
Specially calibrated
players read discs periodically during the aging tests and report on how many reading
errors the error detection and correction system has had to cope with. Although
readability to the end user seems like an all-or-nothing proposition, in actuality some
reading errors occur in nearly all discs and are handled routinely by the error detection
and correction system. As a disc ages, more and more reading errors can be
measured. The life-expectancy data published by Eastman Kodak and other
manufacturers is really a prediction of how long it would take for a well-written disc
kept at moderate storage conditions to develop a certain number of playback errors
spontaneously. Specifically, life expectancy data is based on a measurement called
BLERmax 50. The BLER part stands for block error rate, a measure of how many
errors are discovered by the error detection and correction system in a ten-second
period. The max part stands for the maximum BLER encountered in reading a given
disc. For test purposes, end of life occurs when the BLERmax reaches 50 errors. This
is a very conservative definition of end of life, however, because most discs that reach
BLERmax 50 are still readable.
275
So, How LONG CAN CDs LAST?

Leaving aside scratches, fires, floods, and peanut butter sandwiches and concentrating
on the slow chemical changes that determine the inherent life expectancy of a CD,
extensive accelerated-aging tests suggest that Kodak writable CD products, including
Photo CD discs, will not reach a BLERmax of 50 for a period of around 200 years
when kept in the dark at moderate storage conditions.
This long potential life
expectancy is mainly a function of the greater dark stability of the dye used in Kodak
writable CD products. Considering that BLERmax 50 is still not an unreadable level
of error, Kodak writable CDs have a very long life expectancy indeed. Similar
research by the 3M Company shows that CD-ROM products made by them will not
attain a block error rate of 50 per second for more than 100 years in moderate storage
conditions.
Accelerated aging is subject to uncertainties, but it does rest on firm scientific footing.
Behind the data is the simple assumption that raising the temperature causes the
reactions of decay to happen faster - so fast, in fact, that they occur within a few
months, rather than decades. The science of reaction rates is called kinetics, and the
lifetime predictions are based on well-established principles of that branch of
chemical science. These same principles are used every day to design the chemical
plants and processes of the modem world. Because there is so much practical
experience with the laws of kinetics, lifetime predictions based on them are
approximately correct. Such test methods soon will be part of a forthcoming ANSI
(American National Standards Institute) standard dealing, with tests for CD
permanence.
THE NATURE OF WRITABLE
CDs
A writable CD starts out blank. A laser writes data on it by creating discoloured

areas in a layer of greenish dye. The areas of discoloured dye on a writable CD act
like the pits in a CD-ROM: they interrupt the beam of the reading laser. Writable CD
technology makes it possible for people to create their own CDs, which then can be
read by computers equipped with CD-ROM drives or (providing the data is written as
music) on home audio CD players. Kodak Photo CD is an example of a writable CD
that can be read on computers and special TV players.
The physical structure of a writable CD differs from that of a CD-ROM. A writable
CD is molded from polycarbonate too, but without pits. Like a long-playing
phonograph record, a writable CD has a smooth spiral groove running over most of its
surface. This groove, molded into the top side of the polycarbonate substrata, serves
to guide the powerful laser beam that does the writing.
Both the reading and writing are done from the bottom side of the disc, through the
full thickness of the polycarbonate substrata. This provides scratch resistance as it
does for the CD-ROM, but there is a catch. It takes a fair bit of energy for the laser
beam to make a mark on a writable CD. That is why scratches and especially
fingerprints or dirt are much more dangerous to a writable CD before writing than
afterwards. The fingerprint, dirt, or smudge can scatter the beam of the writing laser,
perhaps weakening it to the point where the mark is too small or too light to be read.
For this reason, extra care must be taken in the handling of writable CDs before the
data is written.
276
THE GOLDANDTHEGREENS:STRUCTIJRJCOFAWRITABLE
CD
Just as in a CD-ROM, the bulk of a writable CD is a clear polycarbonate substrata

about one millimetre thick. The layer above this one is something writable CDs have
but CD-ROMs dont have: a layer of light-sensitive green organic dye. Above this dye
layer is a thin film of metallic gold. The gold layer has the same purpose as the
aluminum-chromium layer in a CD-ROM, namely, to reflect the reading laser beam
back into the photodetector. In its original state, the dye isnt dark enough to block
light reflection from the gold layer above. But when the dye has been zapped by the
writing laser (which has about ten times the power of the reading laser), a dark
discolouration is created that blocks reflections and forms a permanent, readable
mark. The dye molecules absorb enough energy during the writing process to break
down physically and chemically, leaving an area that no longer reflects light. The
marks made by the writing, laser follow the same encoding scheme as the pits in a
CD-ROM, so writable CDs can be read by CD-ROM drives.
Most writable CDs have a gold reflective layer, and, therefore appear golden when
viewed from the top or label side. However, the bottom side where we get a good
look at the dye through the clear substrata reveals some key differences among
subtypes of writable CDs. There are two principal kinds: those with a dark green
appearance and those with a light green-golden appearance. Kodak writable CDs and
Photo CDs are always clearly marked as such. Another distinguishing feature of
Kodak writable CD products is the presence of a unique serial number, both in
numerals for a person to read and as a bar code that can be read by certain player
devices. The serial number and bar code are put on at the factory. They allow each
writable disc to be identified and tracked, making them valuable tools for an archive
to use in managing a collection of digital information.
LIGHTFASTNESSOF~RITABLE
CDs
Tests show that the writable CDs of some manufacturers can be affected by casual
exposure to light (for example, by leaving, a disc bottom-side up on a desk for days).
This can cause the dye to fade and the contrast between marks and lands to disappear.
The dye formation in Kodak writable CD products, however, provides much superior
lightfastness, and the risk of accidental damage is much lower. Nevertheless, as a
general rule it is prudent to keep all writable CD products in suitable enclosures
(acrylic cases, caddies, or other opaque enclosures) when not in use and never to leave
them exposed to direct sunlight.
Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate:
Safe Handling
of CDs
Back when cardboard punch cards were the only form of digital data storage they were
often marked, Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. Apart from the fact that most people
were a little unsure about the meaning of spindle, the advice was straightforward.
CDs also come with handling advice, now in the form of graphical symbols that are
intended to be easily understood by speakers of all languages. Some of these symbols
are obvious, others about as meaningful as Do not spindle. What are the key points
in handling CDs - the dos and donts?
A basic tenet of safe handling is to provide, good containers or enclosures for CDs.
Cheap plastic sleeves (for example, those sometimes used to hold CDs in the backs of
books or in some types of multiple CD holders) are not suitable for long - term
storage. Upon exposure to extremes of temperature and humidity, the disc and sleeve
277
may adhere to each other. The shear forces generated upon forced removal of a disc
in such circumstances can lead to delamination. The acrylic jewel cases provided by
many manufacturers and distributors are good protection against scratches, dust, light,
and rapid humidity changes. If the manufacturer provide a spacer card or other
material as part of the jewel case package it should be retained. Protect the
individually cased CDs further by placing them in a closed box, drawer, or cabinet.
This gives additional protection from light, dust, and climate fluctuations. It is always
a good idea to handle the CDs themselves only when they are being used. Never
allow them to remain out of their enclosures for long periods of time. Always handle
discs by their edges. Dont eat, drink, or smoke around CDs.
The worst handling stresses for a CD are caused by severe flexing or application of a
sharp point to the top surface. These actions deform the substrata, wiping out pits and
causing areas of the disc to become unreadable. A sharp stylus - a ballpoint pen, for
example - can cause compression of the polycarbonate substrata and the metallic
reflecting layer in the area under the pen point. This can happen to both CD-ROMs
and writable CDs, but the danger is more acute for writable CDs. The adhesion
between the dye and the other layers in a writable CD is weaker than the interlayer
adhesion in a CD-ROM, where no dye is needed. In response to this danger, Kodak
writable CD products have a unique feature - the durability coating. This is a
specially formulated coating ap lied over the protective acrylic lacquer layer. The
coating, part of the Infoguard ! m feature set, has physical properties that keep
scratching objects from getting a grip on the disc surface, thus reducing the likelihood
of a scratch or delamination. Besides providing scratch tolerance, it minimises danger
of dye delamination when a sharp pressure point is applied to the label side of the disc
and helps protect against solvents and acids.
BE CAREFUI,
MARKING
AND LABELLING
CDs
User-applied labels of any kind may unbalance the CD and make it difficult for the
player to read. Also, labels may peel in humid conditions. Once a label is on the CD,
however, it is especially important not to try and remove it. The act of peeling off a
label creates a lever action that concentrates stress in a small area. Such stress can
cause delamination, especially in a writable CD. If it is necessary to write on the top
side of a CD, a soft felt-tip marker is preferable to other writing instruments, but with
some solvent-based markers there may be a danger of the solvents migrating into the
protective lacquer. So, if a CD must be marked, it should be done in a way that is
approved by the disc manufacturer.
CLEANING
CDs
CDs may become dusty or dirty and may occasionally require a careful cleaning. Dirt,
dust, and fingerprints are more significant when they are on the bottom (laserincident) side of the disc. Light, dust or dirt may be safely brushed off with a
nonabrasive tissue such as Kodak lens tissue. Always be gentle and wipe from the
centre hub toward the outside edge of the disc. The motion should be in a radial
direction (like the spokes of a wagon wheel), not in a circumferential direction
(around the circle). If a scratch is created by the cleaning process, it will do the least
damage cutting across the track of pits and lands, rather than along it. If more than
dust removal is require do not use solvents. Use Kodak lens cleaner and Kodak lens
tissue, again working in a radial direction. Use only a small amount of lens cleaner
and work carefully. Spilled liquids may be removed from the disc by this method.
27.8
STORAGE CONDITIONS
FOR CDs
Although CDs can tolerate a fairly wide range of conditions without immediate
damage, it is best to store CDs in cool and moderately dry environments. Slow
chemical changes such as oxidation of metallic reflecting layers, dark fading of dyes,
and deterioration in polymer substrates and coatings are temperature - and humiditydependent processes. They will always proceed faster under warmer and more humid
conditions. For Kodak writable CD products, for example, the predicted time of more
than 200 years to reach BLER of 50 is based on storage at 25C (77F), 40% RH. This
means that cooler and/or drier conditions would lead to even greater life expectancies.
Of course, warmer and damper conditions mean a lowered life expectancy. It is not
necessary or desirable to freeze CDs to get a long life expectancy.
Cycling conditions especially between extremes of temperature and humidity, can be
dangerous to CDs. Although moderate temperature and humidity changes ordinarily
do no harm, fast changes between very warm and wet conditions to cooler and very
dry conditions might produce warping, and distortion. The recommended maximum
limit for temperature change is 15C (27F) per hour. For humidity, the recommended
maximum RH change per hour is 10%. In practice, such steep gradients of
temperature and RH are rare. The enclosures in which CDs are kept provide the first
line of defense against such cycling, damping the rate of change in RH so that the CD
inside its case or storage cabinet does not feel fast changes occurring in the outside
atmosphere.
At present, no national or international standards for long-term storage conditions for
CDs have been published by ANSI or the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
Until such standards are available, the recommendations given in this publication
must be considered provisional.
CD PERMANENCE IN PERSPECTIVE
Ensuring the permanence of CD-ROMs and writable CDs (and indeed of any modem
information medium) is a combination of manufacturers and users responsibilities.
CDs in general last longer than other digital storage media. Under accelerated test
conditions, Kodak writable CD products have a projected life expectancy of more than
200 years when stored appropriately. Many CD-ROM discs can be expected to have
100 years of life, or more, under similar circumstances. On the basis of long inherent
life expectancy and worldwide standardization, CDs are a sensible choice for
archiving data. text, and pictures in digital form. In light of the large investments
represented by collections of CD-ROM and writable CD media, this expected long life
is encouraging, but it is not the whole story.
Satisfactory permanence for CD-ROM and writable CD media starts with knowing,
about the physical nature of the discs themselves and with choosing, products
carefully in the first place. This publication has surveyed the currently available
technology choices in CD media. It has explained the special handling and storage
requirements of CD discs which arise from their physical nature as objects of plastic
and metal. Beyond this, however, permanence of the information stored on CDs
depends as much or more on sound archival practices than on the inherent long life of
the discs. Users of CD technology, whether in a personal or professional context, are
the critical links in assuring data survival in the long term. Master copies kept in
appropriate storage and handled only when necessary may last centuries. Copies for
279
use are likely to have considerably shorter lives. Therefore, a strategy of master discs
from which derivatives are made for use is fundamental to success.
Another useful approach is to maintain data in more than one form or in more- than
one type of storage media, perhaps in analog form, if possible. In addition, keeping
copies in different physical locations helps guarantee survival.
The principal fact of life for all digital storage media is the rapid obsolescence of
hardware and software. Users of CD technology should be reassured by the long
physical life of CD discs, but they must not lose sight of the need to maintain a viable
path for migration of data to new hardware and software platforms. Digital storage
media impose a strict discipline that human-readable records do not: their rapid
evolution creates a continual progression of technology that cannot safely be ignored
for too long. However, armed with knowledge of the physical nature of the media and
of appropriate archival approaches, users of CD technology can have the best of both
worlds - the functionality of digital media and a long life for stored data and pictures.
* Reprinted with permission from Eastman Kodak Company
280
---_.- .__...
__I__
-. ---
SECTION VII STORAGE HANDLING
and CONSERVATION
7.5 Preservation of Audio and Video Materials in Tropical Countries

Dietrich Schiiller, Phonogrammarchiv,
Vienna
Motto: Beware of high humidity and buy a hygrometerfirst!
Audiovisual data carriers play an ever-increasing role in the realms of information.

communication, cultural documentation and research. With the vast spread of modem
technologies, the wide field of the audiovisual domain has become an indispensable
factor in every country around the world.
In the course of this development.
audiovisual collections have mushroomed almost everywhere, with each collection
containing irreplaceable documents of unique historical and cultural content.
Beyond the world of modem, international entertainment, audiovisual documents
are the only suitable records for otherwise undocumentable, orally transmitted cultures
and arts. Thus, this kind of documents are an indispensable prerequisite for the
representation of the world heritage in all its multicultural aspects.
It is now well known that audiovisual data carriers are prone to decay. Standards have
been defined to help slow down the progress of this decay in order to prolong the life
of this precious source material. The parameters of these standards have been defined
within the prevailing environmental and economic framework of developed Western
countries with moderate climatic conditions. Many of us have discovered, however,
that. in tropical countries, audiovisual data carriers often have greatly reduced life
expectancies. This paper will examine the reasons for this unfavourable situation and
suggest measures to overcome at least some of the problems by observing simple,
adaptable methods, The views of the author are based on the experience gained from
a series of missions to African, Arabian and Caribbean audiovisual archives.
Before discussing the situation of tropical countries it is advantageous to generally
survey the parameters relevant for the stability and integrity of audio and video
carriers. Almost all audiovisual carriers (with the exception of the tnetal parts of mass
produced audio or video discs) consist of polymers which are inherently unstable. All
preservation measures can be defined as measures to retard decay as a consequence of
this inherent instability and to prevent additional risks over what is defined to be
normal conditions to their chemical, mechanical or - where applicable - magnetic
integrity.
The generally accepted recommended
summarized as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The
The
The
The
The
The
storage and handling
conditions
can be
maintenance of low and stable temperature and humidity values.

elimination of dust, fingerprints and other kinds of foreign matter.
prevention of mechanical deformations.
control of light and ultra violet radiation.
control of magnetic fields (for magnetic carriers).
use of well maintained replay equipment.
In principle, parameters 3 to 6 are as easy to achieve in tropical conditions as in

temperate conditions. This is not the case, however, with temperature, humidity and
281
dust. These parameters will, therefore, be examined more carefully in view of their
influence on the stability of audio and video carriers
Temperature
and Humidity
Before dealing with their influence on data carriers it must be explained that
temperature and humidity are inter-related. The higher the temperature of the air, the
more water it can hold in gaseous form (vapour); the colder the air, the less water it
can hold. Put another way, the same, absolute amount of water at higher temperatures
gives a lower Relative Humidity and at lower temperatures a higher Relative
Humidity (RH). When the temperature is lowered, the Relative Humidity increases
until the saturation point (100% RH) is reached. This point is also called the Dew
Point because at that, and lower temperatures, water vapour condenses on to the
surfaces within the environment. It is important to understand that the Dew Point is
reached when, for example, air at 70% RH is cooled, without dehumidification, from
30C to 24C.
The speed of chemical processes is temperature dependent: the higher the temperature,
the faster the chemical process. Aging is a chemical process and, therefore, the longterm stability of polymer carriers is, in principle, dependent upon the temperature of
the environment in which they are kept: the lower the temperature, the longer the life
expectancy; the higher the temperature, the shorter the life expectancy.
Water, omnipresent in the form of humidity or vapour, is - in the case of polymers another agent working towards their degradation. Several decay processes are due to
hydrolysis, a process whereby the long polymer molecular chains breakdown thereby
altering their chemical and physical properties. Different polymers vary in their
susceptibility to hydrolysis and the process is influenced by different factors in
different polymers. However, the more water that is available (and the higher the
temperature), the stronger its action and, again, the shorter the life expectancy. There
is a trade-off between humidity and temperature: higher humidities can be
compensated for by lower temperatures, and vice versa for the same hydrolytic effect.
The most prominent and widely discussed hydrolytic process affecting audio and
video carriers is that which affects some types of magnetic layer binders used in some
magnetic tapes. The binding properties are reduced and the tape becomes sticky and
sheds oxide particles resulting in clogging of the replay head (colloquially known as
the Sticky Tape or Sticky Shed Syndrome). This causes deterioration or even loss
of the playback signal. To date, the only tapes affected have been some produced
since the mid 70s. Normally such tapes can be stabilised to make them playable for a
short period and, thus, provide sufficient time for the tapes to be copied. In severe
cases the magnetic layer can be shed in flakes of varying size with consequent
complete loss of information. Another process of polymer decay due to hydrolysis is
the so-called Vinegar Syndrome. It was discovered in the 80s and affects stocks of
cellulose acetate films, causing them to become, initially, limp and, finally, brittle.
The decay process produces acetic acid that acts as a catalyst and accelerates the
process if trapped in the film can with the film. It has also become evident that the
process can affect magnetic tapes with a cellulose acetate base, but not to the same
degree as with film. These tapes also become brittle because of the action of humidity
on the polymers. This leads to bad tape-to-head contact and, sometimes, irreparable
tape breakages when being played.
Corrosion is another water-related chemical process. In theory, metal particle tape, as
used for many video formats and for R-DAT, is prone to corrosion of the magnetic
282
layer. It is noteworthy, however, that, so far, no significant reports of such corrosion

have been received, not even from countries with a very adverse climate.
Beyond the sphere of chemistry, high levels of relative humidities can cause
secondary problems. They support fungus growth, whereby fungus reacts with the
surfaces of many audiovisual carriers, especially with the magnetic layer of tapes. In
the replay process fungus accumulates on the replay heads of audio and video
machines, causing head clogging and thus disturbing, if not hindering, the replay
process. In severe cases fungus can destroy the magnetic layer. Another unwanted
non-chemical humidity problem is condensation on the tape surface if the Relative
Humidity reaches 100%. This can cause severe replay problems, especially with all
rotary head formats (video and DAT). It can also lead to adhesion of the tape to the
head-drum which may cause damage to the equipment.
Temperature and humidity also have an influence on the dimensions of carriers.
Generally the volume of a carrier increases with higher, and decreases with lower
temperature and/or humidity. With respect to thermal expansion, polyester tapes,
wound on a spool, exhibit an anomaly. The polyester tape is pre-tensilized, which
leads to different thermal expansion parameters for different dimensions. While the
length of the tape is affected by temperature changes by a small amount only, the
dimensional changes of the thickness exceed the changes of the length by a factor of
about 10. Thus the tape pack of a polyester tape will become tighter with rising
temperatures which can lead to excessive pressures and tape deformations, while
cooling will make the tape pack loose. Acetate and PVC tapes react in the opposite
way. (The author is indebted to Rudolf Mtiller and Friedrich K. Engel, both of BASF
Magnetics, for their help with this point). Hygroscopic expansion of polyester is very
low; for acetate cellulose, however, the expansion factor is quoted to be 8-l 5 times
that of polyester.
Finally, higher temperatures result in a faster rate of increase of signal print-through
on magnetic tapes. Print-through is only an annoying factor in analogue magnetic
audio tape recording. Although, in principle, it has an influence on the longitudinal
recorded sound track on analogue video formats, this is, in practice, only relevant for
the older two- and one-inch-formats. It does not affect digital audio formats, nor any
analogue or digital video signals. It only affects longitudinal sound tracks. It should
be remembered that print-through can be greatly diminished by re-winding the tape
several times.
From these facts the following general rule can be derived: for the extension of life
expectancy, temperature and humidity should be low. With respect of the mechanical
influences of these parameters, in order to prevent, especially with tapes, mechanical
deformations caused by stress or undue relaxation, the chosen temperature and
humidity level should be kept as stable as possible. Additionally, high levels of RH
must be avoided in order to prevent fungus growth and mechanical replay problems.
It must be noted that there is no ideal storage condition per se. Each recommendation
is a compromise between:
*
*
*
*
The rate of decay of the carriers.

The frequency of use of the carriers.
The requirements for health and convenience of the archivists.
cost.
Current internationally accepted recommendations propose temperatures around 20C

with maximum (annual) fluctuations of *2-3C . The recommended humidities have
283
been steadily lowered over the last few decades. As a consequence of magnetic layer
binder break down with modern tapes since the mid seventies (sticky tape or sticky
shed syndrome), humidity recommendations have dropped from a maximum of 60%
to 40% RH and lower, with maximum fluctuations of *5- 10% RH.
.
These standard recommendations, which are quoted now for all audio and video
carriers, are a typical compromise made from the perspectives of archives in moderate
climatic conditions with the need of frequent access to their holdings (access
storage). They reflect the general climatic conditions as well as a normal working
room environment, which is generally accepted by people living in a temperate
climatic zone.
More recently, long term archival storage - as opposed to access storage conditions have been defined with lower and tighter parameters, suggesting 5C and
30% or lower RH for magnetic tape (Van Bogart). Carriers stored under such
conditions are, however, not easily accessible as they will have to be slowly
acclimatised to a normal working environment before use. Current thinking does not
encourage the storage of magnetic tape at temperatures lower than 5C because of the
risk of exudation of lubricants which are contained in the magnetic layer. These
lubricants lead to head clogging with all its well known consequences. The Library of
Congress in Washington is currently planning to systematically investigate tape
storage at lower temperatures.
Turning now to tropical climatic zones, an outdoor temperature range of 25 to 40C
and more can be observed. Humidities may range from extremely (and for our
carriers, favourable) low values in arid zones - but which then create dust problems up to 100% RH in humid zones during the rainy seasons.
A considerable input of energy and money is necessary to bring down tropical
temperatures and humidities and keep them at the values published in our standards.
In practice, very few audiovisual archives in tropical areas can afford to keep to these
recommendations. The most frequently applied practices are the following:
1. The archivists are unaware of the recommendations, or - for financial reasons - are
unable to do anything. The audiovisual holdings are kept without any air conditioning
at all.
2. The archivists are aware of the recommendations but have limited funds for air
conditioning. They have cooling equipment running during the day, but they switch it
off in the evenings and at weekends in order to save energy.
3. The archivists can afford cooling of the air but, because of lack of awareness
and/or because of insufficient funds, do not effectively dehumidify their environment.
Some of them may think that they are, at least, fulfilling 50% of the international
recommendations by cooling down to perhaps 20C but disregarding effective
In principle, cooling of the air simultaneously
simultaneous dehumidification.
extracts water by condensation. Effective simultaneous cooling and dehumidification
of an environment, however, requires specialised equipment and measures.
Experience has often shown that standard air-conditioners, as used widely for cooling
homes and offices - and also used in many small, Southern audiovisual archives - do
not. in general, work effectively as dehumidifiers. A large part of this ineffectiveness
can also be ascribed to improper insulation: any air intake that by-passes the
controlled air conditioning channels will not only counteract cooling but also
dehumidification.
284
In general, it can be stated that of these three mentioned practices the latter is the
worst, and of catastrophic consequence if applied in humid areas like the Caribbean
and similar regions. As explained above cooling without effective dehumidification
raises relative humidities dramatically.
Water condenses in comers without air
current, on shelves, and, finally, inside audio and video cassettes. This leads very
quickly to fungus growth, and to severe replay problems. There are indications that
lead to the view that excessive levels of humidity may also trigger severe cases of
hydrolysis. The Phonogrammarchiv has observed three such cases, all related to tapes
that have travelled for long distances in the luggage compartment of an airplane
before landing in hot and humid places. Obviously the cool tapes have received after
their landing a high amount of condensing water which triggered hydrolysis. Other
tapes of the same type that stayed at home have not, so far, exhibited this behaviour.
As a consequence of these observations, we now advise researchers to carry both their
blank and their recorded tapes in the cabins of airplanes only. Video archives
employing this method of partial air conditioning reported that cassettes generally
failed to play back after between one and three years only!
Dust
The other factor that creates a greater risk in tropical areas rather than in moderate
climatic zones is dust. It is omnipresent in practically all southern countries. It is less
annoying, where occurring, during the rainy seasons. Most aggravating is the fact that
airiness is one of the principles of personal well-being in these countries. Hence,
windows are normally left open. Modem office buildings sometimes do not even
have windows in our sense but grids made of bricks to allow a constant air flow. Thus
yellow or red dust covering floors, shelves, and inside everything, including tape
boxes and even cassettes, is the standard scene in many archives and collections in
these areas.
Dust is one of the greatest enemies of all audiovisual carriers and their equipment. On
mechanical carriers, it deviates the stylus from its path, causing clicks and crackles;
with magnetic tapes it causes head clogging, and, additionally, scratches on surfaces
of tapes, tape heads and tape guides; with CDs it causes, in conjunction with improper
handling, scratches which may render the discs unreadable. It must be remembered
that CDs are sensitive to scratches. If their lower surface, the polycarbonate body, is
scratched, the laser beam is dispersed and may not be able to track the pits. As a
consequence, anything between short dropouts and total muting can occur. Scratching
the protective varnish of the upper side of the disc will possibly render the reflective
layer unstable, leading also to playback problems. CDs must, therefore, be handled
with utmost care and should never be placed anywhere except in a player or in their
cases, the so-called jewel boxes. Placing them on an obviously sandy table may lead
to their swift destruction.
Recommended Practices for Tropical Countries.
the international
countries should follow
Ideally, archives in tropical
recommendations for the storage of audio and video materials. For temperature,
humidity, and cleanliness in an access store this would mean:
* A constant storage temperature around 20C with fluctuations not exceeding i 1C
daily and *2C annually.
* A relative humidity of 30-40% with minimal fluctuations (*5%).
* The absence of dust particles.
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Only rich archives are able to follow these recommendations. It must be noted,
however, that such low temperatures are considered to be very uncomfortable by local
archivists and may, moreover, constitute a considerable health problem. Archival
storage in Van Bogarts sense would call for even lower and tighter values. In view
of the costs that would be incurred, however, their realisation would not happen very
frequently.
In order to reach, or to come close, to the above standards, a bundle of measures are
necessary. The first and most important is the radical thermal insulation of buildings
and rooms housing audiovisual storage areas. Whenever possible, storage areas
should be placed in the centre of a building, their walls should not touch the outside of
the house. Indigenous construction materials, eg like adobe, may be preferable to
concrete and additional insulating material may be advantageous. Most important is
the construction of secondary roofs and facades, with a gap of several feet between the
primary and secondary surfaces, to allow for ample air flows around the primary
building. This will prevent sunlight from hitting and directly heating the outside
surfaces of the primary archival building. This is a simple and inexpensive but most
effective measure. The use of underground storage areas may, in principle, help to
reduce energy costs. The high risk of flooding must, however, be taken into account
when considering such ideas. They are, therefore, only applicable (and still with great
caution!) in dry areas. Generally, tropical rains can be abundant, so sufficient
measures to prevent flooding of storage areas have to be provided.
In fighting against dust, the following measures must be considered:
Wrapping audiovisual carriers to individually protect them against dust, eg. in
polyethylene bags, must, however, be critically examined for two reasons, especially
in tropical areas:
1. Several deterioration processes are autocatalytic: the chemical process produces
substances that act as catalysts for the further decay, thus exponentially accelerating
the process. This is well-known with the Vinegar Syndrome that affects acetate
cellulose and is also suspected with binder hydrolysis.
2. Equally, if not more important, is the danger of creating a microclimate: elevated
humidities may be trapped, or accumulated, in closed environments, causing chemical
decay and fungus growth with all its disastrous consequences.
The conflicting demands for airy storage and for dust prevention can only be met
satisfactorily and simultaneously by providing a good air exchange, using appropriate
air-conditioning equipment, in combination with the following radical dust proofing
measures:
* Tightening windows to ensure a good seal.
* Installing air locks at all entrances.
* Having terrazzo-type floors. These are easily cleanable and, if dark coloured, make
dirt visible and annoying.
* Air conditioners must be equipped with effective dust filters which must be
regularly maintained.
What immediate advice could be given, however, if financial funds are lacking to
provide ideal, first world conditions?
Thermal insulation and dust proofing can be provided at relatively low cost and have
little or no continuing energy requirement. These should, therefore, be at the centre of
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all endeavours. As to temperature and humidity, it must be mandatory to control both

parameters simultaneously.
To this end, the availability of a hygrometer is an
essential prerequisite. Air conditioning equipment must be chosen that is able to
effectively cool and dehumidify the air. If compromises have to be made, temperature
must be kept to a maximum of 25C with the humidity not above 60% RI-I. If the
level of both parameters cannot always be simultaneously achieved, it seems more
important to keep humidity within the given limits than temperature. A stand-by
generator must be provided to ensure a continuing power supply in case of a failure of
the public supply. Whatever measures are to be taken, it is imperative that the
temperature and RH values be recorded daily (or more frequently) in order to assess
the risk and to take action.
It must be clearly understood, however, that such departures from the ideal climatic
conditions will inevitably lead to shortened life expectancies for the carriers.
To improve the situation in the mid and longterm, the following strategies should be
intensified:
* Development of cooperation on a national, or even regional, basis to establish
central archival storage vaults with ideal storage conditions which can serve as
repositories for several archives, libraries and other
institutions. It is much cheaper
to maintain one larger unit at a good climatic standard rather than several smaller units
at a less than ideal standard.
* Development of international cooperation to establish large scale storage areas in
cold climatic zones which can serve as longterm archives for the holdings of tropical
countries.
* Intensifying, in cooperation with the manufacturers of audiovisual materials,
research into measures to retard the decay of such products and to improve their
longterm stability even under unfavourable conditions.
* Testing the potential of digital mass storage systems for assisting in the
preservation of and access to audio and, hopefully, video documents in tropical
countries.
While waiting for these strategies to bear fruit, however, the advice given above may
help to improve the present situation. The current situation is often aggravated, as has
been explained, by actions which are well-intended but in fact are counter-productive,
eg the use of cooling without effective de-humidifying. It must be stated once more
that the advice given above must not be seen as reduced standards that can be lived
with. They are given as tools to overcome the present emergency situation caused by
the interaction of two unfavourable factors in many countries:
* Disadvantageous climatic conditions combined with * Tight economic conditions.
Under no circumstances must this advice be misunderstood. It must not be interpreted
to mean that looser - and thereby cheaper - storage conditions would be sufficient to
safeguard the audio and video heritage in the longterm.
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7.6 DATA DENSITY
Archival Purposes
VERSUS
AND CONSERVATION
DATA
SECURITY
Formats
Suitable
for
Dietrich Schiiller
Physically the recording of audiovisual material of all kinds (sound records,
photographic stills and moving images, videograms) means to store an amount of data
which is related to sound pressure-waves, or to emitted or reflected light. The
problem common to all kinds of recordings lies in the fact that an enormous amount
of data has to be written onto or read from the storage medium - in most cases in real
time. The storage medium itself has to keep the data undistorted over a long period of
time, ideally to eternity. It should be easy to handle and its size should be practicable.
We should try to discuss our problem by dealing mainly with sound records, taking a
glance, however, at electronic processing and storage of images, but leaving aside film
and photography for the moment. If we look at the history of av-records we discover
two parallel developments: an ever increasing quality, which means an ever increasing
amount of data, accompanied by an ever decreasing size of carrier, and an increasing
data density. As an example take the bandwidth of sound recordings:
1900: acousto-mechanical
1925 : electromechanical
1960: magnetic
5kHz
1okHz
20 kHz
Parallel to this, space consumption has been reduced drastically if comparison is made
between the volume required to store 1 hour of recording in various formats (boxes
included):
2 minute cylinders
analog tape
(38 cm/s on 26.5 cm spools)
R-DAT (2 hours)
11 000 cm3
12 665 cm3
76 cm3
More recently during the last 15-20 years, together with increasing data density, there
is a tendency towards decreasing recording quality in formats aimed at the average
consumer, and the compact cassette and the home video formats represent good
examples of this tendency. On the digital side we see strong moves towards data
reduction techniques which often impair technical quality as well.
Leaving aside these trends towards lower quality standards for the average consumer
any development towards a certain point unavoidably leads to insecurity of data
storage, on the carrier itself and on its readability.
288
There are several reasons for this:

1. Miniaturization of wave-lengths and recording tracks call for extreme precision of
recording and playback equipment and for almost perfect and uniform physical and
chemical condition of the recording media.
Extreme cleanliness and special
environmental conditions are absolutely essential.
2. Thinner carriers. especially tapes, exhibit lower mechanical stability with all its
consequences.
3. Magnetic carriers with high packing rates, eg. the high percentage of magnetic
oxide, sometimes results in chemical instabilities of the oxidebinder compound,
especially under unfavourable climatic conditions.
Beyond a certain point data
density is inversely proportional to data security. Data density is dependent on the
occupied a (ignoring the fact that all kinds of data storing systems are, strictly
speaking, three dimensional): the smaller the area, with constant amount of data - the
greater the density and the greater the problems arising therefrom. Furthermore, it
appears that function is a non-linear one.
In using and handling audiovisual carriers, however, access areas and volumes which
cannot be used to store information are necessary. For example the area occupied by
the label on a record, the hubs, spools or cassettes for magnetic tape, the covers and
boxes to house the carriers properly. For obvious reasons, these areas and volumes
cannot be reduced beyond a certain point. Record covers should be big enough accept
notes which can be read comfortably. Cassettes occupy a certain volume especially if
they have to protect a sensitive carrier. Another factor adds to this complication: a
minimum shelf thickness and adequate spaces are required to place the carrier onto the
shelf or to remove it. However small a cassette may be designed, there will always be
the need for at least an extra 3 cm (one for the shelf and two for the fingers) for
handling. Most obviously open shelving in an archive with at least a 60 cm aisle
width is sometimes in absurd contradiction to the efforts of miniaturizing data
carriers, but moving shelves or other devices for the optimal use of storage areas is
extremely costly and prolongs the access time.
Data density and storage space are therefore in non-linear relation to each other.
Additionally, some aspects of practicality and comfort have to be observed. Small
carriers are more likely to get lost or stolen than larger ones. Small carriers also suffer
from limited space for written information; simply compare the notes on an LP with
those of the same contents on a compact cassette in terms of elegance and comfort.
Summary
The unreflecting increase of data density as a goal in itself is senseless. Up to a
certain point smaller carriers are practicable and desirable especially by those who are
on the production side (such as the ENG people). Beyond a certain point, however
miniaturization becomes questionable. The superficial advantage in terms of storage
requirements and the building and maintenance costs involved have to be offset
against the costs arising from problems of possible data insecurity. Economists are
challenged to calculate the costs of long term preservation including the costs of
subsequent transfer of whole archives to new formats. Such a calculation may prove
that radical miniaturization may in the end not be the most economic way to store
audiovisual material over long periods. This calculation would also have to consider
forthcoming obsolescence of the highly sophisticated equipment necessary for future
formats. While it is still feasible to construct replay machines for Edison cylinders
with reasonable effort, it is questionable whether future equipment may be rebuilt
once mass production has ceased.
289
Archivists therefore would prefer formats which optimize data security rather than
data density. Contrary to general opinion a far higher percentage of all data carriers
produced worldwide is retained for at least medium-term storage. This trend is more
and more increased by the growing interest in the history of cultural life and science
all spheres. Therefore, in developing new formats, more attention should be paid to
the aspects of long-term preservation.
The following comments to the paper from many experts in the field is included for
information.
William D. Storm: I would like to make a comment as much as anything else. What I
am particularly concerned about when we come to data storage and the idea of giving
more and less space, is to argue whether material could be packaged in a different
way, with a larger area for labelling, but very small actual storage area People are
losing quality because they want to have something that is small and this scares me
more than anything else. You get compressed data, and compressed data to my way
of thinking is insufficient and very poor data.
Dietrich Schtiller. I quite agree upon the aspect you raise on quality. We have,
however, to admit that other factors are obviously pushing development forward, one
being the notorious lack of space of many archives, normally located in the centres of
cities But I think that further miniaturisation of recording carriers will only seemingly
solve this problem while it introduces others. Therefore we have to calculate storage
space into the future and against any financial inputs we have to make for the future
care of things. Although I have not calculated it yet, my guess is that storage space is
easier to finance than even one extra generation of rerecording. If you can save one
generation of rerecording in the next 100, 200 or 400 years then it is cheaper to pay
for greater storage area than to leave the troubles to your successors.
Jean-Marc Fontaine: I would like to contribute with a reflection, Dietrich, as the
problems of dimension is a fundamental question now brought about by numerisation
of sound. I think we will have to stay calm in the years to come, as we will have a
large numbers of propositions as to the supports for storage. Today we touched on RDAT, and I would nevertheless like to reflect on Mr. Wheelers expression concerning
storage; this is a product that does not yet exist and we have to assess it, knowing that
it is a cassette, a reduced cassette, and analogy has taught us at least to be cautious.
Next year we will be talking about CD-ROM, rerecordable disks, and gradually we
will get the propositions and have to reflect a lot on these, once again calmly.
Dietrich Schdler: My paper was intended to be a first voice from the archivists side
against the standards which are imposed on us by industry which does not construct
This forum and especially the Unesco
the products for archival purposes.
Consultation which follows, is very important, because it is a chance for the first time
to combine the voices of the archivists who have to pay in the long run for the future
care of those products which are on the market now. It will lead to some interesting
results.
Jim Wheeler. Thank you. Dietrich I will hit you from both sides. Actually I
compliment you for taking a stand like this. The Engineering Societies do not hear
this kind of a voice, you are right. I think you should be speaking to the Society for
Motion Pictures, the Television Engineers Society and the European Broadcasting
Union, rather than this group, but I think that some of your assumptions are wrong.
One of them is the high packing density: what is happening is, the magnetic heads are
being made (I am also a head design engineer, and design tape, heads, the rotary
scanner and all this kind of work) anyway in the heads we are making we use very
290
different materials in recent years than before, so we are able to make smaller heads
which are much more precise. The metal particle tape allows a much higher packing
density, we reckon with a much smaller particle on the tape. Another point you have
is on the thin tape. I have been concerned about thin tape, at AMPEX I raised the flag,
and was made responsible to make sure that the machines work with thin tape.
Provided you use a cracked tension, I do not see that the thickness of the tape is so
critical a factor, although the point may be debatable. On getting smaller you are
talking about shelf space, but you are not being innovative in thinking of the future
when you will have an automated archival system at whatever point you want to enter
the system, a cherry-picker, or whatever you call it in Europe. This will pick out the
cassettes and deliver them to the person who wants them. With computer control,
where no human hands are involved in the system, you have to be thinking differently,
not of shelving as you have in the past. On miniaturization however you have a good
point to make.
Dietrich Schiiller: Everybody admits that with increasing data density we run into
trouble, but we should overcome this trouble. I am not so sceptical as I may have
sounded, but we have to calculate what the present and the future costs are. I know of
course that we could have automated archives, where materials are retrieved
automatically. But all these systems (R-DAT and so on) run into the problem of
obsolescence, how do we get these machines in 100 or 400 years time? Today we
have seen that we are able to construct cylinder replay machines for an economic
input which are far better than machines from the earlier era. It will be virtually
impossible economically to construct any of those machines needed to replay all these
standards in 500 years time. That is the problem which we have not been discussing,
but it is impossible in practical term to re-make all these alloys or build them up again
with discrete elements. There is a second great problem which we have not touched we should be thinking about a format which is easy to handle. Why does R-DAT run
for two hours, not for one hour? Why is it a .15 in tape, why is it not an 8 mm tape, if
this is available on the market? These are all things which I do not understand: It
would cost a little bit more shelf space but it would be four times more practical - that
is the message of the paper.
Jim Wheeler: What pushes the market here is what sells in TV stations, not what sells
to archives. That is the driving force, it is called money. So you should be speaking
to the Engineering Societies to make the point that you do need a common format, to
settle on a format. I am not sure how you handle that, but some organisation from this
meeting should be approaching the Engineering Societies in the world.
William D. Storm: A further comment. There is a very important technical concern
here. Archivists are supposed to have to live with what the manufacturers do, but
there may be a basic flaw in this thinking. If there is a body which shows what they
are doing, not what they advertise they are doing I think you can greatly influence the
market as well. Tape, for example: there are many different types of tape that vary
tremendously from batch to batch as much as 6 decibels. Thin tape is definitely
nowhere near as good as the thicker tapes, and this is very measurable, very
qualifiable, however the general market is not aware of that. When the archivists start
to become more like scientists and show what is really happening, not the market
hype, we can indeed influence what we are given and what we have to work with.
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SECTION VII: STORAGE, HANDLING

7.7 Strategies for the Safeguarding
Term
and CONSERVATION
of Audio and Video Materials
in the Long
Vienna
Ever since PICKETT and LEMCOEs report (1959), which marked the beginning of
systematic approaches towards audio preservation, audio, and later video, archivists
have been looking for measures to preserve their holdings in the best possible way this meant the artifacts: the cylinders, the disks, the tapes. Considerable headache and
research has been, and is still, directed towards the question of the life-expectancy of
audio and video carriers and the measures necessary to retain their chemical and
physical integrity for as long as possible.
Film was the first audiovisual medium that attracted systematic activity towards its
preservation. This is most understandable as the cellulose nitrate, which was used as
filmbase until the early fifties, is inherently unstable and extremely flammable. This
situation also lead to the foundation of FIAF, the Federation Intemationale des
Archives du Film, as the first audiovisual archives association as early as 1938.
The crucial problem has always been the fact that audio and video carriers have never
really been produced with longevity in mind. They are part of the entertainment
industry and are in daily use - both in the private and in the professional domain. The
products have proved to be more or less stable enough for the purposes they were
originally intended for. Archivists, however, are thinking in different dimensions of
time. They had to carry all the burden of preservation including expensive and
elaborate research into the stability of the many materials used. There was little
systematic support from or co-operation with the producers of tapes and disks. The
situation, however, changed gradually during the second half of the eighties as a result
of two initiatives:
Members of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) in the United
States approached the Audio Engineering Society (AES) to include topics of archival
matters in a workshop during the AES Convention in Los Angeles, November 1986.
This workshop raised great interest from the side of the audio engineers and brought
about a Sub-Committee on Audio Restoration and Preservation within the AES
Standards Committee. William D. Storm, a member of both ARSC and IASA
Technical Committees and the then Director of the Belfer Audio Laboratories and
Archives of Syracuse University, was appointed Chairman; the Committee has since
met regularly at the fringe of the American AES Conventions. The core of this group
consists of audio archivists - members of the Technical Committees of ARSC and
IASA - and of interested manufacturers - mainly of tape and tape equipment - who
realized that archiving obviously was a yet undiscovered and possibly profitable
market. The Subcommittee later also joined forces with ANSI (American National
Standards Institute) and formed the Joint Technical Commission AESANSI IT9-5
which is actively engaged in working out standards and recommended practices for
the preservation, re-recording etc. of audiovisual materials.
In parallel, and in close co-operation, with this AES Group, and with several
personalities in common, the technical bodies within FIAF, FIAT, IASA and ICA
joined forces in 1987 by forming, with the help of UNESCO, the Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC). One of its main activities was the organization, with
the support of UNESCO, of a dialogue between audiovisual archivists and
manufacturers of technical equipment.
29.2
In the course of the activities of these groups it became apparent that manufacturers
were not aware of the fact that a large part of all professional tapes produced and sold
are being kept and put into an archive for at least a mid-term period. The audiovisual
archivists, on the other hand, were unable to make any statements on the order of
magnitude of their holdings.
In this situation the IASA Technical Committee started a project to provide an estimate
of how many hours of recorded audio material is kept worldwide. It was intended to
scan the situation in selected countries and to extrapolate from there on the worldwide
situation. The results of the United States, Sweden, Austria, and Germany were been
presented at the IASA Conference in Ottawa 1990. A publication of these results,
however, was withheld in view of the proposed worldwide survey by the Library of
Congress, the results of which were given in a paper by Gerald D. Gibson. The idea
behind both surveys is the same: it is an attempt to assess the worldwide storage
requirements for audiovisual materials and to draw conclusions about the likely future
technical and financial requirements for the preservation of the audiovisual materials
which have become an important part of the cultural and intellectual heritage of
mankind.
In looking at the audio and video domains, the results can be summarized as this: the
reported holdings embrace 14 million hours of audio, and 2.7 million hours of video.
The worldwide projection of the holdings is 45 million hours of audio and 8.6 million
hours of video. The growth rate of these holdings (and this is known from the IASA
TC study) is between 5 and 10 percent per year.
This is an impressive amount of holdings; the preservation of which in the long term
raises considerable technical, logistic and financial problems.
In developing possible scenarios for preservation of these holdings into the future, let
us first stick to traditional archivists thinking of safeguarding the artifacts they have in
their collections. Lifetime expectancy of the various carriers plays the predominant role
in this kind of thinking. It is not the purpose of this paper to go into a lengthy debate
but let us assume an average lifetime of 50 years of a carrier - an assumption which will
be regarded as over-optimistic by many, especially for some modem formats. Even in
this rather optimistic scenario, the transmission of the contents of such carriers over a
millennium implies the necessity of 20 generations of subsequent preservation or
master copies. If this is done in the analogue domains - and most of our holdings are
still analogue - everyone familiar with the audible and visible degradation of signals
after only a few generations of copies will agree that such a strategy cannot be called
archival.
It becomes clear that traditional thinking, in its attempts to minimize the shortcomings
of the analogue world, is the source for the idea of the eternal carrier. Though
technically possible in the form of metal matrices, this possibility has never succeeded
on a large scale because of its enormous costs. There are few examples where metal
masters, mainly of the LP format, have been produced just for preservation purposes.
The BBC did so in their earlier days, political events of special importance in the
former communist countries have been preserved in this way, sometimes also most
valuable research materials like historical holdings of the St. Petersburg
Phonogrammarchiv. Durable carriers are also available in parts of the digital world.
There are metal masters used in the production of optical discs (CD) and the French
manufacturer DIGIPRESS has developed the Century Disc, a compact disc of
tempered glass, with a life time expectation of centuries. It must be stressed, however,
that eternal carriers also require the eternal availability of the required playback
equipment.
293
With the advent of digital storage techniques, however, the situation has, in principle,
changed radically. In the digital domain it is possible to copy information without any
loss from generation to generation. The content of each copy is identical with the
original and, most justifiably therefore, the term cloning is associated with digital
copying. Digital storage offers also another most important feature over the analogue:
the integrity of the information can be checked precisely, and, most important, errors up to a certain threshold - can also be fully corrected.
Many archivists will remember the optimistic view especially the audio archivists
(including the author) took in the late seventies and early eighties of the digital future.
Professional digital formats have been envisaged, and accepted as an universal
standard, by the late eighties or early nineties. Similar thoughts may have lent wings
to our colleagues in the video archives. The market, however, developed differently.
Various fomrats have been developed, none - except the compact disc - has gained
universal acceptance so far.
Unlike analogue times, when the consumers were blessed with by-products of a
professional market, the digital audio development became driven by the consumer
formats rather than the other way round. A good example is R-DAT which was
intended to replace the compact cassette and now survives in the professional world.
The video scene is even more complex: six digital formats have been developed so
far, none of which is in a dominant position in the market. It is not unrealistic to say
that the first digital video formats will become obsolete before they will have gained
any sizeable market penetration. This adds another, hitherto unknown, problem to
audiovisual preservation: the obsolescence of hardware or - to define it from another
side - the physical survival of the software over the economic survival of the
hardware. While it is expensive, but still affordable, to construct replay machines for
Edison cylinders from scratch using the latest technology and exceeding by far the
performance of the historical machines, it is unaffordable if not impossible to rebuild
a complex digital audio or video player once mass production has ceased.
Though obsolescence of hardware plays an ever increasing role, emphasis has to be
given to the fact that none of the hitherto developed commercially available audio and
video formats have been developed with longevity in mind. None of these formats
have so far been accepted by the community of archivists as archival.
The IASA Technical Committee in reviewing the situation drafted, during the Annual
Conference in Canberra 1992, the following resolution: During its meeting during the
Canberra IASA/ASRA
Conference in September, 1992, the IASA Technical
Committee discussed its ongoing review of the progress of digital formats in view of
its suitability for archival purposes. Although decided progress has been made, the
IASA TC is still not in a position to predict a better life-expectancy for a digital
system and format than for the known analogue formats in present use. Hence the
recommendation that analogue tape is the preferred master storage medium still has
validity. However, archives should actively play a role in the development of digital
systems optimized for long-term storage of our cultural heritage (Minutes of the
General Assembly II, Canberra, 29th September 1992).
In this complex and desperate situation the solution lies in the use of digital mass
storage systems for audio and video signals. Such systems would hold audio and
video information as computer files. As in the world of traditional computers it
would be possible record, read and transfer data without necessarily personally
handling a physical carrier. The enormous amount of data required by audiovisual
information, however, can only be managed adequately by jukebox-like robot systems
294
which automatically load the required data carrying medium. Such systems, of course,
are remotely accessible and this feature is of special interest for radio, television, and
national audiovisual archives: it would radically improve and dramatically reduce the
cost of access to their holdings. Automated access also permits the self-checking of the
integrity of the holdings. Without any human intervention a copy (clone) can be made
of a carrier found to be at risk of losing information because the error rate is likely to
rise beyond full error correction capability. If, after a given time, the system becomes
technically outdated, transmigration, i.e. the transfer of the total collection into a new
system, can also be made automatically. The idea itself is not new, of course. Ever
since the use of computers the very data carriers and their longevity have never played
any significant role. We all have personally witnessed, for example, continuous bank
services throughout the decades without noticing the many transmigration processes
performed on our accounts - from punch cards to various magnetic tape and disk
formats - which took place behind the scenes. The difference lies only in the order of
magnitude of storage space once audio or, even more, video signals should be stored
digitally. This new way of thinking can be traced back to May 1989, when - on the
occasion of the 90 anniversary of the Phonogrammarchiv - the Second UNESCO
Consultation took place in Vienna.
The first debate on such a scenario in the sound archives world was associated with the
authors presentation of the paper Towards the Automated Eternal Sound Archive
at the Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) in Ottawa, May 1990. This presentation was
not generally hailed and scepticism was raised at that time, especially with regards to
the authors view, that longevity of carriers of such systems is of minor importance: as
lifetime of the system of more than lo-15 years would only unnecessarily freeze
outdated technology.
Since then, however, the change of paradigm has been generally accepted: If a
considerable part of the audio and video holdings is to be preserved for the future, it is
the information that has to kept rather than the carrier. It has to be recognized,
however, that in the case of mass-produced carriers, namely disks, the carrier itself and
its associated materials like labels, covers, booklets, etc. are cultural objects worthy of
preservation. The preservation of these will the tasks of museum-like collection, which
undoubtedly will do this in a very selective manner, once the survival of the contents
is guaranteed in a quantitatively satisfactorily way.
In the light of the inherent instability of audiovisual data carriers any legal deposit
legislation that demands the preservation of the very artifact should be reconsidered.
It seems an undue financial - if not technically impossible - burden for future
generations to preserve, for example, every single mass-produced cassette in the very
form it has been manufactured.
Currently, several attempts are made to enter this new domains of audiovisual
preservation. Most advanced is the project of the Bundesverband der deutschen
phonographischen Industrie (Federal Association of the German Phonographic
Industry). A Working Group on Archival Systems, of which the author is a member,
is currently fmalizing the specification of a mass storage system suitable for the
requirements of digital multi media management on a large scale. Such systems would
be capable of holding several tens of Terabytes.
295
The rather exotic numerical magnitudes mentioned in this paper suggest a table of the
prefixes standardized in the decadic numerical system:
1 k (kilo)
lo3
1 000 one thousand
1 M (Mega)
lo6
1 000 000 one million
1 G (Giga) lo9
1 000 000 000 one billion
1 T (Tera) lOi*
1 000 000 000 000 one trillion
1 P (Peta) 10
1 000 000 000 000 000 one thousand Tera
1 E (Exa) 1018
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 one thousand Peta
In addition to the recorded sound, written documents, label and cover layouts, photos
and other information associated with the recordings will be stored. The first
implementation of such a system is expected for 1995.
Beside this most advanced project, several radio stations, especially within ARD, the
community of German radio stations, are considering similar solutions.
There is a noteworthy development with runs parallel to the endeavours of the world
of archives: the so-called information or data highways. These new communication
tools are associated with video-on-demand, teleshopping, electronic libraries, multi
media data banks, etc. All these new and attractive services have a common
prerequisite which is not part of the daily discussion: mass storage systems. This
convergence will undoubtedly lead to intensive further development of such devices.
Returning to the Library of Congress survey, it is possible for the first time to roughly
estimate the worldwide digital storage requirement of audiovisual archives. As film
preservation is not yet economically feasible in the digital domain, let us calculate the
storage space requirement of the projected worldwide audio and video holdings only:
The results are impressive: Uncompromising digitization of 35 mm color film requires
40 MB (Megabyte) storage space per frame and 3.6 TB (Terabyte) per hour. Audio is
estimated to require 30 PB. Video, depending on the chosen format, 825- 1050 PB or
around 1 EB.
Even in the unlikely event that only 10 % of the worldwide holdings are kept to
eternity, the result is still impressive. Furthermore: photographic stills and film
preservation would vastly increase this amount, once more powerful mass storage
system come within financial reach. And, finally, if only the most important recent
literature is put into full text data banks, another enormous increase of storage
requirement has to be added.
All these requirements are in the immediate future: they will undoubtedly lead to a
boom of digital mass storage systems in the very near future. Obviously, there will be
various competing systems on the market and in principle there is - as with audio and
video formats - the danger of obsolescence of hardware. But there is an aspect which
gives rise to optimism. Although some mass storage systems are extremely attractive
in terms of costs per stored Byte, the initial investment in hardware is considerable. It
is unlikely, therefore, that too many competing systems will turn up, leading to the
phenomenon of the obsolescence of hardware as we know it from the audiovisual
formats. The financial sums necessary call for cautious decisions. It can be assumed
that the first successfully operating systems will have an influence on subsequent
decisions, possible thus establishing a quasi-standard.
From the high costs of hardware it also becomes clear that small institutions like
academic units, etc., which do not hold great amounts of audio and video data, would
296
probably not attempt to take responsibility for the preservation of their holdings
themselves. Safeguarding could be passed on to greater, central units which are able
to offer professional data storage at economically attractive conditions.
The big problem to be solved in the forthcoming years is the question of the transfer of
the hitherto accumulated materials in such storage systems. There is yet no serious
estimate on the duration of this transfer but, as a preliminary rough guess, it may be
assumed that this procedure may last at least 20 years. This perspective brings the
aspect of longevity back into the debate. Undoubtedly the transfer has to be structured
according to priorities: frequent demand and endangered original materials will be the
most important parameters in setting such priorities. Therefore, research into the lifeexpectancy of existing carriers and measures to prolong their life are still top issues on
the agenda; it would be unwise to start the transfer with relatively stable materials while
others rot away.
In summarizing, it must be stressed that all technical prerequisites for a new strategy
in audio and video preservation are available. Preservation of the information rather
than the carriers is the only feasible solution to preserve in the long term what is
Undoubtedly, a start into this new era of
considered of archival importance.
preservation has to be made soon and the implementation of the first systems is very
close.
297
AND CONSERVATION:
PHOTOGRAPHS
7.8 PHOTOGRAPHIC
CONSERVATION
Brochure published by the National

Susie Clark, Photographic Conservator.
Preservation Office, the British Library, London, n.d.
INTRODUCTION
Photographs are housed in libraries and archives all over the world, but photographic
conservation is still a relatively new subject, particularly in the area of chemical
treatment. It is usually possible to prolong the life of a photograph simply by good
handling and housekeeping practices and by providing suitable storage conditions.
This leaflet provides
techniques.
guidelines
on handling,
storage and basic housekeeping
H.-INDLISG
Ideally, a photograph should not be handled at all! Obviously this would defeat the
purpose of an archive as a useful resource, but it is still possible to keep damage to a
minimum with careful handling procedures.
RECOMMENDATIONS
* Always use clean hands for examining photographs, and preferably wear lintless
cotton gloves to avoid leaving finger-prints and stains on photographs.
* Always work on a clean surface area. If necessary, cover the surface with cheap,
plain paper such as unprinted newsprint, which can be changed as soon as it becomes
dirty.
* Use two hands to hold the photograph and, if possible, support it with a piece of
stiff card, especially if the photograph is fragile or brittle. Avoid touching the
emulsion surface.
* Remove envelopes from negatives and not vice versa. If a photograph appears
stuck in its container, do not attempt to remove it.
* Do not stack up loose prints and glass plate negatives - nothing should be placed on
top of photographs.
* Do not attempt to flatten rolled or curled prints - this job is best left to the
conservator.
* Support a photographic album with a book cradle, to protect its structure and with
book snakes to hold the album open at the relevant page.
* Do not allow food and drink in the vicinity of valuable pictures. Sooner or later, an
accident will happen. Prohibit smoking, too. Even short-term exposure to nicotine
can cause staining.
298
* Avoid the use of ink, especially felt-tip pens. If photographs become at all damp,
the ink may travel through to the image side, and the caption may eventually become
illegible, as well as damaging the original. Use a soft pencil.
* Do not use adhesive tapes, staples, pins, metal paper clips and rubber bands.
* Supervise anyone who handles photographs, particularly new members of staff.
* Examine photographs in light which has been ultra-violet filtered.
* Wherever possible, give your client a copy print rather than the original material, to
reduce damage to the original. Many photographic libraries and some archives
already supply copy prints for reproduction as part of their service. Advise clients on
sensible handling procedures to avoid constantly returning to the original negative to
make new prints.
the importance of good housekeeping is often overlooked, but it is
one of the simplest and cheapest aspects of preservation.
HOUSEKEEPING
RECOMMENDATIONS
* Keep the archive research and storage areas clean. Apart from the surface dirt,
which can build up on archival objects, dust will also cause scratches and blemishes
on films and prints.
* Check temperature and relative humidity regularly. Also check for signs of
deterioration such as mould and insect or rodent attack. Damaged prints should be
removed and stored separately to await conservation.
* Avoid storing archives in basements - they are prone to flooding.
* Never place photographs near a heat source, such as hot pipes, or hang them above
a radiator. Do not place or store photographs in direct sunlight.
* Keep photographs out of freshly painted rooms and away from freshly painted
objects for at least 2 weeks and preferably 4 weeks. Fresh paints may emit peroxides
which can cause damage to photographs.
*
Keep copying machines away from the collections.

electrostatic copy machines, is very damaging.
Ozone, produced by
* Do not allow photographs or their containers to come into contact with household
cleaners containing ammonia or chlorine.
Many of the problems visible in photographic archives are a result of poor
storage. Photographs are complex objects and poor storage can cause many stresses
on the different components of a photograph
STORAGE
HOUSING One common cause of deterioration in photographs is the housing in which

they are enclosed. Unfortunately, many of the original enclosures for photographs
were far from ideal. However, good quality conservation storage materials are now
available in both paper/board and plastic.
299
Paper Should:
1. have a high alpha-cellulose content (above 87%)
2. have a pH of 6.5-7.5.
3. have an undetectable, reducible sulphur content.
4. be free of lignin, pH buffers, metal particles, acid, peroxides and harmful sizing
agents.
Silversafe photostore paper is made from 100% cotton fibre and is particularly
suitable for photographic storage. It was developed in response to the concern of
photographic conservators about traditional storage papers.
Plastic enclosures should be made from polyester such as Melinex or Mylar,
uncoated polyethylene or uncoated cellulose triacetate. Plastics should be free of
plasticiser, added to make them flexible, and the surface should not be glazed or
coated. Chlorinated sheeting, namely polyvinyl chloride (PVC), should not be used.
A variety of enclosures are available for storage and many firms will supply them
custom-designed for special collections. Glass negatives are best stored vertically in
neutral paper enclosures and then in boxes, preferably made from acid-free board,
which will provide an extra buffer against acidic pollutants in the environment. Both
black and white and colour film negatives, and transparencies, are best stored in
polyester sleeves in photographic storage boxes, or in a hanging file system in metal
cabinets.
Most prints, black and white or colour, are best stored in polyester sleeves with
photographic conservation board as a support, if necessary. They should then be
placed in conservation boxes or tiles. The exceptions are prints with delicate surfaces,
such as flaking emulsion, or lifting pigments, which should be seen by a photographic
conservator.
Early photographic albums are often in poor condition and will benefit from being
wrapped in photographic conservation paper and being placed in an acid-free box.
Polyvinyl chloride plastics, glassine envelopes, mechanical wood pulp papers, Kraft
papers and old photographic product boxes (although the latter may be of archival
interest in themselves) are all unsuitable for photographic storage.
All filing cabinets should be made of metal with baked enamel finish. While old
wood may be safe, new wood must be avoided. especially if it has been bleached or
freshly painted.
AN EXTRA WARNING
Cellulose nitrate film, which was produced mainly between 1889 and 1939, (although
some production continued until 1950), can be very dangerous. Any nitrate film in a
collection should be isolated and removed to a cool, dry, well-ventilated area until it
can be copied. Cellulose nitrate film is highly inflammable and may spontaneously
ignite in certain conditions. The greatest risk is with large amounts of old. densely
packed film. In this instance the ignition temperature may be as low as 48C. and the
film should not be placed near an external heat source. Once cellulose nitrate begins
to burn, it produces gaseous products which catalyse further decomposition and affect
surrounding materials. It can also continue to burn under water or carbon dioxide.
Highly toxic fumes, as well as smoke and heat, are produced very quickly. It is also
worth noting that if the archive buildings or contents are insured, the policy may
prohibit the storage of cellulose nitrate film.
300
ENVIRONMENT
There are a number of environmental factors affecting the preservation

photographs: temperature, relative humidity, air purity and light.
of
TEMPERATURE
Generally, photographic materials gain added protection by storage at low

temperatures. The rate of most chemical reactions doubles if the temperature is raised
by 10C. Conversely, lowering the storage temperature considerably reduces the rate
of deterioration. Cycling of temperature is particularly destructive because it causes
expansion and contraction which occurs differentially in each layer of the photograph,
giving rise to various kinds of physical damage. Daily cycling of more than 4C
should be avoided and the temperature should not rise above 21 C at any time. A
storage temperature of 1O-l 5C is best for materials other than colour photographs
and film. Colour materials require a much lower temperature, ideally 2C. This may
be practical for valuable material which is infrequently used. However, where
constant access is needed, the temperature should still be maintained at the minimum
needed for human comfort. Rapid changes in temperature should be avoided as
condensation can occur when materials are taken from cold storage and placed in a
warm, humid room.
RELATWE
HLMIDITY
Relative humidity is probably the most important environmental factor in

photographic conservation. It is closely related to temperature. Low humidity may
cause problems such as flaking and peeling emulsions, but most problems occur with
This may promote deterioration such as foxing of paper, mould
high humidity.
growth and adhesion of the gelatin layers of adjacent photographs. Again, cycling is
particularly damaging. A constant level of 35-40% is recommended for a collection
of mixed photographic materials. Humidity levels should never rise above 65% as
mould will begin to grow.
AIR POLLUTION
/ PLZUTY
A number of chemicals present in the atmosphere are capable of oxidising image

silver. These include peroxides, ozone, sulphur-containing compounds (such as
sulphur oxides and hydrogen sulphide) and nitrogen oxide, all of which are present to
some extent in the environment. Suggested maximum limits for gaseous pollutants
are not more than lOugm-3 for sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, while ozone
should be reduced to trace levels (0.2ugme3). Unfortunately, this can only be
achieved by an air-conditioning system.
LIGHT AND DISPLAY
Resin-coated prints are not particularly light stable, but archivaliy processed silver
gelatin prints are essentially stable at low light levels. However, long- term display
should be avoided where possible for salted paper, albumen prints and various nonsilver pigment prints. Colour materials are particularly vulnerable to light in the
presence of oxygen and moisture. The ultra-violet light spectrum is the most
damaging to photographic materials in general.
Obviously colour transparencies suffer particularly from light damage due to a
relatively high level of exposure. To prolong the life of transparencies, projection
Some transparencies have been shown to fade
should be kept to a minimum.
301
noticeably after 20 minutes exposure to a projector lamp. The type of transparency

used should be carefully chosen. Some will retain their original colours longer under
projection, whereas others will last longer in dark storage. Master copies should be of
the latter category.
In storage and display areas, lights should be fitted with UV filters. Polymethyl
methacrylate (Perspex) rather than glass, provides a better protection against UV
light where prints are to be displayed. A light level of 100 lux is the maximum
recommended display level. The materials used for mounting display prints should
conform to the same standards as storage materials.
302
SECTION
VIII
8.1 GENERAL
TECHNICAL
DEFINITIONS
PRESERVATION
USED IN PRESERVATION
Henning Schou
Introduction
The justification for the existence of an audio-visual archive is contained in the use
that is made of its holdings. An archive must, therefore, not only collect, preserve and
catalogue its collections of sounds and images but also provide access to them.
The prerequisite for permanent accessibility is the survival of the visual and audio
content of the inherently unstable and perishable materials upon which the recordings
are placed. For this reason, preservation is the central and vital part of an archives
function. Virtually all the other activities of the archive depend upon it.
1. Preservation Procedures
Preservation includes such practices and procedures as technical examination,
technical selection, conservation, methods of storage in correct environments,
surveillance, labelling and similar processes. It also includes technical restoration,
rejuvenation, duplication and quality control.
2. The Preservation System
All aspects of preservation are closely interrelated. For instance, it is pointless to have
first class storage environments if the records being stored are incorrectly handled and
shelved or if labelling, numbering or housekeeping records are inadequate to ensure
complete identification or control of the material. The various aspects of preservation
together comprise what audio-visual archivists call the preservation system.
3. Conservation
Conservation is defined in this context as the component of preservation that
embraces those processes or actions necessary to ensure the continued physical
survival of an artefact without further degradation.
4. Restoration
Restoration is the process of compensating for degradation in order to return an
artefact or its visual or sonic content to its original character and condition.
5. Reconstruction
Reconstruction is the editorial process of reassembling for public presentation,
authoritative versions of productions by deriving material from preserved versions
that are incomplete or editorially disarranged. As custodians, audio-visual archives
respect the editorial integrity of each production and, as far as is technologically
possible, preserve its content and continuity.
303
SECTION
VIII
8.2 TELEVISION
TECHNICAL
PRESERVATION
ARCHIVES
Brian Jenkinson
In this section the originating television signal will be referred to as the television
standard and the signal recorded on the video tape as the recording format.
1. Video Archive Requirements
The Video Archivists main aim is to preserve videotape recordings for future use and
to make them available on an acceptable format and standard when required.
Although this appears simple, it is extremely complex, due to the number of television
standards and recording formats. Added to this is the question of the long term
stability of the magnetic carrier and the lack of verified reliable information on long
term storage conditions for magnetic media.
It is possible to keep the original of each recording and replay it when necessary.
This, however, presents many problems. It would be necessary to have working
equipment to reliably replay whatever television standard and recording format was
used at the time the original recording was made. This implies the need to keep
equipment working for every format held. It also implies the ability to display any
television standard.
Although this may be the ideal situation, it is not practical. The recording format may
no longer be in general use, the equipment no longer made, the expertise to maintain it
rare and spare parts unobtainable. It is for these reasons that the task of the Video
Archivist is particularly difficult.
It is not necessary for all archives to handle every television standard and every
recording format. It is, however, necessary to provide copies on a current recording
format and to a television standard acceptable to the user.
2. The Purpose of Archival Re-Recording
Re-recording becomes inevitable in order to overcome the following problems:
2.1 Large quantities of recorded material on redundant formats.
2.2 Equipment and expertise to replay old formats becoming scarce.
2.3 Recordings of obsolete television standards that require standards
conversion in order to be reused.
2.4 Proliferation of recording formats that makes it difficult to have a single
archive format.
2.5 Although video tapes are improving magnetically and becoming
physically more robust, new formulations are required to prove their
long term stability.
2.6 The most appropriate long term storage conditions require further
definition before developing international standards.
Taking each point in turn, a strategy can be devised to minimize these effects.
2.1 Redundant formats can be transferred to a current format, preferably a
robust one in majority use with a proven record of reliability and stability for both the
format and the media. As this preferred format will change in time it would be
necessary to transfer again at some time in the future.
304
2.2 The transfer of obsolete formats to current formats could remove the need
to maintain old equipment and expertise. There will never be, however, any guarantee
that some recordings have not been missed. This will be a perpetual problem which
can only be resolved by nominating or establishing one central agency to hold
equipment and provide a service to other archives.
2.3 It will be necessary to transfer obsolete television standards to current
standards. Today this would be mainly 405 and 819 to 625 lines. In the future it will
be the transfer of current standards to high definition.
Any attempt to preserve
recordings on television standards no longer in use, in order to preserve the
architecture of the originating signal, will simply multiply the problems of
maintaining obsolete equipment. Fortunately, standards conversion will always be to
a higher quality system and, although the signal will not be preserved in its original
form, there should be minimal loss of quality, provided that the standards convertor is
of a sufficiently high quality.
2.4 Currently there is no ideal archival format available. Ideally a tape, or
working copy, taken from any archive should be playable on equipment in general
use. However, this may not be the ideal archival format. It may not be the most
robust or the best for long term storage. Providing the archival format is signal
transparent it could be acceptable to copy to a current format for use. It is apparent
that there could be an archival format which is not a current format, providing that it
is signal transparent, robust and the tape is capable of a long life.
2.5 Although tapes are improving magnetically and are becoming physically
more robust, tape dimensions, recorded track dimensions, and recorded wavelengths
are getting smaller. These are conflicting requirements for an archive tape. New
magnetic pigments may not be as chemically stable as previous pigments. It will take
many years of use to prove their long term stability.
2.6 The best tape storage conditions are only now becoming understood.
Evidence shows that the acceptable humidity level has been overestimated. This will
mean better environmental control of the storage areas and strict control of the
acclimatization of the tapes entering and leaving the controlled storage area is
necessary. It would be better not to let the master archival copy of the tape out of the
controlled area and to only allow access to the material by the use of copies made in
the controlled environment.
The complex circumstances of any video archive means that copying will take place
for any or all the reasons listed above. No information carrier has an infinite life.
This means that at some time in the future a copy will have to be made. As it will also
be necessary to copy as preferred formats change, the opportunity should be taken to
update the material accessible from the archive. A video archive will have to be able
to make copies in order to ensure that both the master and access copies are on a
format and television standard that is acceptable to the user.
3. Formats
There are many television standards in current use. For example:
625 line PAL; 625 SECAM; 525 NTSC and 525 PAL M.
Some standards are no longer used:
405 and 819 line.
Others standards are in development for future use:
High Definition Television (HDTV) in a number of proposed standards.
305
Each colour television standard can be recorded in its composite form; that is as PAL,
SEC or NTSC. It can also be recorded in its component form; that is in the form of
separate luminance and chrominance signals, as would be originated before en-coding
into the composite signal.
Since the introduction of television recording there have been many recording
formats. Some, like the original Quadruplex format, introduced in 1956, are no longer
used as an origination format.
There are many reasons for the proliferation of recording formats.
Different
circumstances require a different record-replay performance and it is the overall
performance that governs the cost of the video tape recorder (VTR). Improved
technology allows higher density packing of the signal on the tape. Using less tape
requires less storage space to store the same programme length.
Television is a time dependent signal. Each frame, field, line and cycle of colour
subcarrier occupies a precise period of time. When recorded, this time dependent
signal is translated by the scanning video head into a precise space pattern on the tape.
The replay process translates space back into time. Any irregularity in physically
placing the signal on the tape may invalidate the time relationship of the reconstructed
signal. It is this precise placing of the signal on the tape and the parameters of the
signal itself that determines the recording format.
All video recording formats, until recently, used analogue signal recording techniques.
Analogue recording introduces signal losses, distortions and noise, which is multiplied
each time it is re-recorded.
Recently, digital recording techniques have been introduced. This allows the signal to
be re-recorded many times without any apparent degradation. Digital recordings are,
therefore, said to be transparent; that is identical error free copies of the original can
be made each time.
The broadcast formats use more rugged and higher quality equipment and tape in
order to ensure a high quality end product. Programme material is often re-recorded
many times in the post-production process. Domestic formats are usually designed
to record and replay, not to re-record over many generations. Their cost is, therefore,
reduced, as is the quality of the replayed signal. Industrial formats usually fall
between broadcast and domestic.
4. Practical Considerations
Not all video archives are going to have the budget, expertise and personnel to cover
every television standard and recording format. Each archive will, however, be
required to service the television standards and recording formats it holds, as well as
being able to provide copies on whatever format is required.
Access to archive material can be for different purposes. For example, access may be
required to:
a. Make an accurate copy of the original television programme material. This
would be an exact copy to the same format and must be carried out with as little
degradation as possible. It may be necessary to replace a tape in storage which is
degrading.
306
b. A copy on a different format or television standard keeping the signal

quality as near as possible to the original. The quality required when changing format
or standards depends upon the reason for transfer. If it is to provide a master copy the
highest quality must be maintained at all times.
c. A viewing copy intended for content viewing only. Copies do not have to
be of high quality if for viewing purposes only. It may be satisfactory to use domestic
formats. Whenever copying a master tape, however, regardless of the format it is
copied to, it is still necessary to take the greatest care.
Video tape is a vulnerable information carrier. Care and handling of magnetic tape is
extremely important. When considering the replay of master tapes, it is necessary to
take extra precautions. Although the replay machine may be clean and aligned to the
manufacturers specification, it is imperative that the tape is also clean and packed
onto the spool correctly. This can be carried out by using an appropriate cleaning
machine before the tape is loaded onto the replay machine.
It is advisable to identify the recording format before any attempt to replay it is made.
Although most recordings are identified on the spool, some are not. Tape width does
not identify the format. Replaying a tape on a machine intended for a different format
may cause irreparable damage. Video recording formats are identified by the
International Electrotechnical Commission as IEC Standards. There is a publication
for each format which specifies the signal parameters and the magnetic track pattern
on the tape. It is only by identification of these track dimensions that a format can be
identified without replaying the tape. The magnetic pattern on the tape can be made
visible by using a suspension of fine iron particles to develop the pattern and
measuring the result with a microscope. This method causes tape damage and should
only be used on tape that is no longer required.
A non-destructive method is to use magneto-optical garnets for tape inspection. This
device allows the measurement of track dimensions without damaging the tape.
5. The Re-Recording
Facility
Each re-recording facility will be different as it will be organized to service the needs
of the individual archive. Recording and replay equipment will be required for each
format held in the archive, as well as those formats which are handled from outside
the archive and the formats required by users of the archive.
Television video tape recording equipment is complex. Each machine is made to
record and replay tapes to a specific television standard and recording format. The
manufacturer of the machine provides detailed alignment and maintenance
instructions as well as recommended test and alignment equipment to carry out the
work. This work can only be carried out by competent personnel. Although simple
operations can be carried out by trained operators, it is inevitable that the replay of
some archive material will require intimate knowledge and understanding of the
format and standard in order to obtain the best results. This could be provided by
trained technicians. If, however, it is necessary to maintain the equipment to the
required standards, particularly for formats and standards no longer in regular use,
qualified engineering expertise will be imperative.
Monitoring will be required for both audio and video. For audio, loudspeaker and
signal level monitoring is required, as well as a means of level adjustment and line up
signal generation. For video, picture, waveform and vector monitors will be required
for each television standard covered. Colour picture monitors are graded according to
307
the quality required. Grade 1 is for use in areas where colour balance and picture
geometry is critical; Grade 2 for less critical areas; and Grade 3 is similar to a good
quality domestic television receiver.
Television pulse generators are required for each standard used. They usually also
generate the basic alignment signals necessary for the alignment of video tape
recorders.
VTRs intended for programme making and broadcasting include built in time base
correctors (TBCs). These provide accurate time correction of the replayed signal so
that it precisely matches the television standard. Domestic and industrial VTRs do not
require accurate time correction and do not usually include time base correction. If it
is required to copy a non-time base corrected signal onto a broadcast format, it will be
necessary to use an external TBC to correct the signal before re-recording.
Television standards converters are in constant development. For commercial reasons
they are designed to convert between the 625 and 525 line television standards in
current use, with as little loss of picture quality as possible. Equipment to convert
between 405 or 819 and 625 lines is extremely rare. If it is required to convert
between these standards, it will be necessary to commission the building of suitable
equipment, or to have the conversion carried out by a facility that has the equipment.
Conversions between the PAL and SECAM colour systems will require decoders and
encoders. Conversion between composite and component systems will require the
relevant decoders and encoders capable of translating between the signals. Signal
losses and distortion when translating between component and composite, in either
direction, can be disturbing. The equipment used for this purpose must, therefore, be
the best possible.
Some recording formats, particularly broadcast formats, use SMPTEEBU time code
to identify each television frame recorded. This digital code is recorded either as part
of the video signal or on a separate longitudinal track. Each frame is identified in
hours, minutes, seconds and frames. It is used as a cuing signal to locate a particular
part of a recording.
A means of distributing signals between the various items of equipment is required;
the sophistication depending upon the flexibility and quality required.
Tape cleaning equipment not only cleans the tape, it also packs the tape at a constant
controlled tension which is advisable before storage. There are a number of
commercial tape cleaners available. Most also provide a tape evaluation facility
which is not required in an archive situation. Machines which clean and pack the tape
use wiping pads or scraping blades or a combination of both. Although blades can
provide a useful cleaning effect, if not correctly maintained they can cause tape
damage. Wiping pads which are automatically advanced as they are used are efficient
and safe. Cleaners are usually designed to cope with one tape width, or in the case of
cassettes, one format. Machines which cope with two tape widths, although available,
are a compromise and more complex to use. It is usually preferred to have a cleaner
for each tape width.
The operational area must be clean with a comfortable environment.
shelving is required for acclimatization and storage of the tapes in use.
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Space and
6. Tape Storage and Handling

Cleanliness is essential in all video tape operational and storage areas. It is important
because minute dust particles and debris can cause loss of the replayed signal by
disrupting the intimate contact between the replay head and the tape surface. This
signal loss is referred to as dropout. Smaller signal losses in video recording cause
irritating short flashes on the picture. As well as dust elimination, it is important that
air purity is maintained. The air in many industrial locations contains abrasive
particles and acidic water vapour.
Stray magnetic fields are not normally a problem. Although at a distance of 50mm the
field is negligible, it is advisable to keep tape away from heavy electrical machinery.
The magnetic properties of videotapes, other than chromium dioxide, are essentially
unaffected by temperatures up to 300C. Storage temperature constraints are due to
the tape plastics rather than the magnetics. The video tape base film is dimensionally
stable to over 80C. The binders used to hold the magnetic coating to the base,
although they have excellent mechanical properties, are susceptible to breakdown in
conditions of high temperature and humidity. The chemical reaction is known as
hydrolysis. Low temperatures can cause the tape lubricators to migrate to the tape
surface. Cleaning removes the lubricator without any signal loss.
Rapid changes in temperature are undesirable as stress and contraction may be
introduced into the tape pack due to thermal expansion.
Tape manufacturers publish recommended storage conditions. Some have recently
proposed a reduction of relative humidity from 50%, +/-lo% to between 30% and
40%. The operational environment will be different from the ideal storage conditions
and, therefore, tape moved into the operational area must be acclimatized before use,
preferably for 24 hours.
Video tape is provided on reels or in cassettes. Cassettes protect the tape better than
reels. Handling video tape requires purpose built shelving designed to hold the boxes
firmly in a way that keeps the reel supported vertically by the centre hub. Table space
to safely open the boxes should be provided near the machine to be used.
7. Technical Equipment
Review
The technical equipment required by a Video Archive can be considered in 15

separate groups.
7.1 Reference Signal Generation
A reference television synchronizing pulse generator (ZPG) for each television
standard used. This SPG provides a stable timing and colour subcarrier signal as a
reference to VTRs, other equipment and test signal generators. It usually provides a
complete set of reference signals, mixed syncs, mixed blanking, field and line trigger,
burst gate, PAL ident and colour subcarrier as well as black and burst and colour bars.
Although current equipment requires a composite reference (black and burst or colour
bars) older VTRs and equipment may require separate syncs, blanking, colour
reference signals etc. Normally SPGs have only one output for each signal. If more
than one output is required, it will be necessary to use distribution amplifiers to
provide an output for each piece of equipment.
309
7.2 Test Signal Generation

Test signal generators for each television standard used will be required. They
provide signals to ensure the correct operation of the VTR and other equipment.
Although test signals are a maintenance aid, some provide valuable alignment signals
when recorded at the start of a tape. The complexity of test signals will depend upon
the requirements of the archive. Those working in a broadcast quality environment
will need composite signals to measure and adjust colour differential phase and gain,
luminance chrominance gain and delay, luminance linearity and pulse and bar
response. Separate generators, generating luminance and colour separation signals,
will be required if component systems are used.
7.3 Video Tape Recorders
Video tape recorders are required to replay the tapes held in the archive. Machines are
also required to make copies on whatever format is preferred.
7.3.1 Replay VTRs
The archive may hold recordings made on many formats and many standards.
Although some early quadrupled machines were switch-able between 405, 625 and
525 line standards, high band and lowband, later quadrupled and other formats were
not. It is, therefore, unfortunate but necessary to have dedicated machines for each
format and standard. Machines for obsolete formats are no longer manufactured,
spare parts are rare and the ability and skill to maintain them scarce. If it is necessary
to handle these obsolete formats, it is recommended that more than one machine is
kept, preferably all of the same make and model, as this will considerably reduce the
difficulties of maintenance.
7.3.2 Record VTRs
Record formats will depend upon the individual requirements of each archive.
Viewing copies can be made on readily available domestic formats, it removes the
need to use valuable master tapes for viewing. Each archive will have a preferred
archive format and television standard. The choice will depend upon individual
requirements of the archive. Some will choose to copy individual redundant formats
and standards onto the preferred one. As technology progresses it may be necessary to
abandon the preferred format for one more suitable.
Users of the archive will require copies on their own preferred format. As most
archives prefer not to allow external use of master tapes it will be necessary to have
machines to make suitable transfers.
7.4 Time Base correction
In order to re-record non-broadcast recordings onto broadcast formats, time base
correction is necessary. In some cases it will be necessary to use time base correctors
(TBCs) capable of a wide correction range, in excess of one television frame. The
signal performance of the TBC will depend upon the requirements.
7.5 Maintenance
The manufacturer of the VTR provides a recommended list of equipment and spare
parts required to keep the machines in satisfactory working order. Spare parts for
older equipment may not be readily available. If it is intended to service obsolete
310
formats it will be necessary to hold a reservoir of major spare parts. This will be
mainly mechanical items, reel motors, scanners, pinch rollers etc. as well as video
and audio head assemblies. As electronic components become obsolete, a competent
engineer can usually find a replacement which might, however, require some redesign of the circuit. For redundant formats it is best to have more than one machine
as described in 7.3.
Test signal generators are covered in 7.2. other electronic measurement, alignment
and servicing equipment requirements, for both audio and video, can be obtained from
the equipment manufacturers maintenance and alignment information.
7.6 Signal Distribution
A means of distributing audio and video signals throughout the facility, which will
include the distribution of television pulses, test and alignment signals as well as
signals between VTRs, standards converters and colour trans-coding equipment. The
complexity of each facility will be different. In the simplest case equipment can be
plugged up as required. More complex facilities will require video distribution
amplifiers and audio and video jackfields to route signals as required. The most
complex facility may need remote switching of signals between equipment. This
would require audio and video switching matrices.
7.7 Monitoring
7.7.1 Audio monitoring
Some VTRs provide audio level and loudspeaker monitoring; some do not. It is
advisable to provide good quality level and loudspeaker monitoring separate from the
VTR.
7.7.2 Video Monitoring
Picture and waveform monitors for each television standard as well as vector monitors
for each colour system are required. Picture, waveform and vector monitors that are
switchable between 625 PAL and 525 NTSC are available. Monitoring of other
standards will require dedicated equipment.
7.8 Standards Conversion
Equipment for standards conversion between 625 PAL, 625 SECAM and 525 NTSC,
in any direction is available. Converters between other standards have been made but
are no longer in production and are not generally available. If it is necessary to
convert from an obsolete standard, converters will probably have to be designed and
built or the conversion done by a facility with the necessary equipment.
7.9 Colour Trans-coding
Although standards converters will trans-code between PAL and NTSC systems, to
trans-code between PAL and SECAM will require suitable decoders and encoders.
7.10 Composite and Component Signals
Most component recorders are able to take in composite signals, as they have internal
decoders. They also contain encoders to provide composite outputs. If it is intended
311
to use component VTRs in a composite environment and they do not have built in
decoders and encoders, they will have to be provided externally.
7.11 Identification
As well as the alignment signals at the start of each recording, it is advisable to have
an identification before the programme material. This usually consists of a video
identification of the programme and a clock indicating the time before the start. The
VD clock is programmed from a keyboard to provide what ever information is
required.
7.12 Time Code
If it is required to use time code to locate items in a recording, time code readers will
be required in order to display the time. The ability to search to a pre-set cue point is
built into some VTRs. If it is necessary to transfer time code when copying tapes, it is
advisable, in order to preserve its integrity, to re-shape the code before re-recording.
If it is necessary to record new time code a generator is required.
7.13 Tape Cleaning
Tape cleaning machines also provide controlled tension tape packing. There are some
machines that also provide tape evaluation. This is not required for archive use. The
method of tape cleaning varies from machine to machine, the choice depends upon the
requirements. Machines are usually dedicated to a particular tape width or cassette
format.
7.14 Format Identification
To measure track patterns requires a microscope, a measurement bed and a method of
developing the magnetic tracks. Although a suspension of fine iron powder can be
used, the use of non-destructive magneto-optical garnets is preferred.
7.15 Tape Maintenance
Some tape will be damaged and mechanical tape splices could dry out and part. A
means of removing damaged tape and re-making old splices should be provided. Two
inch quadrupled was the only format to be mechanically spliced and splicing blocks
do exist. For other formats, splicing blocks made for one inch and half inch audio
tape can be used.
When handling video tape great care should be taken. It is advisable to wear cotton
gloves as used for film handling.
The above col*ers the Qjpical equipment requirements of a video archive. Archi\,es
Ii,ill halve to determine their own individual requirements, depending upon the
standards and formats serviced. The installation of the equipment ti,ill depend upon
the flesibilig- demanded by the archive, the work load and the need to cope with
rnre(~~used standards and formats.
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SECTION
VIII.
TECHNICAL
EQUIPMENT:
8.3 Guide to Technical Equipment
AUDIO ARCHIVES
Audio Archives
Dietrich Sclriiller, Lloyd Stickells and William Storm

1. The Archivists
Goal
Before describing re-recording techniques, we must first establish what re-recording

means to the audio archivist. Re-recording can mean different things to different
people. To a collector it may simply mean the copying or transfer of discs to tape for
personal pleasure and use. To a commercial operator it may represent a means to
generate new revenues.
To the audio archivist. re-recording serves a very specific function; it is a means to
preserve the original sonic content of a recording.
ln the first two examples, subjective manipulation of the sound during the transfer
process is common. The collector may alter the original sound to suit his own taste or
the peculiarities of his play-back system. The commercial operator may choose to sell
enhanced recordings in the belief that they will be more acceptable to modern
audiences. These subjective re-recording processes are a luxury some might call them
abuses not permitted the audio archivist.
The archivists function is to preserve history, not to rewrite it. Given this precept. the
archivist must always strive to maintain objectivity in the application of various rerecording techniques. This rule is easy to state but can be extremely difficult to put
into practice.
The first obstacle is to determine what constitutes an audio archival recording.
Current thinking in the field defines several types of re-recording of which three are
legitimate for archival consideration.
Type
Type
Type
Type
0
I
II
III
Inter-archival replica
Audio history
Re-creation of the original sound source
Subjective transfer
Type III contradicts the role of the archivist and is not acceptable for archival
purposes. Types 0, I and II, however, all deserve serious consideration by archivists.
1.1 The Three Types of Archival Re-recording
1.1.1 Type 0: The Replica
In Type 0. . . . the intention must be to provide the researcher with a secondary
source which is the equal (or at least equivalent) to the original source in as many
respects as possible. Indeed, a replica might be preferred and, at least, imagined. If
we take one side of an old disc recording, one might obtain a replica by making a
negative impression in a suitable polymer and then make another positive from that.
Alternatively, one might do what was certainly performed in 1903: grow a metal
negative from the disc recording for use as a stamper in a vinyl compound.
Except for cylinder replicas made by pantographic means, todays audio archives do
not have the mechanical, chemical or human resources to replicate original disc and
313
cylinder recordings as previously described. This is not to say that the idea should be
dismissed: it is simply not current practice. For this reason, Type 0 recording will not
be discussed further in this paper. It is, however, a topic that deserves future consider
ation.
1.1.2 Type I: Audio History
What did a 1910 recording sound like to the people of that time? That is a question
addressed by Type I re-recordings.
A Type I re-recording is defined as the
perpetuation of the sound of an original recording as it was originally reproduced and
heard by the people of the era. A Type I re-recording is meant to give listeners a
literal historic perspective on the recording and reproduction of sound. This implies
the use of the same type of recording machine and medium as used for the original
recording.
The original replay equipment, however, introduces replay distortions typical of the
technology of the period while modem equipment will normally only add minor
replay distortions. The modem equipment will, therefore, faithfully reproduce the
sound captured on the historical carrier with real fidelity.
The use of modem
equipment to replay historic recordings is, therefore, a sub-group of Type I rerecording and is defined as Type IA. Type IA re-recordings will include all the
distortions introduced by the original recording equipment but not those introduced by
the replay equipment of the period.
1.1.3 Type II: Recreation of the Original
Sound Source
What did Enrico Caruso really sound like in person? This a related but different
question to that addressed in Type I re-recording. Historically, all recording and
reproducing systems have inherently distorted, to various degrees, the true sound
(artist) that they have tried to capture.
In a Type II re-recording, the re-recording engineer tries to determine what these
distortions are and then, using that in formation, reconstructs as objectively and as
accurately as possible a faithful reproduction of the original sound source (artist).
In short, a Type II re-recording strives to recreate the sound of the original sound
source (artist).
2. The Re-recording
Studio
Given the precept the function of the archivist is to save, not to rewrite, history the
following guide-lines should be observed in setting up a re-recording laboratory for
sound.
2.1 Equipment
and Acoustics
2.1.1 Electronic Equipment. All equipment should be calibrated to

ensure linearity of the signal path ie. what goes in should come out unaltered. There
should be little or no coloration of the original sound because of equipment
deficiencies. Properly installed and maintained professional, not consumer, standard
equipment has little difficulty in meeting this requirement. All equipment should be
calibrated to ensure linearity of the signal path ie. what goes in should come out
unaltered. There should be little or no coloration of the original sound because of
Properly installed and maintained professional, not
equipment deficiencies.
consumer, standard equipment has little difficulty in meeting this requirement.
314
2.1.2 Loudspeakers
The loudspeaker system is worth special consideration. Loud speakers are still the
weakest link in the audio chain and yet they are vitally important to our perception of
the sound. It is, after all, the loudspeaker system that couples the electronic systems to
our ears and minds. Underestimating the loudspeakers importance is a major mistake
as it will undoubtedly influence critical recording decisions. Speakers selected to
reproduce sound objectively should:
a. have a wide frequency range at least 25 to 16,000 Hertz.
b. Have a flat response +/-3dB or less.
c. Have low intermodulation distortion 0.5% or less.
d. Have minimal differences in arrival time at the listening position of sound from the
different drive units within the speaker one millisecond or less.
e. Be properly placed in the room for optimum performance.
2.1.3 Room Acoustics
Item 2.1.2 e. above refers to yet another major acoustic weak link in the audio chain An acoustically poor room can defeat even the best
the listening environment.
loudspeaker system. As with the electronic equipment and the loudspeaker, the room
itself should not colour the sound. Archivists should be aware of its importance and
consult experts in the field prior to setting up a laboratory.
2.1.4 Summary
In summary, the equipment and acoustic environment used in a re-recording
laboratory should be of a professional quality and capable of accurately measuring,
recording and reproducing the signals fed into the system.
Signals in this case, refers to original recordings or reproducing systems. These are
the subjects of study whose characteristics are to be examined. such an examination
will be impossible if the re-recording testing, recording and reproducing systems are
not neutral to begin with.
2.2 Personnel
Given sufficient funds and the correct technical advice any archive can set up a rerecording laboratory. Success for such a facility will, however, only come with the
employment of trained professional personnel to perform the work. The degree that
the staff must be technically competent will vary with the types of re-recording they
are expected to produce.
Type I electrical re-recording requires significantly less technical equipment and
knowledge than is needed for Type II re-recording or for Type I acoustic re-recording.
In neither case, however, should re-recording be performed by persons not trained in
the idiosyncrasies and requirements of the audio recordings that they wish to rerecord. Without such knowledge, irrevocable damage can be done to the original
recordings.
In short, despite otherwise good intentions, do not allow anyone to re-record original
records unless they are qualified to perform the work.
315
3. Practical Applications
3 3.1 Commercial
Discs
3.1.1 Overview of Re-recording
commercial Discs
Not all archives are going to have the budget and personnel to perform all types of rerecording but, given some training and the right equipment, Type IA electrical rerecording of commercial 78,45 and 33 1/3rpm discs should be within the capability of
most archives. Re-recording commercially issued 78rpm discs is a reasonable starting
place.
The re-recording would take the following sequence:
a. The record is selected.
b. The record is thoroughly cleaned.
c. The proper stylus (needle) and tracking force (weight) are determined.
d. The record is played on the turn-table at the correct speed.
e. The signal is sent to a pre-amplifier.
f. The pre-amplifiers output is sent to the recorder and the power amplifier. The
power amplifier, in turn, sends a boosted signal to the loudspeaker so that the signal
can be heard. Once recorded, the tape signal can also be sent to the power amplifier
and loudspeaker to check the quality of the copy and for listening purposes.
The tape recorder selected for producing master preservation copies should be an
analogue reel-to-reel machine. Full track recording is recommended for mono
recordings and half track stereo for stereo recordings. This system and procedure is
similar to most peoples home stereo operation. There are, however, a number of very
important differences. The stylus is not the same as used on modem stereo recordings.
Over the history of 78rpm recordings, stylus size and tracking force varied. So the
first important difference is stylus size and tracking force and their proper selection.
Please also note that the 78rpm disc was monophonic. This factor must be taken into
account in the electrical set-up. In addition to stylus variation, manufacturers also
varied the electrical play-back characteristics of 78rpm discs. This factor must be
taken into account when playing back the discs. The simplest way to manage this
problem is to use a pre-amplifier that permits the selection of different play-back
equalization curves. This is not a major problem as pre-amplifiers built for 78rpm
discs usually have labeled selector switches or some accompanying literature that
indicates the proper curve to use for various makes and labels of disc. In addition.
these specialized pre-amplifiers will usually convert a stereo cartridge output signal
into the mono signal required for re-recording 78rpm discs. Proper selection of stylus
size and tracking force accompanied by correct play-back and equalization does not
solve all the problems that might be encountered. Accounting for these variables will,
however, normally permit acceptable re-recording of most commercially issued 78rpm
discs that are in reasonably good condition. In fact, re-recording personnel who have
not accounted for these factors and have resorted to the use of noise reduction devices
without first understanding basic play-back parameters, will find that most of the
unwanted noise is created by not employing the correct play-back equalization.
3.1.2 Choice of Equipment
Given this general perspective, a number of practical points must be considered in
selecting re-recording equipment. Nowadays, record players capable of playing
78rpm discs are becoming increasingly difficult to find. The same will apply to 33
316
and 45rpm disc players before many years are gone. Indeed, most record companies
have already ceased to produce vinyl discs in favour of the CD.
The requirements for equipment to play predominantly shellac based 78rpm discs are
basically the same as for the vinyl LP with the following points being emphasized:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Variable speed turn-table.

More robust cartridge cantilever.
Range of stylus sizes.
Choice of replay equalization characteristics. Taking these points in turn:
a. Variable Speed Turn-table - Usually the only reason for having a pitch
control on a 33rpm turn-table is to allow the user to tune the record to a live
instrument. The speed of the record machine is likely to have been close enough to
the nominal speed of the replay machine to satisfy all but those blessed (or cursed)
with perfect pitch.
Variable speed is, however, an essential requirement for playing so-called 78s because
many of them were in fact recorded at speeds greatly different to that nominal speed.
80rpm was a common speed for many of the earlier recordings and some early
recordings on the Victor label were recorded at 76rpm. A range of speeds from 60 to
over 86rpm may be necessary to cope success fully with acoustic recordings made
prior to about 1920. Pathe records, in particular, usually run at speeds between the
high 80s to over 100rpm. A speed range of between 72 and 84rpm will, however
cover over 90% of commercial pressings.
To achieve this variation it may be necessary to use a professional machine although it
may be possible to find an example of a good quality domestic machine such as
those made by Lenco and Thorens. These will serve perfectly well at a cost much less
than that of a professional model. Ideally a means of speed read-out is a desirable
feature to permit the rapid setting of play-back speed where this is known.
b. Robust Cartridge Cantilever The tracking force requirement of the pick-up
for 78rpm discs is usually more than that required for the satisfactory tracking of a
vinyl LP, even a warped one. For example, a two or three millimetre ripple on a
record revolving at 33rpm is not going to put as much strain on the stylus assembly or
try to throw it as far out of the groove as the same degree of warp on a record
revolving at 78rpm. Badly warped 78s can require tracking weights of 100 mN (10
grams) or more. A typical 78rpm disc will require a tracking weight of up to 50 mN
(5 grams). Very badly warped discs may even have to be played, and re-recorded, at
half speed to keep the stylus tip in contact with the groove walls.
c. Styli - A vinyl LP has a well defined groove size and an equally well
specified stylus shape to play it. The only real choice is between a round and an
elliptical stylus profile. While the same is, to some extent true for 78s vrery few
manufacturers offer 78 coarse groove styli as standard and a far greater range of stylus
sizes is needed to get the best results from a range of records.
The normal size is a 65 urn (0.0025 inch) radius, spherical ended cone but a range of
sizes from 50 urn (0.002 inch) to 100 um(0.004 inch) in 12 urn (0.0005 inch) steps
should be aimed for. It may be necessary to go to a specialist supplier for anything but
the normal 78 tip.
So far the discussion has assumed that the grooves in the disc are modulated from side
to side, ie. are laterally cut and that the pick-up used is a standard stereo cartridge. In
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this case the two channels of the cartridge are connected in series or, preferably, left as
separate left and right outputs that are combined electrically in the pre-amp to give a
monophonic output. There were, however, a few records that had the grooves
modulated vertically - hill-and-dale cut; the Pathe label being one noted example. If
these discs are played with the same set-up, there will be very little signal produced,
but lots of noise.
d. Equalization - To achieve the optimum fidelity of re-production from the
records it is necessary to equalize for the magnetic and mechanical groove
characteristics. These early recordings were made with very different characteristics
to those used for the standard microgroove LP RIAA equalization curve.
There is a considerable number of record labels, many of them employing their own
equalization curves, current during the era of the 78rpm record. It can also be seen
that playing commercial 78s through a pre-amp intended for LPs will give an excess
of output in the bass frequencies and a lack of sparkle in the treble. While this
configuration may sound quieter, it is incorrect. It will also not permit specialized
noise reduction units to work at their best. These rely on the steep rise transients
generated by scratches and cracks in the disc surface for their operation andany treble
attenuation, whether caused by using the wrong equalization or by: using a tone
control, will interfere with this process.
3.1.3 Summary
From a technical stand-point, Type IA re-recording of 78rpm discs is relatively easy.
It is a reasonable way to begin teaching potential re-recording personnel that many
factors affect the performance of this task. Re-recording modem discs follows the
same basic procedure and can also be included in this repertoire.
3.2 Tape Transfer
3.2.1 Overview of Tape Transfer
Tape transfers are the second major activity in the field of audio preservation. Many
archives, especially in the academic and cultural domains, produce or receive original
tape recordings on formats not generally recommended for archival use, eg. analogue
cassettes. In addition, early recordings made on acetate tape may be physically in
danger. In all these cases a transfer to a more permanent medium is necessary. At the
time of writing this article, the recommendation from all sources - the manufacturers
of machines and signal carriers, archivists and the recording industry is that sounds to
be stored for archival reasons should be recorded on standard play (5Ourn/l.5mil) matt
backed polyester tape with low print-through characteristics. A brand that has proved
its life expectancy and reliability and made by a reputable manufacturer is to be
recommended. The choice of tape is not an area to make cost savings in.
Sound recordings have been made on magnetic tape for over fifty years. In this time
many formats have been used. The main variations are in tape width, tape speed and
in track layout on the tape. These are discussed later in this section. Whatever the
format of the recording, there is one fundamental requirement of any replay machine:,
it must not alter any of the physical dimensions or damage the tape in any way. For
example, the transport must not stretch the tape, the guides must not crease or
otherwise damage the edges and the heads must not remove oxide.
For many 0.25 inch/6.3mrn recordings, a good quality, modem machine will be
available with excellent tape handling characteristics. The amplifiers and heads will
318
be of better quality than the originals. Problems may arise with some of the less
common standards, particularly the very slow speed recordings. With these, the
original machines may have to be used with, if suitable ones can be obtained, modem
heads and amplifiers.
3.2.2 Re-recording
Tapes
Before playing any tape, it is recommended that it be carefully spooled back and forth
two or three times before copying. This will help to relieve any packing tensions in
the tape and reduce the effect of print-through. A visual inspection of any adhesive
tape joints should be made and any splices that show signs of age should be renewed.
The basic system for tape transfers is as follows:
a. The tape to be copied is selected and rewound if necessary.
b. The tape track format and size are determined.
c. The designated play-back machine should have the correct head and speed
configuration required by the tape in question.
d. The azimuth of the tape is checked and the replay heads adjusted if
necessary.
e. The correct equalization is selected.
f. The signal from the play-back machine (the source) is then sent to the
recording machine (tape). A tape/source switch on the recording machine or
on the monitoring control desk will permit the replay output of either machine
to be sent to the power amplifier and loudspeaker.
g. If the signal from the original tape is under or over-modulated, adjust the
replay level controls. This will avoid the introduction of additional unwanted
noise or distortion to the new copy.
It must be noted that all of the above procedure assumes the use of a properly
calibrated, professional system and trained technical staff.
3.3 Cylinder Records
This section is intended to give some general introductory information on the subject
only. Because of the extreme fragility of cylinders and the danger of damaging or
destroying them when playing them, it is strongly recommended that no re-recording
of cylinders is attempted without thorough training. Furthermore, if only a few
cylinders are to be re-recorded, the authors strongly recommend that they are sent to
an archive specializing in this type of work.
3.3.1 Machine Requirements
If players for 78 rpm recordings are hard to find, then machines to play cylinder
records are extremely rare. In many cases they can only be found in antique shops and
museums.
Unless a Type I re-recording illustrating the sound of the original system is being
made, such machines are not desirable from an archivists point of view. The
relatively crude play-back mechanism can cause irreparable damage to the soft wax
and, being an acoustic rather than electrical system, the use of a microphone to gather
the sound from the horn will further complicate the re-recording process.
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3.3.2 Storage of Cylinders

If the cylinders have not been stored in a vertical position, then it is likely that they
will have deformed from the true, circular cross-section that they started with. They
will have become oval or egg shaped. In fact, even if they have been stored in an
upright position, it will not guarantee that they remain perfectly circular.
Re-recording of cylinders is a highly specialized field and, it must be repeated, should
only be undertaken by fully trained technicians with the right equipment.
4. Test Equipment
and Maintenance
Routines
The quality of the equipment used to record and replay audiovisual carriers determines
the quality of the recording or of the replay. The calibration of the equipment is,
therefore, of vital importance to maintaining the quality of the recording. This is
especially true for analogue recordings.
Moreover, misaligned equipment may
actually damage the carrier that is being preserved. The need for competent
maintenance technicians. ideally on the permanent staff of the archive, cannot be
overemphasised. If the technicians are supplied from another part of the institution
housing the archive or by a contractor, the archive staff must insist on checking the
work to ensure that the necessary high standards are being maintained.
4.1 Test Equipment
No technician can work efficiently without the correct tools. The minimum required
includes all the necessary materials for frequent cleaning of the machines;
demagnetizers to de-gauss heads, guides etc; the indispensable calibration tapes and
discs for the alignment of the machines; and test equipment such as a low distortion
sinewave generator, a harmonic distortion meter, a precision voltage meter that
includes internationally standardized weighting filters and a wow and flutter meter to
check speed stability. Instruments that produce written documentation are very
helpful to the archive by making the keeping of technical status reports of each piece
of equipment in the archive easier.
4.2 Frequency of Testing
In setting routine inspection and service intervals, it should be remembered that
electronic equipment may fail unexpectedly at any time. Short inspection periods are,
therefore, desirable. The following periods have been found by experience to be
practical.
4.2.1 Analogue Tape Recorders
Cleaning
De-magnetizing
Short Scale
Frequency Test
Complete
Re-alignment and test
Daily or, if an abrasive tape is used, more frequently

Weekly
With every new roll of tape
Every 50 to 100 hours of operation. More and test frequently if
the machine has been transported or loaned out.
4.2.2 Disc and Cylinder Players

Every 100 to 200 hours of operation. The styli and cantilever whenever the player
has, or is suspected of having, been mistreated eg. the tone arm dropped on to a
record.
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4.2.3 All Other Electronic Equipment

Every 200 to 500 hours of operation.
5. Handling
and Storage of Sound Recordings
Although this guide is emphasizing the basic technical equipment required by an

audio-visual archive, a short note about the handling and storage of sound records
cannot be omitted.
5.1 Physical Damage
In contrast to written information with its comparatively high level of redundancy,
both in the formation of the individual letters and the overall text, each fraction of a
second of an analogue recording is unique information.
This means that the
information on an A-V carrier requires, by its very nature, more care and attention in
terms of physical and chemical integrity. While a speck of mould on a page of a book
rarely prevents the reader from understanding and appreciating the message being
conveyed, similar damage to an A-V carrier can cause severe signal degradation if not
loss. In fact, the playing of a carrier with a physical defect may actually increase the
damage.
Even digital recordings are not immune to physical defects on the carrier. Although a
certain degree of auto-repair is possible because of the way the samples of sound are
coded, it is not difficult to damage the carrier to such an extent that repair is beyond
the capability of the error-correction system. The density of data packing on digital
carriers is much greater than on the equivalent analogue recording and this also makes
the digital carrier vulnerable to physical damage.
Handling and storage of sound carriers has to be optimised to maintain the physical
and chemical integrity of the carrier and its full readability for as long as possible.
Recomendations for storage conditions for sound carriers are similar to those for other
A-V carriers and may be summarized as follows:
a. Replay and recording equipment has to be kept in conditions that minimize
stress and other physical damage. Tape recorders must also be free from magnetic
fields that may affect the tape path and, thus, the recorded signal.
b. Handling of carriers must be done in such a way that unnecessary contact
with dust and other contaminates is avoided. Under no circumstances should data
carrying areas be touched by the fingers. Operational areas should be kept clear of
dust; the floors should not be carpeted and the air conditioning should be fitted with
dust filters.
c. Special conditions apply to the handling of old and/or fragile recordings
such as cylinders, acetate discs and acetate tapes. Personnel unfamiliar with the
peculiarities of these types of carrier should be given training by more experienced
staff before being allowed to handle them. At no time should tapes be edited or
repaired with any material other than proper splicing tape supplied by a reputable
manufacturer.
d. Climatic control of the storage vaults for all sound carriers should keep the
temperature to 20C +/-3C and the relative humidity to 40% +/-5%. These variations
321
are the long term variation. Short term variations those over a period of a week or less
must be kept within closer tolerances. This will normally require the continuous
operation of the air conditioning plant with, if possible, a back-up system. If a backup system is not possible, the archive should invest in good thermal insulation for the
vault. Caution should also prevail if the recordings are to travel outside the archive.
e. Magnetic tape is susceptible to damage by strong stray magnetic fields. For
analogue recordings, a field strength of 5 Oe (400 A/m) in the case of AC fields and
25 Oe (2000 A/m) for DC fields has been determined experimentally as the maximum
permissible. In a sound archive, the likeliest sources of such magnetic fields are
dynamic microphones, headphones, loudspeakers and meter movements. Tapes
should be kept at least 15cm away from such devices. It is wise to keep tapes at a
greater distance from heavy power transformers, large electrical motors etc. The vault
should also be as far away as possible from lightning conductor rods.
f. The storage position for all recordings other than certain soft, instantaneous
disc recordings is generally in a vertical plane. Tape stored on flangeless hubs should
be stored in their box on the central hub support; discs and tapes on flanged hubs
should be stored in their boxes or sleeves in a vertical position. For all tapes and
cassettes of all kinds, it is very important that the wind should be as even as possible
to avoid blocking and leafing of the tape (blocking being the raising of a block of tape
consisting of a number of turns of tape and leafing the raising of one or two turns of
tape above the general level of the spool). This is best achieved by re-winding the
entire length of tape in one steady pass.
Summary
6.1 The Common Formats
It is reasonable to assume that most audio archives could, with the appropriate
equipment and some training of personnel, undertake the re-recording of
commercially issued discs. The archive should also be able to re-record the common
types of audio tape recordings. These would be examples of Type IA re-recording.
6.2 Less Common Formats
If the archive wishes to undertake Type II re-recordings or wishes to re-record less
common originals such as cylinders, vertically discs, direct cut discs with aluminium,
steel or glass supports for the lacquer surface, wire recordings etc. then the required
investment in time, personnel, training, hardware and facilities is much greater. The
average audio archive will not be equipped to perform this work. They may, however,
have many of these recording formats in their collection. Rather than risk damaging
the recordings by re-recording them in their own laboratories to make access copies, it
is advisable for the archive to seek the services of an archive specializing in that type
of re-recording.
6.3 Conclusion
This section has outlined the following points:
a. The role of the archivist is to faithfully preserve the content of original
sound recordings.
b. Three types of re-recording, with one sub group, are legitimate for archival
preservation; a fourth is not.
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Type 0 represents a replica of the original artefact

Type I is the replay of a historic carrier using a machine of the same era.
Type IA is the replay of a historic carrier using a modem machine and
technology.
Type II represents the faithful reproduction of the original sound source
(artist).
Type III, or subjective, re-recording does not fulfil the requirements for
archival re-recording. It puts the aesthetic opinion of the technician between
the original sound and the listener and is, therefore, not suitable for archival
work.
c. It is essential to fully document the process of re-recording any historic
carrier. The make, model and serial number of all machines and audio processing
equipment used in the record/replay chain, details of the equipment settings used, the
equalizations used, the size of stylus etc. must be noted to allow future researchers to,
if necessary, restore the sound to as near its original form as possible. The
performance curves of the various equipment should be kept and these should include
the results of performance checks carried out by the archive as well as the literature
produced by the manufacturers. As with other archive disciplines, the A-V archive
technician should, as far as possible, employ restoration techniques and materials that
can have their effects reversed. This requires full documentation of the re-recording
process to make any required reversal possible.
d. Audio archive laboratories who specialize in audio research and restoration
should be used as re-recording agencies by other archives requiring the less common
formats to be re-recorded.
e. The attitude that the archivist takes to re-recording is the most important
issue. Given historical accuracy as the goal, all of the technical considerations will
become apparent with time and experience.
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SECTION
IX TECHNICAL
9.1 FILM SPECIFIC
EQUIPMENT
PRACTICES
and PROCEDURES
and EQUIPMENT
Harald Brandes and Eva Orbanz

1 Introduction
If motion pictures are to be preserved for long periods of time, they must be stored,
under the best possible conditions. They must be examined and tested regularly and,
if necessary, copied or technically restored. Each of these processes - examination,
testing, restoration and storage, as well as printing and projecting involves passing the
film through machines.
Film as a mass medium is the result of a highly developed technology. As far as
possible, audio-visual archives employ the technologies used by the respective mass
media. However, examination and restoration in particular, require certain specialized
items of equipment.
There is a steady development in film techniques, as well as in technical equipment
for handling films. A film archive that was equipped with the most up-to-date
equipment when it was founded will, in time, find itself with obsolete equipment
unless it has organized a refurbishment programme to replace the original machinery
with more modem, improved models as necessary. It is essential, therefore, not only
to have funds to purchase and install equipment, but also to have it properly serviced,
repaired and replaced when obsolete. Film archive equipment is sophisticated and
expensive and should be treated accordingly.
For financial reasons, and because personnel training and technical expertise should
advance together with the increasing complexity of equipment, it is strongly
recommended that the archive operates on a step-by-step basis. By this means, the
range and complexity of equipment is gradually increased.
Any piece of equipment is only as effective as the person operating it. It is essential
for technical staff to be given adequate training either in their own country or, if
necessary, abroad, This may be done most effectively by arranging for in-service
training at film laboratories. At present, many laboratories are willing to co-operate
once the tasks and duties of an archive are explained to them and it becomes clear that
the archive is not a competitor but a potential customer for their services. The need
for this training cannot be over-emphasized; the experience gained by this method
can, moreover, be transmitted to others within the archive.
Because it is recommended that the archive should not start with sophisticated,
expensive equipment, this does not mean that less sophisticated and inexpensive
should be equated with poorer quality. Nor is it necessary to purchase only new
equipment. Used equipment may well prove to be exactly what is required in quality
and, in addition, will be considerably less expensive.
The size of the archives collection of films, its policy on preservation and
conservation and in giving public access are directly related to the importance and size
of the technical department, the size and level of training of its staff and the type of
equipment used. A logical and necessary consequence of relating the size and the use
of a collection to the investment in technical expertise and equipment is that an
archive with a small collection should consider not having a laboratory at all. Such
archives are well advised to pool their resources and have a joint technical service or
324
work closely with an existing film laboratory. The individual archives will still,
however, need to have on their staff at least one technically qualified person who can
liaise with, and oversee the work carried out by, the laboratory.
1.2 Basic Equipment
1.2.1 Hand-winding
Table
The two plate horizontal hand-winding table is the most important device used for the
initial examination of the film and its condition. The feed and take-up spools of the
plates should be able to accommodate different gauges, projection spools and cores.
The film is wound through by hand to allow a technical inspection to be carried out.
At the same time, dirt can be removed and any damage to perforations etc. can be
noted. In the printing laboratory, a similar table can be used for grading.
1.2.2 Footage Counter
A footage or metre counter should be built into the table to perform the important task
of measuring the film.
1.2.3 Gloves
Gloves of a soft, white material, for example non-fraying cotton, should be available
for use on occasions when it may be necessary to touch the surfaces of the film by
hand. The use of gloves will prevent grease or harmful acids from the hands being
transferred to the film and soiling or damaging the emulsion. The gloves should be
changed at least once a day and whenever they become visibly dirty or become damp
with perspiration.
One exception to this rule is when winding film with damaged perforations. If gloves
are worn there is a danger of causing further damage to the film by catching the
broken perforations on the cotton threads of the gloves.
1.2.4 Scissors
Scissors are required for repairing perforations and for preparing splices.
1.2.5 Brush
A soft brush is sometimes sufficient to remove particles of loose dust.
1.2.6 Scraping Knife
Scraping knives are needed to remove the emulsion and any protective layer when
preparing splices or repairing perforations.
1.2.7 Splicers: 16 and 35mm
Splicers are needed for making or renewing splices. A bottle of film cement should
be provided on the workbench as well. The quantity of cement used for a joint must
be accurately judged, as any excess will spread beyond the join and spoil the adjacent
pictures. There is a need to make splices by hand when repairing film that is very
shrunk or which has the frameline in a non-standard position. Joins made by hand can
be done in a manner in which the quantity of cement used is not critical.
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1.2.8 Shrinkage Gauge

When working with old film it is very important to know the degree of shrinkage.
Any carelessness here can lead to irreparable damage. Shrinkage measuring rods, on
which the degree of shrinkage is read off a calibrated scale, are easy to use but
imprecise. More exact measurements are obtained with a shrinkage gauge. With this
tool, the film is laid in a channel and positioned by two precisely defined perforations
onto two pins; one fixed and one moveable. The moveable pin is connected to a
counter that shows the degree of shrinkage as an exact percentage.
1.2.9 Soft Wax Pencils
Soft wax pencils such as the Chinagraph brand should be used for marking film.
1.2.10 Magnifier
A ground glass screen, illuminated from below, and a magnifying glass, preferably
mounted on a flexible arm, are needed to examine film. The screen and light source
should be mounted in the winding table for convenience.
1.2.11 Film Cement
Film cement is needed for repairs to splices (see 1.2.7 above).
1.2.12 Solvents for Cleaning Film
WARNING: The use of solvents for hand cleaning film should be kept to an absolute
minimum. It is preferable to clean dirty film in a special cleaning machine. If film
has to be cleaned by hand, it is essential to provide an extract ventilator above the
work table to remove hazardous fumes.
Solvents Available
Risk to User
(Because of Toxicity)
a. n-Butyl Chloride
b. Cyclohexane*
c. Cyclopentane*
d. Freon 113
e. Heptane*
f. Hexane*
g. Methylcyclohexane*
h. 1, 1,l -Trichloroethane
i. Trichloroethylene
j. 2,2,4-Trimethylpentane*
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Low
* Very flammable substances.

Carbon Tetrachloride is extremely dangerous and is banned.
1.2.13 Film Cans
Film cans made of metal or plastic such as polycarbonate and polyethylene; not
poly(vinyl/chloride) (PVC) should be use for long term storage of film. Cardboard
cartons are unsuitable for this purpose as they absorb moisture and may have a high
acid and peroxide content.
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1.2.14 Film Material

Regular developed and unexposed film material can be used for the repair of damaged
perforations. It is important that the pieces of film used for repairs are preshrunk to
the same degree as the film being repaired. If this is not done then the perforations
will not match and subsequent differential shrinkage may cause the film to buckle.
1.2.15 Film Bin
When working with film, it may be necessary to unwind considerable lengths into a
film bin. The bin consists of a frame that holds a bag made of lint-free fabric.
1.2.16 Card Indexes
Each film store should have both of the following card indexes:
a. A technical card index, giving all the necessary data and the results of all
tests carried out on each film.
b. A location card index that keeps track of the location of every film at all
times.
These records can also be kept on an electronic data base. The keeping of such
records, in whatever form, is vital.
1.3 Additional
Equipment
for More Advanced Archives
1.3.1 Editing Table

The film editors most important piece of equipment is the editing table. It is a
universal table that can be used for viewing, for running film in synchronism with
sound-track and for editing. If a table is only used to view combined film ie. the
sound and picture are on the same carrier, two plates are sufficient.
1.3.2 Synchronizing
Table for Multiple
Strips
Synchronizers are used to prepare film for printing or for comparing two or more
films. With a synchronizer, the negative and print or two or more prints can be run in
synchronism, the start marks can be checked, sound-tracks and pictures can be viewed
and work done with trial copies. The visible picture is only the size of the frame. The
table cannot be switched from one gauge to another as needed but tables that accept
two 16mm and two 35mm reels are available.
The table can be driven by hand or by electric motors and, in the latter mode, the
speed can be continuously varied as well as running at the correct synchronous speed.
The sprockets that drive the various strips can be connected and disconnected from the
footage or metre counter as needed. Loudspeakers for sound replay can also be built
in.
1.3.3 Two-Screen Viewing Table
Two-screen viewing tables permit two reels of film to be run in parallel to allow
technical comparisons to be made between negative and positive or between two
prints of the same film. They are particularly useful for the task of re-editing old films
to restore them to the correct sequence and to the original length. An editing table
327
with several film strips, with both optical and magnetic sound, can also be used for
synchronization.
1.3.4 Motorized
Winding Table
The motorized winding table with counters for feet or metres performs the same
function as the hand winding table. Its speed is continuously variable and makes the
film examiners work easier.
1.3.5 Film Washing Machine
Fine scratches on the emulsion side of the film may be removed by causing the
emulsion layer to swell. Small developing machines are suitable for this purpose if
the developer is removed and the first tanks are filled with baths to soak the emulsion.
A developing machine can also be used for rinsing the film with clean water in place
of the developer. In tropical areas, this water may have to be pre-cooled as its
temperature should, ideally, be kept below 20C and never allowed to rise to 25C. If
the relative humidity of the air is too high, dehumidified air has to be used to supply
the attached drying cabinet.
Modem rinsing machines often have provision for additional cleaning by means of a
buffer system rotating under the water. New machines should be ordered with a
friction drive transport system for the film. This will permit the machine to be used
for all formats up to 35mm. A water filter may prove economical in recycling the
used liquid. The hardness of the water should be kept as low as possible to prevent
dry spots forming on the film. In the case of films which have suffered invisible
decomposition of the base, washing may completely remove the emulsion layer.
A film should NOT be washed if any of the following apply:
i. A nitrate film has failed an emulsion solubility test carried out on at least
one frame per roll of film.
ii. The film is to be treated for fading.
iii. It is a colour print made by a dye transfer process eg. Technicolor prints.
1.3.6 Cleaning Machine
There are two main types of cleaning machine in existence: ultrasonic and rotating
buffer systems. The best results are obtained by using both systems in combination.
A recycling system for the used solvents must be installed with the cleaning machine
(see 1.2.12 for information about solvents).
1.3.7 Film Polishing Machine
This is used to eliminate damage, such as light scratches on the base side of the film,
by polishing and matting the film between rollers of optical glass. Acetone is usually
used in this process and adequate ventilation is essential for the machine and the
surrounding work area.
1.3.8 Projector
All normal theatrical projectors can be used and are available for all the common,
present-day standards. Dual gauge projectors (16/35mm or 35/7Omm) are also
available. Old, silent films, shot at speeds lower than 24 frames per second, must be
projected at the original speed.
328
-I.- -.
. .._.--_
Double headed projectors are required for simultaneous projection of films with
separate sound tracks.
Film intended for permanent preservation must never be usedfor projection.
1.3.9 Densitometer
A densitometer is an optical instrument that very accurately measures the optical
density of details of a sample of film. The values obtained are important for
maintaining output at a constant quality during processing at the laboratory and for
assessing loss of density in recordings that are being preserved for long periods of
time.
Even those archives that do not have their own printing laboratory should acquire and
use a densitometer to check their colour and black and white films in storage. Loss of
density during archival storage is a sign of the decay of the film. If possible, the
densitometer should have a digital readout.
1.4 Additional
Equipment
for Fully Equipped Archives
1.4.1 Introduction
A fully equipped archive differs from a well equipped one in so far as it is able to
copy particularly difficult archive material that cannot be handled in commercial
laboratories which lack the specially adapted machinery required.
The special
problems of this material include extreme shrinkage or damage and outdated or rare
formats and colour techniques. Ln general, it is possible to modify and adapt standard
equipment to meet the specific requirements of such material.
One welcome modern development is the wet printer. This produces acceptable
copies of a scratched and damaged original by a process of copying in liquid.
Modem printers may have a range of special lamphouses for copying colour and black
and white film. Colour analysers must be used for these machines.
1.4.2 Colour Analyzer
Preparing a colour film for printing involves checking the colour balance as well as
controlling the printer light intensity. The colour analyzer is used for grading of films.
1.4.3 Printing Machines
For copying film material, several different types of printing machine exist:
a. Contact Step Printers
The film to be copied and the raw, unexposed film are moved, frame by frame in
direct contact with each other, past the printers picture gate by means of a claw. This
type of printer does not alter the picture format. It can handle shrunken original film,
up to about 1.5% shrinkage, if appropriate sprockets are used and the claws
dimensions are suitable for the degree of shrinkage ie. they will not damage the
perforations. These machines are suitable for archival use and give great picture
sharpness and steadiness. There are wet gate systems available that can be adapted to
fit contact step printers.
329
b. Optical Step Printers

The original and the raw film are moved in opposite directions frame by frame by a
claw. Between them is a lens that can be adjusted to vary the size of the transmitted
image to enlarge or reduce or to retain the original size. Because of its versatility, this
type of printer is very suitable for archival use. It permits reduction and enlargement
printing to be carried out for all formats. Moreover, with optical printers it is possible
to carry out anti-scratch printing, ie. wet printing, by which means new prints made
from normally scratched originals are scratch-free. With this type of printer, it is also
possible to adjust the claw stroke to cope with badly shrunken original film.
c. Continuous Printers
These are designed for the rapid production of large quantities of prints. They are
used by commercial film laboratories. Technically they are distinguished from step
printers by the method of film transport. The films are moved past the exposure slit,
not intermittently by a claw, but by a high precision sprocket wheel that rotates
continuously. Feed and take-up is by means of normal filmguide rollers. These
machines may work at speeds as high as 2000-3000 feet per minute.
As with step printers, there are contact machines and optical machines. While contact
machines produce prints of the same format, continuous optical printers are used
almost exclusively for reduction printing of optical sound tracks from 35mm to
16mm. There are also special continuous printers available for the copying of archival
material. In most cases, damage to the original material does not require repairing
before copying. Many continuous printers can be supplied as wet print machines.
d. Special Effects Printer
These are very versatile. They can do everything described in paragraph b. above, and
more. They were designed for use in film production and, technically, they consist of
a projector and a camera mounted on an optical bench. These machines operate very
slowly. It is unlikely that an archive will make full use of all their capabilities eg.
making wipes and dissolves. Their value to an archive is, however, undoubted. Wet
print versions are also available.
1.4.4 Developing Machines
These are used to develop exposed film. Whereas older models are provided with 35
or 16mm sprocket drives, the newer models have friction wheel transports and can
accommodate any format up to the width of their wheels. The required capacity of the
developing machine will depend on the output of the printing machines supplying the
exposed film for processing. In general, it is better to have separate machines for
positive and negative and for black and white and colour film.
In tropical climates, close attention must be paid to the temperature of the developing
liquids as the cooling water may, itself, be too warm. Replenishment of the developer
and the fixing bath must be harmonized with the speed of the passage of the film and
with the film formats being processed. The replenishment supplies must be precisely
controlled.
An important element in the operation of all processing machines should be the
recycling of the various developers and the recovery of silver from the fixing solution.
This is not just for economic reasons but for ecological ones as well.
330
1.4.5 Chemical Laboratory

Any archive that has its own printing laboratory will also need a chemical laboratory
where the mixing of developing baths etc. and the relevant analyses can be carried out.
The analysis methods must be undertaken in accordance with the chemical
manufacturers recommendations. The laboratorys basic equipment may need to be
supplemented by special pieces of apparatus as necessary.
Those archives that do not have a printing laboratory may still require a chemical
laboratory if they carry out tests such as measurement of colour density, nitrate/acetate
tests, artificial ageing tests for nitrate and residual thiosulphate tests on a regular basis.
1.4.6 Optical Sound Projector
Generally speaking, sound tracks and the film that carries the images are treated
separately because they require different techniques. Films often have optical sound
tracks and, therefore, need a special sound head. Its lens should be able to move
across the full width of the sound track and be provided with a reading or scanning
device to avoid accidentally reading perforations and frame lines. If the unit has a wet
system, then scratches on the base and emulsion can be minimized.
1.4.7 Sound Mixing and Processing Equipment
These are used to treat sound information from old films eg. the removal of hums and
the alleviation of noise.
Generally speaking, sound tracks and the film that carries the images are treated
separately because they require different techniques. Films often have optical sound
tracks and, therefore, need a special sound head. Its lens should be able to move
across the full width of the sound track and be provided with a reading or scanning
device to avoid accidentally reading perforations and frame lines. If the unit has a wet
system, then scratches on the base and emulsion can be minimized.
1.4.8 Magnetic Sound Recorder: 16/17.5/35mm
The magnetic sound recorder is used to record sound on tape. The recorder and
projector may be connected mechanically or electronically to synchronize their speeds.
1.4.9 Optical Sound Camera: 16/35mm
The optical sound camera is used to record sound on film.
1.4.10 Microscope
A microscope is useful for detailed examination of older film materials which the
archive intends to preserve. Early signs of damage such as fungus growth, the action
of bacteria and minute perforation tears, which may prove catastrophic in the longterm if not countered, are more easily detected with a microscope than with a
magnifying glass.
If wafer-thin, diagonal cuts are made in the emulsion, it is possible to see under the
microscope if the layer adhesion is still intact.
331
Archives with their own printing laboratory will find a microscope indispensable for
measuring the picture steadiness of the printer. Unsteadiness introduced by printing is
usually detected when projecting the copy.
1.4.11 Sensitometer
The sensitometer consists of a fixed printing light which is closely defined as to
intensity, exposure time and colour temperature. It is used in conjunction with a
standard grey scale which is placed with the raw film in the sensitometer when it is
exposed. At the laboratory, the exposed strips are developed, fixed and dried in a
small developing machine with standardized baths. They can also be clipped to
exposed film tests or films and developed with them.
The manufacturers instructions must be followed exactly throughout the process. By
comparing the new copy of the grey scale with the standard, the raw film stock can be
assessed to see if it meets the required optical specifications. Control over the
development in subsequent processing can also be maintained.
If the archive does not have a sensitometer, it can have the necessary grey scale
supplied by the raw film manufacturers.
332
SECTION
X FINANCE
10.1 COSTS OF STORAGE

Cov L. haburg
IN SOUND ARCHIVES
NOB, Hilversum
1. GENERAL
If we obtain some insight into the costs of storing sound in an archive (meaning longterm storage), we do not exclusively deal with the costs of the information carrier but
with the overall organisation of a sound archive.
Although the costs of an information carrier itself are not too high, the number of
information carriers and storage capacity are not to be neglected whilst determining
the overall cost.
The question is, however, what is the storage cost in relation to other archive costs.
In this report we concern ourselves in the first instance with only one aspect out of the
overall cost price, namely: what costs are involved in information storage? - in other
words, how can we define and quantify these costs ? Further in this report we will coordinate this with the overall archive costs.
The answer to the question why do we want to know is supposed to apply to, for
instance, management who will make the final and correct choice as to which
information carrier should be used in an archive.
An important question is what influence has the type of information carrier on the
cost of sound storage.3 It seems obvious that a miniature version of the information
carrier (such as an R-DAT-cassette) should provide a solution to the available space
problem. We have to prove, however, that this assumption is correct and in order to
reach the correct decision, it is necessary that we determine the various calculation
factors for sound storage and express these in a workable unit which can be the basis
for an accurate definition. In this way it will be relatively simple to ascertain if the
price of an information carrier is of great influence on the overall cost and if the
operational qualities of that information carrier can be weighed against a cost
reduction or a cost increase in the overall running cost.
2. WHAT DETERMINES THE ARCHIVE COSTS?
We can define the four principal areas of which cost development is more or less
independent. These areas certainly have a mutual influence and each area is not
isolated:
The total housing cost of an archive which holds the storage space.
The total number of staff working for the archive.
The raw materials which are necessary to operate, such as the purchase of tapes, forms
and office equipment.
The sound equipment to be used in order to play-back the supplied information and to
copy it onto the archive carrier.
333
Because it concerns a comparison between an analogue recording tape and an R-DAT

cassette as archive carrier, our main interest at this stage is the calculation of the
storage costs.
3. WHICH PART OF THE STORAGE COST DO WE WANT TO CALCULATE
In order to calculate the storage capacity we need the following information:
The cost of storing the information carrier, in other words: the housing of carrier
volume. One can express this possibly as hard volume.
It is more correct to calculate the actual cost of the ultimate archive product:
The cost of storing the information, in other words: the housing of information
volume; this could be expressed as soft volume.
From the above, the following could be possible:
To express the storage of the carrier in the number of tapes per cubic meter housing,
and when we know the capacity of an information carrier, we can express the
information storage in number of hours of information per cubic meter housing
capacity.
This is a handy prefix for calculation purpose.
4. WHAT WILL WE ACTUALLY
DO WITH THESE COST FIGURE3
Calculating the storage costs in relation to the archive costs is a way to look clearly at
the measures which have to be taken as to the quality or the continuity of the archive
and to determine the importance of the effects of the measurements.
If we estimate, that in the coming decade we will have to deal with a decreasing
margin between budget and cost; the following question could arise:
Should the storage costs per hour, which are dependent on housing costs in the long
term: - be increased - be decreased - stay the same
If we issue the above mentioned estimate, we come to the decision that the storage
costs should be decreased, in other words: the number of hours information per cubic
meter housing should be increased!
5. WHY DOES THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF INFORMATION
HAVE TO BE INCREASED?
PER CUBIC METRE HOUSING
Archiving is always an expanding matter; every year new information to be stored is

delivered to the archive. Advance selection of historic information is not simple; even
more so when selecting after a certain time, and then destroying the information of
lesser historical value: it costs time which is equal to money, which is not in relation
to the storage costs of that information.
Only after a long time, when the information carrier has to be replaced, would be the
right moment to effect this.
Another fact is, the expansion of storage space is always an abrupt action: we have to
add more new cubic meters space and then have to wait until this space is used up
334
again. We estimate, that the ratio between budgets and costs in future is decreasing.
This is the final argument to reach the conclusion that we have to store more
information in the available space.
The increase in the number of hours of information per cubic meter of housing is only
possible however, under the condition that this increase is made in such a manner that
it is acceptable (considering other requirements needed for information storage).
Regarding the storage costs, we have not taken into account the following subjects:
The safety of the information; i.e. spheric saving information carriers against
atmospheric conditions; against electronic failures and against fire and theft.
The handling costs of information; i.e. copying from an information carrier onto a
consumer tape for lending out; search documentation systems and personal advice and
administration.
The preservation of information;
information on a long-term basis.
i.e. a technological
system that will
keep the
The specific technical qualities of the various information carriers; i.e. special
requirements of operating the equipment and the structural operating process,
depending on the shape of the carrier (roll, disc or tape) and the recording technology
(mechanical. magnetic or optical).
All these aspects are very important for running an archive in an operational way (for
instance, search facilities and user-friendly service) and should certainly not be
neglected at the final decision on archiving.
When deciding on the organisation of an archive one must weigh out the available
means against the risk.
6. SUMMARY
Summarising this particular subject, storage costs, we have to mention that:
The main concern is the number of hours information per cubic meter of housing to be
stored.
We have to deal with the information housing costs per cubic meter.
We have to deal with the storage capacity of the carrier, i.e. the number of hours of
information that can safely be stored on the carrier.
We did not consider the operational costs for staff and machines.
7. CONCLUSION
Just reviewing all that we have discussed concerning the specific subject of storing
costs, we can make the following conclusions:
In view of the future expectations a reduction in housing cost is desirable.
The number of hours of information per cubic meter of housing has to be increased.
The storage capacity of an information carrier should be increased safely.
335
The operational costs are, as far as we know, not related to the storage costs. It
remains to be seen, however, if operational costs can be decreased when using another
information carrier taking into account the special operational aspect, such as userfriendly facilities.
8. PRACTICAL
EXAMPLE
A practical example is necessary for illustrating the purpose of the above-mentioned

facts.
The figures are derived from an existing archive and are subject to the present work
configuration. All figures in this example are rounded off: the only purpose is to
observe the ratio between them.
The facts on this archive are:
The information carrier used is an analogue recording tape with one hour storage
capacity.
The contents of the storage space - where cabinets and stands are installed - is 25
cubic meters.
The cost of housing the complete archive is Hfl.70.000,-- a year. (Dutch guilders).
The stored information is 12.500 hours.
When using these figures we can calculate that the number of hours of information per
cubic meter housing is 12500/25 = 500 hours.
Considering that one hour of information is in fact the final product of the archive,
all the housing costs of the complete archive should be charged to the product. In this
way a cubic meter housing of storage space costs 70000/25 = Hfl. 2800,-- a year.
In this example the storage of one hour of information costs 2800/500 = Hfl.5,60 a
year.
In this example it seems to be clear that - with the available space of the existing
storage space in mind - when using an information carrier with a higher storage
capacity, the number of hours of information stored can be increased and the result is
a decrease in storage costs of one hour information a year.
An information carrier with a lot more storage capacity than the analogue recording
tape which is used in this example, is the digital magnetic tape: the R-DAT (Rotaryhead Digital Audio Tape). Except that the size of an R-DAT-cassette is remarkably
smaller than a professional audio-tape: the recording capacity is three times as high as
the analogue tape used in this example.
The R-DAT could be the ideal instrument for a remarkable increase of storage
capacity in an archive.
Using the above mentioned figures we can make a reasonable comparison.
336
The measurements of the used analogue recording tape are 0,27 x 0,27 x 0,015 = 1,09
x 10-3 cubic meters.
The measurements of an R-DAT-cassette are 0,OS x 0,06 x 0,015 = 0,072 x 10-3 cubic
meters.
The volume ratio between an R-DAT-cassette and an analogue tape is 1,09/0,072 =
15,19. 1.
The maximum number of hours to be stored on an R-DAT-cassette is 3 hours. The
information storage ratio between an R-DAT- cassette and an analogue tape is 3 x
15,19 = 45,57 : 1.
It is a fact, that storage capacity is reduced when storing smaller objects: inefficient
space is increased. Because of past experience it is necessary to introduce a correction
factor of 08.
The conclusion is, that the storage capacity of an R-DAT cassette in the same storage
space is 36 times as high as the analogue tape we used in this example.
As far as we know, the price of an R-DAT-cassette is roughly the same as the price of
the analogue tape used in this example. However, the effect of this can be found later
in other costing.
Even the price of a professional R-DAT-recorder (ProDAT) is just as high as a
professional analogue audiorecorder, which is normally used in archives. These cost
effects will be shown later on.
We are neglecting the costs of new cabinets and stands that are especially needed for
housing the R-DAT-cassettes. The most important fact is the possibility of increasing
the storage capacity by 36 times and that results in the number of hours per cubic
meter of housing in this example to be increased to 36 x 500 = 18.000 hours!
Taking into account the figure of housing per cubic meter being Hfl.2800,--, we can
calculate that the storage costs of one hour of information on an R-DAT-cassette are
2800/l 8000 = Hfl.O,16 a year: a dramatic and attractive difference!
The example shows us the following:
*
The storage costs using analogue recording tape are 36 x more expensive as
when using the R-DAT-cassette in the same capacity storing space.
*
the existing archive contents can be used longer than 36 years at present
production level.
The result that - as in the case of using an analogue tape - no building activities have
to be undertaken to expand the storage space is, of course, very attractive. If one has
to do so, the housing costs per year are increasing only slightly. When recalculating
we can compare the results with each other in order to make a decision. When we
look at the storage costs only, and we do not take the other aspects of information
carriers into account, the result of this competition is very clear!
337
9. HOWEVER
We do remember:
WHICH FACTORS DETERMINE
*
*
*
*
The
The
The
The
THE ARCHIVE COSTS
complete housing costs of the archive.

work structure and the overall personnel costs.
raw materials, such as tapes etc.
available equipment/machines.
If we want to review the situation clearly - the most important question is really: what
are the actual storage costs in relation to the overall cost projection of the archive?
Again the given figures are derived from an existing archive practice and are rounded
off, only for the purpose of illustrating the related ratio.
The other costs of the complete archive - as in the case of the used analogue tape - are
as follows:
*
The personnel costs: Hfl.750.000,-- a year.

The remaining costs related to the safety copy archive, the overheads of a
complete company, the purchase of raw materials such as tapes and
costs of the archiving documentation system, costs of a computer
forms,
office
inventory,
write-offs,
etc. are approximately
system, an
Hfl.580.000,-- a year.
*
The technical costs, such as write-offs, maintenance etc. of the audio
equipment are Hfl. 150.000,-- a year.
9
Taking the storage capacity of 12,500 hours of information into account and
considering that this information is the final product of the archive, we can calculate
that the remaining costs for one hour of information are: 1480000/l 2500 = Hfl. 118,40
a year.
If calculating the same costs while using an R-DAT-cassette we need to suppose in
order to obtain a reasonable comparison that the stored information of 12.500 hours is
equal to the yearly information production made by the staff. It is obvious that a 36times production capacity is too much for the historical events taking place in a
country. Of course this assumption could be arbitrary, but it is reasonably useful for
the comparison.
The other costs in the case of use of the R-DAT-cassette are:
*
*
are
*
The personnel costs: Hfl.750.000,-- a year.

The remaining costs whereby purchase of R-DAT-cassettes for comparison is
estimated on Hfl.SO.OOO,-- less than in the case of analogue tape which
Hfl.530.000,-- a year.
The technical costs remain at Hfl. 1SO.OOO,--a year.
The remaining costs for one hour of information

1430000/12500 = Hfl.l14,40 a year.
338
in the case of R-DAT
are
Summarising:
In the case of the used analogue tape the total archive cost for one hour of information
is: Hfl.5,60+Hfl.118,40=Hfl.124.--a
year.
In the case of R-DAT the total archive cost for one hour of information (considering
an equal year production) is: Hfl.0,16 + Hfl.ll4.40 = Hfl.l14,56 a year.
The difference between using an analogue tape or an R-DAT- cassette as information
carrier per hour of information is Hfl.9,44 a year. So every year gives a saying of
12500 x 9,44 = Hfl. 118.000,-- on the total amount. For a good understanding of the
ratio we have taken into account that the total archive costs are Hfl.l .SOO.OOO,--a
year.
As to the above mentioned statement that in the case of an analogue tape, the
information storage space would have to be increased, as opposed to the decrease in
space when using an R-DAT, we can see the relation between the yearly housing costs
of Hfl.70.000,-- and the overall yearly archive costs.
Taking all the above mentioned arguments into account we have to consider that when
using an R-DAT-cassette as a long-term storage instrument, there is no real technical
experience at present and the technical problems are, as yet, unknown.
Most
technicians have their doubts.
10. FINAL CONCLUSION
Reviewing the above, the final conclusion is:

*
The storage costs per hour of information are marginal for analogue recording
tape in relation to other costs of the archive.
*
The storage costs per hour of information are, when using R-DAT, even more
marginal in relation to the other costs of the archive.
When all other aspects of both types of information carriers are taken into
consideration and compared to the eventual financial effects, the conclusion has to be:
The technical - and operational aspects of the type of information carrier are important
to the overall functions of the archive.
The economical aspects, of the type of information carrier are - in their totality marginal for the overall continuity of an archive.
Other companies producing software-like products such as radio and television
programs have in many cases come to the same conclusion.
In other words: from a very narrow perspective, we came to the conclusion that the
storage costs are of course useful. However for the complete functioning of an
archive we have to examine the total amount: not the figures only.
If there is a need to save costs: the personnel costs and the remaining costs can be
more effective.
339
SECTION X FINANCE
10.2 FORMAT-SPECIFIC
PRESERVATION
COSTS - A FIRST ATTEMPT
Vienna
Cor Doesburgs paper (see above) impressively shows that storage costs, if we
compare analog tape even with R-Dat, do not significantly decrease with the size of
carriers if we include the costs of the entire archival operation into our calculation.
Let us take now one step further in trying to explore the preservation costs as a
variable of the storage format. Because storage costs depend on the size of the
carriers, preservation costs have to take into account the costs of (subsequent) rerecordings onto new carriers depending on their respective life-times. To get an idea
about the influence of the life-time of carriers in such a calculation, two different
carriers with differently assumed life- times shall be compared.
As R-Dat is not yet recommended for long-term storage let us compare analog
magnetic tape, running at a speed of 19ChUS, with a hypothetical X-Format: this XFormat would have greater data density than professional analog magnetic tape thus
using less shelf space per stored hour. As a consequence of increased data density we
assume, however, a shorter life-time. Let us, for the X-Format, make the following
assumptions:
Size (incl. box): 110 x 70 x 17mm (like a compact cassette)
Recording capacity 1 hour
Price: Austrian Schilling (ATS) 1OO.-Life-time 20 years
The respective figures for analog magnetic tape (730m) are:
Size (incl. box): 275 x 275 x 17mm
Recording capacity: 1 hour (19cms)
Price: ATS 250.-Life-time: 50 years (optimistic, but not unrealistic).
To arrive at comparable storage costs, we have to define a storage unit: (note: All
figures and prices are taken from the actual situation of the storage vault of the
Phonogrammarchiv in Vienna.)
It measures 5 x 5 x 2,5m, and is equipped with mobile shelves which occupy a space
of 4,2 x 4 x 2,2m, leaving an aisle of lm across for general access and a moving
aisle of 0.8m. Shelves are arranged to take up a maximum of carriers, leaving - on the
other side - enough space to manually handle the carriers. (It has been explained in
the Joint Technical Symposium, 1988 that there is a non-linear relation between the
size of the carrier and the totally occupied storage volume. As certain dimensions like the aisle, or the empty space to get hold of the carriers, etc. - cannot be diminished
beyond functional needs, there is, with reference to the totally available storage
volume, an increasing percentage of empty space along with a decreasing size of the
single carrier.)
The storage area is airconditioned and - for ultimate security - equipped with an
automated halon fire extinguishing plant; a fire detection and alarm plant is installed
in the area around the storage vault wide enough for early alarm.
34.0
The annual storage costs are determined by the following factors:

1. The rental for the room: office space with the necessary mechanical adaptation in
an appropriate area is available in Vienna for ATSlOO.--/month. 25 x 100 x 12 =
ATS30.000.-- rent/year.
2. Air conditioning,
ATSlO.OOO.--/year.
including
amortisation
of equipment is calculated to be
3. Mobile shelves for analog tapes would cost ATS250.000.--, their life-time can be
expected to be 25 years, annual costs therefore are ATSlO.OOO.--. The X-Format,
however, needs more sophisticated shelves: the costs are estimated to be at least twice
as much.
4. The costs of the fire detection and extinguishing plant is ATS250.000.--, the lifetime again 25 years, annual costs therefore ATS 1O.OOO.--.
5. Annual maintenance costs for mobile shelves and security plants are ATS20.000.-.
The annual storage costs per recorded hour are determined by the storage capacity of
the unit depending upon the size of the respective carrier. Mobile shelves as described
above can take up 18.500 hours of 19cms tape, while they will house as much as
155.000 hours in the X-Format.
Thus the annual storage costs/ret. hour are the quotient of the expressed sum of the
annual costs, divided by the storage capacity expressed in recorded hours:
Rental storage area

Air conditioning
Mobile shelves
Security
Maintenance
Total
Storage capacity: rec. hours
Annual storage costs/ret. hour
ATS
ATS
ATS
ATS
ATS
ATS
ATS
ATS
Tape
X-Format
30.000
10.000
10.000
10.000
20.000
80.000
18.500
4.32
30.000
10.000
20.000
10.000
20.000
90.000
155.000
0.58
Looking at this calculation so far, there would be an enormous argument in favour of

the smaller carrier.
But let us calculate now the preservation costs, which take into account the life-time
of the carriers and the costs of re-recording. To make the costs comparable for
formats of different life-time, they have to be expressed in annual costs/ret. hour.
These are determined by:
1. The price of the carriers/ret. hour, divided by the life-time
2. The annual storage costs/ret. hour.
3. The costs of re-recordingrec. hour.
341
---
-.---
-___-__
--...-.
This latter category needs to be explored. Re-recording costs are determined by the
following time/cost factors:
Transport of carriers from the shelves to the copying plants.
Copying of old carriers onto new ones; for ultimate fidelity this process has to be done
in real time.
Re-labelling of new carriers and boxes.
Documentation of the re-recording process.
Transport of new carriers back to the shelves; depositing of old carriers according to
the respective preservation policy.
Maintenance and amortisation of copying equipment.
Under the condition that all old carriers can be replayed in their original fidelity (this
means that they do not require additional efforts to restore the original signal due to
deterioration) and the existence of several copying plants to work in parallel, it can be
assumed that one operator will be able to handle not more than three carriers per hour.
That means that re-recording, in the case of one-hour-carriers, will consume at least
one third of their playing time. One hour of manpower including equipment costs can
be calculated to be at least ATS600.-- which brings us to re- recording costs of
ATS200.-- per carrier ( =recorded hour in our example). The annual re-recording
costs, depending on the time of the various carriers are therefore:
200 : 50 = ATS 4/Year/ret. hour for tape
200 : 20 = ATS 10 ar c. hour for the X-Format
The annual preservation costs/ret. hour therefore are:
Tape
X-Format
Material/year
ATS
5.-5.-Storage/year
ATS
4.32
0.58
Re-recording/year
4 -10 -ATS
ATS
13.32
15.58
From this example we learn that preservation costs cannot seen by looking at the costs
of space alone. The annual costs the material and re-recording have to be included as
important factors. In our example both factors have been assumed quite in favour for
the X-Format, still total X-Formats costs are higher than those of 19cm/s tape. A
storage plant of that size would also take up 17.160 lOOOm-tapes (300 x 300 x 17mm)
with a playing time of 80 min at 19cm/s or 40 min at 38cm/s. The total storage
capacity would then be almost 23.000 hours (19cm.s) bringing storage costs down
accordingly. The re-recording costs would also decrease on the side of manpower, as
these are dependent upon the number of carriers/ret. hour, but slightly increase on the
hardware side due to the higher amount of equipment necessary. For 38cm/s tape
storage costs would double, re-recording costs not quite, as in our example only two
copying plants are necessary for continuous work. Different assumptions will lead
different results, our example only intends to demonstrate order of magnitude of the
various cost factors.
If we finally combine our argument with that of Cor Doesburg and include the costs
of the total archival operation into calculation we learn that the size of the carriers is in terms of overall costs - negligible.
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SECTION
XI FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
11.1 NEW TECHNOLOGY
- FRIEND OR FOE?
George Boston
1. What Is New Technology?
To most librarians and archivists, New Technology means the information storage
systems that use electronic, chemical or optical information carriers in place of paper.
Many of these systems are developments of what has traditionally been regarded as
audio-visual media ie. systems for the storage of sounds and pictures. Other new
systems are developments of the computers used for cataloguing or are hybrid designs
using computers to control robots to find and play magnetic tapes or optical discs. All
these systems store textual information either as ASCII code as used in computers and
word-processors or as an image of the printed page.
For the former, a character recognition program fed by a scanner is required. The
advantage is that the texts can be searched directly, by-passing the catalogues. The
disadvantage is that the character recognition programs work with a limited range of
fonts and are not 100% accurate. Photographs and diagrams have to be separately
scanned as images and stored in a linked file. The character recognition programs are,
however, steadily improving.
Texts to be stored as an image also have to be scanned. The texts stored using this
method cannot be searched directly. The advantage to the researcher is that the page
layout, together with any photographs and diagrams, is retained. Storage as an image
also permits the preservation of maps, plans, music scores etc. in the same system.
These non-text materials do not have to be handled separately.
There are many new formats for storing information available on the market and more
are announced each week. The sheer range of competing devices for storing sounds,
images and textual information bewilders many people. They are all forms of New
Technology but not all of them are suitable for mass storage of information by
libraries.
It is my view that only digital formats can be classed as New Technology for
professional use. Why do I make such a sweeping statement. A statement that, for
example, puts all the new analogue video recording systems into the dustbin? The
answer lies in the basic differences between analogue and digital recordings.
1.1 Analogue Records
Analogue is what we are used to. Our eyes and ears are analogue devices. In A-V it
is the movie film, the LP disc, the photograph; with text, it is the book, the magazine,
the micro-film. An analogue recording - which includes images of a printed page stores the information as a continuously varying parameter. This requires the carrier
to be able to support an infinite number of states - for example, every shade of grey
between white and black in a photograph - for accurate storage. The variable
parameter might be an electrical voltage, a magnetic flux density or a variation of
opaqueness and colour on a film strip. It requires perfect fidelity from every part of
the storage medium to guarantee a good record. A spot of mildew or fading of colour
on a photograph means that information has been lost.
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With an analogue recording, the quality and fidelity of the information is degraded
every time it is moved from carrier to carrier. The copying process also relies heavily
on skilled staff able to assess the quality of the copy to ensure that it is the best that
can be achieved. Skilled staff cost money. The process is also time-consuming - yet
more expense.
1.2 Digital Records
A digital recording represents the information as a
This is a much more rugged system because only
binary digits 0 and 1 - are ever recorded. These two
or low levels of magnetic flux, positive or negative
silver. There are no in-between values.
series of binary coded numbers.

two pieces of information - the
numbers are represented by high
voltage, black or white grain of
As we are dealing with numbers, it is possible to construct a copying system that

checks the number on the original carrier against the number recorded on the copy. If
the numbers match, the copy is an exact facsimile, a clone, of the original. This
means that there has been no degradation in quality or fidelity because of the copying
process.
One other advantage of binary coding comes from the fact that there are only two
digits. This means that if the position of an error can be identified, it can be corrected.
If, at the position of the error, the magnetism on the carrier is High then the only
possible alternative is Low. If it were a decimal number, finding the position of the
error would not help; what would you change the erroneous digit for? All digital
systems include some form of error detection and correction process.
2. Why Consider a Move to New Technologies?
Many librarians are considering moving some, if not all, of their collection to New
Technology. There are three main reasons for this. One danger, however, is that,
because New Technology is rather mysterious and requires a special breed of
acolyte called a Technician to serve it, New Technology becomes to be regarded
as a magic wand that can be waved to solve problems.
2.1 Decay of Existing Carriers
All types of information carrier are decaying. Some types are decaying faster than
others. Historic manuscripts are often in better condition than documents on modern
paper. The underlying fact, however, that cannot be escaped is that ALL documents
whether on paper, vellum, parchment, papyrus, clay tablets, carved in stone, on
magnetic tape, shellac discs or on photographic film are decaying. Some carriers will
take a decade to decay; others will take millenia. We can slow the processes but we
cannot stop them. We can, however, easily accelerate decay by bad handling practices
and bad storage.
There is a feeling that the magic wand of New Technology can be waved and the
processes of decay can be stopped in their tracks. Well, Yes and No.
The carriers used to hold information in the new, large capacity storage systems are
themselves liable to decay. The rate of decay is probably going to mean a safe life of
about 50 years. This will mean that the collection may need to be copied twice every
century. If the storage was analogue this would be prohibitively expensive. As we are
talking about digital storage, the problem is, potentially, taken care of automatically.
At least one manufacturer is already marketing an automated storage system that is
344
controlled from, and sends information to, standard computer terminals.

The
automated library provides the information requested with a delay of about 1 minute.
This saves porters, potential loss or damage to the carriers and the users time.
In addition, this robotic library is self-checking. Each carrier within the library is
regularly and automatically checked for errors in the digital coding and, if the error
rate is above a preset level, the carrier is automatically copied and the copy, which is
now better than the original because the errors have been corrected, is inserted into the
library in place of the faulty original.
2.2 Lack of Storage
Space
The sheer volume of information that modern society wishes to keep is creating major
storage problems for many institutions. Many of the current carriers are bulky and
require more and more storage space. The cost of building is high; the cost of
building to the standards required by a modern library are very high. The good news
is that politicians like grandiose building projects, particularly if the project is finished
in time for their photograph to be taken cutting the ribbon on opening day. The bad
news is that the politicians do not like paying for the running and maintenance costs of
buildings - there are no photo-opportunities.
So the shiny new library building also
starts a slow process of decay. The hope is that New Technology will wave a magic
wand and solve this problem by giving politicians more photo-opportunities opening a
series of gleaming new toys that do not cost much to run and maintain. Perhaps.
Much publicity material has been issued about the high density of storage that can be
achieved by using New Technology coupled with various methods of data reduction.
Let us be clear about what data reduction means. It means throwing away
information.
In some cases, particularly with printed materials, it is possible to
digitise the image, greatly reduce the number of digital bits of information used to
store the document and still have an satisfactory, readable image. Reduction ratios of
400 to 1 are perfectly feasible. If, however, the document to be copied is not purely
text but, for example, an illuminated manuscript, data reduction will irreversibly harm
the fidelity of the record. In addition, the future copying or migration of data reduced
information may- not be possible without further damage to the information. Be clear
about the reasons for and the dangers of using data reduction when making master or
preservation copies of documents.
An alternative to data reduction is data compression. This does not offer such greatly
reduced data densities as data reduction - a reduction of 10 to 1 in the number of bits
used to store information is excellent - but it has the great advantage of being
reversible. When deciding on a data compression system, however, question the
process very carefully. The two terms - data reduction and data compression - are
frequently mis-used in manufacturers literature.
Before taking radical steps to move a collection to a new carrier because of lack of
space, it is worth considering the real cost of the space used against the other costs of
running the facility. Papers on this subject were presented to the 1988 IASA Annual
Conference in Vienna by Dr Dietrich Schiiller of the Austrian Academy of Science3
and Cor Doesberg of the Netherlands Broadcasting Service. (See Section X: 10.1 and
10.2.)
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2.3 Access
The rows and ranks of shelves in a well run library are impressive. They do not,
however, provide easy access for large numbers of people. Many large institutions
require researchers to apply for the right to enter the premises at all. Once admitted,
the researcher then has to search a card index or data base to make a list of likely
items of information. Often, an employee of the library has to then fetch the required
information for the researcher - it not possible to browse the shelves. If the
information is at a remote storage facility, it may take several hours. if not days,
before it is actually available to the researcher. The hope is that the magic wand of
New Technology will sweep all these restrictions away. Again, Yes and No.
A digitised collection can be examined from a standard computer terminal. The
existing reading desks can be modified by adding a suitable computer. This, however,
does not increase the number of reading places available - it may, in fact, reduce the
number of places available if larger desks are required.
The answer is to use the modern telecommunications networks to transmit the digital
information to places outside the reading room or, even, outside the library. The
technology is available to allow researchers remote access to collections whenever
they require it. Researchers can sit at their office computer and search the catalogues,
call up and view documents over the public telephone systems. Even if they have to
subsequently visit the library to study the actual documents, assuming that they still
exist! much time can be saved by locating the documents before making an expensive
journey.
This vast improvement in access is not a pipe dream. The E-Mail networks bulletin
boards and conferences are already a common tool of research and permit the on-line
examination of many catalogues.
A number of experiments exploring the
implications of a move towards remote access to documents are in operation now.
The practical system is possible now.
The big problem with offering vastly improved, but non-destructive access, to a
collection is copyright. The copyright laws in many countries are very restrictive and
would forbid the distribution of copyright information by electronic means. The
position is, however, not as black as it appears at first sight. The copyright holders in
many cases are commercial organisations who wish to profit from the use of their
material. It is possible to set up systems that automatically invoice users when they
view copyright information. The potential increase in income to the copyright owners
can be a big selling point when negotiations are held with them.
3. Where Can We Look for Enlightenment?
Earlier in this article, it was pointed out that many of the New Technologies being
considered for the storage of textual information have their roots in the world of
audio-visual media. The first audio-visual archive was founded in Vienna in 1899 less than one hundred years. Most have been in existence for less than fifty years. In
that time, however, they have experienced the problems of a whole series of New
Technologies. These have ranged from the cylinder Phonograph of Thomas Edison
to the Compact Disc; from the Daguerreotype photographs to the modern instant
camera; from the early silent, black-and-white movies to the latest surround-sound,
colour, three-dimensional blockbuster from Hollywood; from the first attempts to
record television on film to the latest marvels of miniaturisation produced in Japan.
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How are all these existing, and future, wonders viewed by the A-V archives and
libraries? The answer is, with great trepidation. They are encouraged, however, by
the experience gained in handling all the earlier versions of New Technology. If the
objectives of any change are clearly understood and the advantages and disadvantages
fully examined, then installing New Technology is merely part of the process of the
spread of information that started with the rock drawings of pre-historic man.
4. What Are the A-V Collections Concerns?
4.1 Preservation Policy
The fundamental question that faces all archives and libraries is should the original
carrier be preserved at all costs or should the policy be to preserve the information that
it carries.
Most of the carriers - the books, newspapers, magazines etc - being stored do not have
great intrinsic value. A few items, relatively speaking, do. Usually this is because of
their status as a work of art or because of particular historical connections rather than
because of the information that they carry. I would, for example, argue that mediaeval
illuminated Bibles are works of art first and documents second. Similarly, documents
such as the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence are, because of their
national and international historical importance, of greater value than the text
contained on the pages alone.
These categories of carrier must be preserved with the same vigour that we strive to
preserve a painting such as the Mona Lisa or a building like the Taj Mahal. To
attempt to strive as hard to preserve all the copies of Le Figaro and all the other
newspapers published around the world is impossible. The world does not possess the
resources in trained manpower and finance to even begin this task.
If this is accepted as a reasonable argument, then we have to further accept that only
relatively minor efforts will be made to preserve most of the carriers - the books, the
audio and video tapes, the magazines, the films - currently on the shelves of our
libraries and archives. The effort will be put into preserving the information by
copying it to new carriers whenever necessary.
In this context, it should be noted that the new UNESCO programme for the Memory
of the World has the preservation of information as one of its major objectives. The
second major objective is to greatly improve access to documents. The programme is
an attempt to find a solution to the increasing loss of documents of all types - the loss
of the Memory of the World.
4.2 Copying Costs
It was said earlier that the cost of copying a collection twice in one century in the
It is also clear that the only question is
analogue domain would be prohibitive.
When, not Will, copying be necessary. The major expense is the skilled labour
required. The cost may be reduced by selecting the material to be preserved and, thus,
reducing the size of the collection. Selection, however, will also require considerable
effort by skilled staff. These costs must be borne once to make the first digital copy.
Subsequent preservation copies can be made more cheaply and, in many cases, the
process of migrating the collection may be automated.
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__________
-..-.
-___ --_..
5. Training
As the world of libraries comes to rely more and more on technology to supplement or
replace the printed word on paper, there will be an increasing need for training. This
training will be of several types depending on the level of involvement.
The basic type of training will be to increase the awareness of people about the
possibilities offered by New Technology and to teach them to be able to make use of
the equipment. This is the equivalent level to teaching people how to use the
computerised catalogues that have been installed by many libraries. The second type
will be that required by the people running the system - the cataloguers, administrators
etc. The equivalent here is, for example, the training needed to become fully familiar
with a complex word processing or database software package. The third type of
training will be for the programmers and the maintenance technicians.
This training requirement must be costed into any proposal for the installation of
New Technology. If the training is neglected, the full benefits of the system will not
be realised and the drawbacks will be magnified. Training is not an expendable
option to be cut or postponed if the accountants say that the costs of the project must
be reduced.
6. What Can be Stored on the Current Generation of New Technology?
The storage capacities available at present permit the serious consideration of robotic
stores using magnetic tape cassettes for storing textual information either as ASCII
coded information or as scanned images. Photographic stills and sounds can also be
considered. The storage capacity available at present does not make the use of these
systems for moving images an economic proposition. This will change in the next
few years. Storage systems able hold thousands of feature movies at the high quality
required are under development now.
7. Conclusion
The purchase of New Technology must be approached rather as one would approach
a used-car salesman. Not only must you be clear about your needs, to avoid being
persuaded to buy a model with an unsuitable specification or being talked into buying
a washing machine to go with it, but you must ensure that the performance is as
claimed. A healthy dose of cynicism and an independent expert are sensible assets to
have with you when talking with suppliers. If all goes well, New Technology can be
a great friend; it also has great potential for becoming a foe.
34s
SECTION
XI: FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
11.1.1 What New Technology Can Be Recommended?

George Boston
There is no clear cut recommendation that can be made. Each archive and library will
have to examine its own needs carefully, examine the systems available with great
care and come to its own conclusion. What can be offered is some guidance in
making the choice. Factors that will need to be considered include:
1. Capital Costs
The cost of purchasing the new system is obviously a factor to be considered. What is
sometimes overlooked is the cost of installation.
2. Running Costs
The cost of storage materials per hour of recording or per page of print is another
obvious factor to be considered. Less obvious are factors such as the cost of
providing the correct storage environment, the cost of maintenance and spare parts
and the level of back-up required for the equipment to guarantee access to the
collection.
3. Specialist Staff
Specialist staff requirements are a combination of the above two points. The capital
element is the amount of training the staff will require to operate and maintain the
system. The running cost element is the salaries. The more highly trained and
specialised the staff, the more likely it is that they will also demand high salaries. If
the skill is not required on-call at all times, it may be possible to hire the skill in from
the manufacturer or the agent when required. This may be a cheaper option overall
but at the risk of longer delays in repairing breakdowns.
4. Storage Capacity
Is there sufficient storage space in the system to house the collection and allow for
expansion? Can the storage be added to as required ? This will enable the storage to
be purchased as it is required.
5. Building
Space
If the new system requires large areas of space that are not available, the custodian has
to decide whether space should be provided - a major investment in most cases - or
whether an alternative format should be chosen. The danger here is that the financial
costs may lead the Trustees or controlling board of the collection to choose a highly
data reduced format with a consequent loss of fidelity and probable future difficulties.
6. Compatibility
of the System with Existing Equipment
and Carriers
If the new system can make use of existing machines and equipment, the cost of
moving to a new format may be reduced. When examining this factor, all the existing
machinery, cable networks and operational systems must be considered.
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7. Information
Retrieval Rate
This covers both the time that it would take to find and play the carrier to a client and
the speed at which information can be extracted from the system. The reason for
considering the first of these points is client satisfaction. As the demand for
information rises and the use of computers spreads, clients are less and less willing to
wait for a document to be collected from a distant storage facility before they can
examine it.
The second point concerns the rate at which the system can deliver information.
Particularly with high-quality moving images, it is possible to store the recording
using many bytes of information and not be able to replay the sounds and images in
real-time. The rate at which the information can be supplied from the system is
slower than the rate required to reproduce the original sounds and images at the
correct speed and quality. In these circumstances, the information would be downloaded into a buffer store within the client work-station taking, perhaps, 15 minutes to
transfer 5 minutes of material. Once in the buffer store, the material may be viewed
again and again by the user without delays.
8. Ease of Access
The ease of access to information is tied in with client satisfaction. It covers such
matters as the use and completeness of the catalogue information and whether the
client can directly request information from the system or whether a member of the
collections staff has to be involved. The degree of control the client has over the
play-back of the information is also a factor. The desired answers to these questions
will vary from collection to collection and will also involve questions about the
security of the information.
9. Security of the Information
Many collections contain items that have different levels of access depending upon
copyright restrictions and/or the wishes of donors. Free access to all the collection is,
therefore, unlikely to be allowed. A series of password levels should be the minimum
security provision offered by the system.
The collection may also wish to charge for access on a time or item used basis. This
is also tied in with the security system. Certainly, no client station should be able to
alter the master copy of the stored material in any way. Access copies made for the
client, perhaps recorded to a lower standard, may be altered but not at the clients work
station.
10. Ease of Copying
This is a contentious issue and links in with security in many cases. Depending on the
copyright and access status of the material, clients should be able to obtain copies of
material, with an appropriate fee if necessary, to continue research off-line or
elsewhere. Such copies should be easy to make if allowable and difficult if not
permitted.
Copying may also be used as part of the collections policy of improving the access
and diffusion of the material to a wider audience. The copies may be used by
researchers, by the public, in education or as part of a publicity programme for the
collection.
350
11. Life Expectancy of the System

It might be as well to define System. The recording of, and access, to information
stored in a machine-readable form requires two items: the carrier of the information
and the information player - the machine. If either component is missing, the other is
worthless. To date, the weakest link has tended to be the equipment. The carriers
have outlasted the manufacturers willingness to make and supply machines and spare
parts. With all new formats an assessment of the likely duration of support from the
manufacturer and the likelihood of obtaining spare parts in the years that follow the
withdrawal of this support.
Having an assessment of the likely supported life of the equipment does not solve all
the problems facing someone choosing a new format but, at least, it gives the
collection administrator a time-scale to work within. It enables a programme to be set
up for the provision of a future replacement system.
12. Security of the System
The security of the system covers the factor of replacement equipment within the
format. For example, a system that uses magnetic tape may wish to replace some of
the machines before considering a complete change of format. It will be easier to
guarantee this if there are several manufacturers making suitable equipment. This will
mean that there is a large enough market to support several manufacturers, that the
availability of spare parts is likely to continue and that the prices are competitive.
Single-sourced equipment is much more vulnerable to the manufacturer going out of
business or ceasing to make the product.
13. Ease of Migration
The ease of copying or duplicating the collection is a factor to be considered for the
future when the next migration of the collection is made. If the process is overcomplex, it will create unnecessary and unwanted delays when the migration is being
performed. If it has not been considered by the equipment makers, discuss it with
them now while you are still a potential customer that they wish to please. Do not
leave it for 25 years or more, to the time when you want to migrate the collection
again and the company has only one machine left - in their museum.
14. Re-generation
of the Information
A modern system should include a self-checking program that routinely checks all the
carriers for errors. When the error rate rises above a certain threshold level, the
original is copied via the error-correcting program and the copy put in place of the
original.
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11.2 Long Term Strategies for Electronic
Study 11 August 1995
Documents - Report from a Swedish
Mats G. Lindquist, Consultant

The proliferation of electronic documents (henceforth called e-documents) both from
original sources and from the conversion, mostly by digitization, of traditional
documents calls for increased attention to the questions of preservation and access of
these documents.
A Swedish study was launched in May 1994 by the Royal Library (KB) in cooperation
with the National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images (ALB) and the
National Archives (RA). The objective was to identify methods for the long term
preservation and access of e-documents. Subsequently, in USA, a similar study was
initiated by the Commission for Preservation and Access (CPA). In Europe the
COBRA Task Group Five has been set up to study the long-term availability of
electronic publications. Since these studies have essentially the same mandate, it
seems sensible to coordinate the investigations and share results as they emerge. In
the following a summary of the findings from the Swedish study will be given.
Specification of the task and the identification of e-documents.
A method is seen as a systematic mode of procedure to attain an objective, in this case
the long term availability of e-documents. A method for the preservation of edocuments encompasses a set of choices or selections:
1. The selection of material. what is an e-document? which of these should be
preserved?
2. Choice of technology; which information carriers and which equipment should be
used?
3. Choice of form for representing and storing the information.
4. Selection of access mechanism; how can logical/intellectual access be secured?
5. Choice of mechanism (system) for making e-documents available.
Many projects have been carried out in different countries to address one or more of
these issues, and there are many published findings. The ambition of this study is to
combine these findings into a holistic set of recommendations.
From a national viewpoint the selection of material for long term preservation is tied
to the legislation for legal deposit (in some countries: copyright deposit) of
The material definitions in this legislation do not reflect current
documents.
technology. A review of these definitions is therefore called for. For this study the
following definition has been used:
An electronic document is one or more objects carrying information for
reading, viewing and/or listening, the content of which cannot be
rendered without the aid of electronic eauinment.
The information carrier together with a specified way of recording is a medium; the
same information can occur on several media, eg. CD-ROM and magnetic tape.
The term multi media usually refers to different kinds of information such as text,
pictures, sound and moving images, and although they mostly occur on the same
352
medium the term is so established that it is more practical to live with this
inconsistency for the time being. A multi media document, then, may or may not be
on multiple media.
The development in electronic media is currently in a very dynamic, almost turbulent
phase. Some overall trends can, however, be seen:
1. With regard to production, the volume of e-documents is increasing, and the digital
form is increasing its share at the expense of the analog form. Artistic works, and
other information products, are to an increasing extent published on multiple media,
in some cases as straightforward editions, in other cases as more complex constructs
where the contents are rearranged and modified.
2. With regard to distribution the communications networks are growing in
importance as a delivery channel, both as an alternative to physical distribution and as
a vehicle for downloading information products. Broadcast, cable and telecom
channel operators are entering each others markets.
3. With regard to storage and information carriers there is a technological convergence
between development in the computer industry and the (information) media business:
the same magnetic tape cartridge can, for example, be used for digital moving images
and data processing files. The CD-family of media is gaining a strong market position
which is further strengthened by its adoption by the PC industry.
E-documents are intimately tied to the technology used to create and display them.
The technological base also makes new conceptual constructs possible, for example so
called hyperlinks. E-documents are in several ways fundamentally different from
traditional ones. and in Appendix I a list is given of unique functional properties
(UFPs) that require consideration when planning procedures and processes for the
management of e-documents.
Findings regarding the selection of material.
For library material the technological development, above all in multimedia, will
affect the selection that is controlled by the legal deposit legislation. Content that
formerly was considered as library material will, to an increasing extent, be subject to
other legislation, or none at all. In Sweden, according to law, multi-media will be
delivered to ALB, in one copy stipulated instead of sever# which is the required
quantity for print material. So as publishers move from print to multimedia, eg for
encyclopedia, there will be gaps and inconsistencies in the collections of the deposit
libraries. This is an issue of great concern, and ways are being sought to resolve the
problem. For the long term a revision of the legislation is necessary.
In general all libraries should reconsider media-bound policies and guidelines, and
instead re-interpret their mission statements when planning their acquisitions and
collection development.
Digitisation into e-documents of traditional material in library collections can improve
both access and preservation. Before selecting material for digitization it should be
clearly stated which benefits are sought. Digitization will not reduce preservation
costs if measures are not taken to reduce the traditional preservation activities.
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---
---.--
Findings regarding media

For assessing the long term adequacy of different media there are several aspects to
consider:
- physical deterioration of the information carrier
- technical obsolescence of the recording method
- technical obsolescence of the equipment
Together these make continuous migration of information (sometimes referred to as
refreshing or re-copying) inevitable.
The longevity of different carriers has been the subject of many studies, and is under
control in the sense that the usability can be statistically predicted. Advances in
diagnostic quality assessment are being made, so the risk of information loss will be
reduced continuously. The recording methods are quite often dependent on specific
equipment, and the obsolescence of these constitute the greatest threat to the long term
availability.
Currently the Compact Disc (CD) is emerging as an important medium for many
different applications (texts, video, photographs, sound, multi-media), and there is
convergence in the technology so that different variants of CDs (Audio-CD, CDROM, Photo-CD, CD-I) are becoming compatible. This makes the CD a suitable
candidate for holding e-documents, provided that the capacity of the CD is sufficient
for the application.
For very large volumes, magnetic tape is still the most feasible solution. High
capacity storage systems based on tape-cartridges and cabinet-robots might gain
enough of a market to become a viable technical approach in the long run. The same
medium can be used for data processing storage (including back-ups) and digital
video, which can give these media a big enough market base. However, the market
growth of services such as Video-on-Demand should be followed since it will push
the technology towards high-capacity disc-storage.
Findings regarding form for representation
and storage
There are many competing formats for representing and storing information, for
example different image formats. There are also many compression algorithms,
aimed at reducing the storage required. These constitute further risks for the long
term availability because of:
- computer software obsolecence
- computer hardware obsolecence
The use of compression results in some loss of information. (There is research on
designing loss-less compression algorithms, but it has not yet resulted in specific
standards.) To achieve the benefits of compression regarding storage and handling
economy there is therefore a trade off that has to be made. Can it be justified that less
than 100% of the information is preserved for posterity if the quality of the video
material is deemed to be sufficient for current usage?
For video compression the method defined by the Motion Picture Expert Group
(MPEG) is growing in the consumer market. There are, however, different levels of
MPEG compression and it is too early to identify a long term dominant method. The
quest for more powerful compression is supported by strong market forces.
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Digitization by scanning can lead to loss of information. If scanning is used to make a

preservation copy the image quality (resolution) should be sufficiently high to make
the original superfluous.
For the representation of text there are different coding schemes, the most prevalent
being ASCII related. In an increasingly international exchange this situation is not
satisfactory since the overall design of the different IS0 set for language groups is not
modular (leads to collisions when mixing languages) and does not have sufficient
scope.
The problems related to character sets have been underestimated. To implement a
scheme based on UNICODE (which is technically compatible with IS0 10646) seems
to be a feasible alternative in the long run. The adoption of this approach in the
commercial sector will determine the long term viability of this alternative.
For the structuring of texts SGML has gained a strong position both in academia and
in the commercial sector. It can therefore be considered a candidate as part of a
However, for the needed supplements Document Type
preservation strategy.
Definitions (DTDs) the situation is still without convergence.
For document structures the situation is still fluid: the ODA and ODIF standards have
been established but do not have a wide market acceptance.
Findings regarding logical access
For access it is necessary to achieve bibliographic control of the material. Many of
the Unique Functional Properties (see Appendix 1) of e-documents have direct
One main difference
implications for cataloging and bibliographic description.
compared to traditional material is that it is necessary to describe how to access and
use. Requirements to this effect are part of the delivery procedure for material to the
Swedish National Archives (RA). Furthermore, the dependence on technology makes
it necessary to include meta-information about the e-document so that access and
preservation can be secured over time. In general, the principle of provenance,
which is fundamental for archives, should be given more recognition in the library
world.
There are several international efforts underway to develop rules for cataloging edocuments. All these should be followed closely, but since cataloging is an activity
where local features are of importance, national initiatives should be carried out as
well. Since e-documents do not fall naturally into collection categories there is a need
for more uniformity in cataloging and description between libraries, archives for
The Swedish effort to coordinate
broadcast media, and national archives.
(bibliographic) authority control between archives, museums, and libraries is a case in
point.
The links between documents and document parts, and the emerging linking between
collections, pose special problems for bibliographic control. The different parts
(objects) in a linked structure can be under the control of different bodies;
coordination of authority and budgetary responsibility must be sorted out. The
ownership vs. access trade-off requires this organizational foundation.
Findings regarding
availability
Copyright issues are still very difficult to resolve when making e-documents available
to the public. Transition to electronic form will require a total review of the
355
____-_ --.
p...c..^--
.-.
compensation systems for artistic works. Until this has happened there will be many,
and possibly individual and specific, limitations to availability.
The technological requirements for making e-documents available has implications
for investments in equipment and in staff training. So there are necessary cost
increases, but availability through electronic means can also be more effective and
have a great geographical reach. An electronic network can also tie together
collections and archives at different locations.
Equipment for electronic access is unevenly distributed among the population; this
fact must be considered when electronic availability is planned.
Tentative recommendations:
The final set of recommendations from the Swedish study has not yet been
formalized; the following points seem important to be included:
- Review the acquisition and collection development policy in view of the mission, to
identify gaps and inconsistencies caused by changes in material from traditional to
electronic form.
- Before digitizing material, make explicit what benefits are sought in terms of
accessibility, preservation and economy.
- Prepare for digital representation of images and video.
- Plan for a continuous migration (refreshing) of e-documents. This will incur a cost
that is a direct function of the longevity of the medium. Shelving arrangements to
facilitate migration and technical maintenance should be considered.
- Choose standardized products with a wide market acceptance as archival media. For
some applications the CD seems to be a suitable candidate for archiving information,
- Make trade-offs between compression and image (and video) quality explicit.
Define minimum quality levels in terms of resolution (and video quality) for different
applications.
- Prepare for a two-byte representation of text; follow the market acceptance of
Unicode.
- Harmonize cataloging rules with ongoing international work regarding e-documents.
Work nationally on harmonizing rules for description of library collections and
archives.
A note on experience exchange
To an increasing extent libraries, archives on the national and local levels, and
archives of recorded sound and moving images will face the same problems with
regard to preservation and access since the material they handle will be based on
Digital information will in some respects look the same
similar technologies.
regardless of whether it represents text, images, sound or video.
In the Swedish study the steering committee consists of representatives from the
Royal Library (KB), the National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images
(ALB), and the National Archives @A). It has been fruitful to have three different
356
points-of-view when discussing issues relating to long term strategies. Since the
amount of e-documents will increase for all three organizations there are benefits to be
achieved in sharing experiences.
To outline the situation one can point out specific areas of expertise:
- Libraries have a strong position with experience in subject control and character sets
(and questions about filing order);
- Archives for broadcast media have experience of handling large volumes of
information, and of migration. They also have technical experience of video and
moving images.
- National archives have long standing experience of applying the principle of
provenance, and of considering meta-data in object descriptions. They also have
experience of handling computer produced records (in various formats).
It therefore seems natural that all three types of organization should be represented in
future projects relating to e-documents. In addition it would be fruitful to include
museums since these organizations also have begun to digitize some of their
document collections.
Appendix 1.
UFPs for electronic documents
The following is a list of unique functional properties (UFPs) of electronic documents
(e-documents) that set them apart from traditional documents, and that require
consideration when planning procedures and processes for the management of edocuments. In some cases established concepts and legal aspects must be reviewed.
E-documents encompass in a uniform way information that
Transcendence.
traditionally has been considered to be of different kinds: text, graphics, images,
sound, and video. All definitions and classification of documents based on media
must be reconsidered. Digitalization is making it difficult to maintain consequential
differences based on media. E-documents are also, at the same time, potential print,
film, phonogram and video.
Large volume. Technical tools for the production of e-documents are powerful and
have a large installed base. The number of producers is beyond estimation. Edocuments with image information are voluminous,
Multiplicity (variants). E-documents can be manipulated relatively easy, and this is
indeed one of the benefits of them. Re-use of information characterizes both the
commercial publishing world and the individual arena. The consequences are
problems of physical control and problems with information integrity.
Copies equal to or better than the original. E-documents can be copied without loss
of quality. Together with the ease of manipulation this compounds the problem of
The distribution of originals cannot be controlled by
establishing authenticity.
technical means. The quality of an e-document can be enhanced by algorithmic
methods. shapes and forms can be made more distinct, shadows can be washed away.
Restoration of e-documents must be considered as part of preservation.
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Links (pointers). E-documents have structures that are, at least to a part, logical
constructs. They can encompass parts which are not physically connected (or
bundled). Links occur on several levels. within a document eg. hypertext), between
documents, within/between series, and within/between collections. Emerging are also
These links raise organizational questions about
links between libraries/archives.
responsibility and economic aspects of co-ordination.
Foreseeable impermanence.
E-documents are intimately tied to the technology
Technological development gives new dimensions to
used for their creation.
Technological obsolescence must be considered
maintenance and preservation.
especially. Physical attrition is also a problem.
Volatile distribution.
E-documents can be distributed without manifesting
themselves as a physical instance (copy).
Access to an e-document can be
equivalent to having it.
As a consequence of the transcendence (above) it is
Complex copyright.
problematic to apply the legislation on intellectual property rights for e-documents
since the laws often build on definitions that are media-based. Economic (and
aesthetic) consequences cannot be foreseen which leads to complicated discussions
about compensations.
SECTION XII EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS
12.1 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Recovery in Audiovisual
Collections
Gerald D Gibson, Library of Congress, Washington DC

Paper presented in the Technical
conference in Bogensee 1994
Committee
session during
the IASA/FIAT
In addition to work with colleagues in IASA on this topic, the Library of Congress
assigned me the responsibility to analyse the facilities and needs of its Motion Picture,
Broadcasting. and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) and to a develop an emergency
preparedness and disaster recovery plan for the audio and moving-image holdings.
The following is a preliminary report of the progress at the Library of Congress to date
on that work, and a request of assistance from each of you in gathering additional
information on how to approach and meet this assignment. Unfortunately, the plan is
far from complete, and except for the acquisition and placement of a number of
emergency supplies - its implementation has just begun.
Plans have been prepared and are routinely tested in most of our institutions for the
safety and protection of personnel. While human life takes precedence when
formulating the priorities of an emergency plan, and, in general, building codes are
developed to guard against the risks of damage to facilities, little has been done to
safeguard collections against the unknown. Most of us have sole responsibility for
irreplaceable and valuable objects and collections of information essential to our
collective national and international history and cultural heritage. As such, we hold
primary responsibility to protect and prevent damage and loss to such materials.
It seems that all of us have made efforts in the past to protect our collections - and
some have actually carried through and have strategies in place. Unfortunately, few of
us have current plans or have implemented the procedures for those for such
situations.
A plan for staff will usually take into consideration a number of points, including
general emergency procedures; building alarms and evacuation procedures; health
services for emergencies; power outages; elevator safety instructions; and procedures
to follow in the event of bomb threats or explosions, chemical spills, fire, and floods.
The Safety Office at the Library of Congress has overall responsibility to review,
maintain, and implement this plan. For obvious reasons, certain portions of any such
plans remain confidential and are shared only on a need to know basis (for example,
those parts of such a plan dealing with sabotage threats). Without such secrecy the
plans, themselves, can and will be circumvented by the very people they are designed
to protect against. Still, the key personnel must be entrusted with planned procedures
or the plan is useless. If you do not have such a plan, please write or FAX me in
Washington and I will send you a copy of the Library of Congresss strategy for staff
emergencies. You can then see how we have approached the issue and modify it to
meet your situation and needs. In return, I ask that those of you with such plans in
place will, also, send a copy to me for the same purpose.
For collections, the Library of Congress has decided that the Preservation Office, shall
have primary responsibility and authority. We have determined that we must assign
specific personnel - with adequate backup in the event that they are not available These persons are responsible to
with assignment for each of the collections.
prioritize collections and train staff within individual units, prepare and distribute
materials on alert procedures for staff orientation and signage for visitors, establish
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and stock supply lockers/rooms with emergency supplies and equipment, and train
appropriate personnel in each unit, and be sure that support staff are, in turn, trained in
recovery procedures.
The assignment of primary responsibility -an individual with specifically identified
deputies - is the essential first step and should be done immediately, even if further
actions are delayed. The individual must be given full support and all staff must know
that in the event of an emergency this person and their surrogate/s speak with the full
authority and responsibility of the entire institution. One of the first obligations of this
assignment must be to establish a firm schedule for design and implementation of the
components of the emergency preparedness / disaster recovery plan.
Emergency preparedness MUST be viewed as an on-going process, consciously and
methodically cultivated so that it becomes ingrained into the very fabric of your routine.
No single written document will sufficiently address the issues for all situations. Nor
should a Plan take precedence over the process of planning, prevention, and training.
ALL such plans must be reviewed and revised on a regular scheduled basis. Further,
emergency preparedness must be a collective endeavour. An emergency preparedness
plan must of necessity involve personnel from all functions and disciplines. It must
concern itself not just with storage and preservation specialists, but also with engineers,
technicians, senior administration, management, and the full range of service groups in
your institution.
The first step in such a plan is ASSESSMENT OF RISKS TO THE COLLECTION. It
is either the very lucky or the very young collection that has not had at least one major
emergency. Many, such as my own institution, the Library of Congress, have had
numerous situations over its life. In our case these range from the intentional burning of
the collections during times of war, through water in storage areas from burst pipes and
leaking sprinklers, to intentional acts of vandalism. One of the first steps of any
emergency plan is to assess what emergencies have occurred in the past and to assess
their potential for recurring in the future. When beginning this process at the Library we
undertook a survey of how much damage would be done should a single sprinkler head
go off. The criteria were to evaluate the numbers of items in various formats if stored
on floor-accessible shelving in a 25 sq. ft. area, the designed coverage of many such
devices. We found that such an event could have serious effects upon a surprisingly large
number of items. In the area in which I work, audio and moving-image media, for
example, it could affect as many as 38,000 acetate discs, or 50,000 magnetic tapes, or
90,000 vinyl discs, or 14,000 cans of 16mm film. We had to realize that, dependent upon
how much time passed before the water were shut off and the standing water removed,
the damage from the release of just a single sprinkler head would probably be an
emergency beyond the capacity of immediately available staff in the various work units!
The resources of the Library would be seriously affected by just one emergency of this
magnitude, and it would probably require many weeks to recover and get back to normal.
Assuming that irreversible damage was not done at the outset of such an emergency,
there is a maximum of 48 hours before such things as mold growth would begin. Even
before this, binders would break down and paper dissolve, ink on labels run or be washed
off, building structure can, potentially, be severely damaged, electrical circuits can be
overloaded and short circuit resulting in electrical fires. The list is very frightening to
consider.
An important part of RISK ASSESSMENT is to develop a working file of blue-prints,
or plans, of each of the areas where collections are, or might reasonably be expected to
be, located or used. Mark this plan with such information as: previous problems (leaks,
chemicals problems, etc.), alarm boxes, in the event of the failure of lighting, what is the
360
physical arrangement of the area so that personnel can move around with some
confidence (where are the aisles, if using compact shelving, where are the controls to
shift the stacks, etc.), what is the location for sprinkler and other water shut-off valves
and who has keys to access them and authority to shut them off, where are the electrical
switches, the master electrical boxes and shutoffs, hand-held fire extinguishers, and
location of emergency supplies. These blue-prints should be located in multiple, readily
accessible places, not just locked in the directors office. Some of the areas where they
should be placed are in the security office, with the local fire department, at the home of
key staff member/s and their deputy.
The Library of Congress concluded that, in order to respond as quickly as possible,
emergency preparedness must include an established communications system - a
telephone tree, for example with appropriate 24-hour contacts for the local fire
department, security offices, engineers, and the staff of each unit. This information
should be reviewed at the time of ANY staff changes, should be clearly posted for all to
see, should be part of the at-home requirements of those in areas of responsibility and
authority, and should have clearly designated alternates in the event someone can not be
reached.
Another important, but frequently difficult, decision is to PRIORITIZE COLLECTIONS
to determine what is to be salvaged first. Most of us do not realize fully that time is at
a premium when an emergency takes place. Staff must be made aware of this decision,
and must be properly trained in how to evaluate the situation to determine if there is time
to salvage even the most valued item in the collection. Of equal importance is
TRAINING THE STAFF to know HOW to handle an item and what to do should the
most common problem -water- be coming into the area. How is the item handled? Does
it need to be covered if water is cascading into the area?
A simple effort we can all undertake now is to determine, acquire, and maintain those
supplies essential in the event of the most common problems. The Library of Congress
found a firm, ReActPak, which sells a containerized package of some of the most needed
items when an emergency arises: plastic sheeting, plastic garbage pails (the corrugated
plastic container in which the supplies are shipped serves this purpose), large sponges,
pails and buckets, flashlight with extra batteries, protective clothing (plastic aprons,
gloves, boots, etc.), blotters to absorb standing water, inventorying materials (paper,
notebooks, soft pencils, waterproof felt tip pens, colored pressure sensitive tape, scissors,
duct/boxing tape, and a first aid kit), and the like. In addition, we believe that additional
stocks of such things as wet-or-dry vacuums, large sheets of heavy duty plastic sheeting
(8and 16 x 150~ 3-5ml. thick, for example), large fans to circulate the air, water proof
tape to seal leaks in pipes, battery operated emergency lighting, emergency air support
systems, zip-lock bags, plastic bubble-wrap, a large quantity of absorbent paper towels,
a large roll of 24 wide polyester nonwoven fabric for interleaving, etc. Finally in this
area, if such supplies are not readily available at all times of the day or night they are
useless. This means that the SUPPLY LOCKERS/ROOMS WITH EMERGENCY
SUPPLIES and EQUIPMENT must remain unlocked at all times. This, in turn, means
that the supplies must be checked regularly and replenished as needed.
We are just now developing our list of emergency supplies specific to audio and movingimage media. I would welcome hearing from you if you have suggestions -especially if
you have experiences.
Even the best plan will fail if the staff are not TRAINED, including SUPPORT STAFF.
This includes not only the in-house personnel but, also, such people as the local fire
squad - the worst nitrate film fire that I have ever personally witnessed was made MUCH
361
worse because the firemen did not know what was in the storage vaults, did not
understand what it meant when told, and treated the blaze as a normal vault storage fire.
Further, if they understand the importance and value of the materials in your facility they
can possibly make minor modifications which will have major impact on your ability to
recover the media and, hence, the data after the emergency is past.
As in much of our audio and moving-image world, the limited research and testing which
has been done in this area - and it seems to be very limited - has been aimed at paper and
paper-based materials. One of the few documents I know on disaster recovery of
magnetic tape, for example, is a recent, not-yet published paper by Edward F. Cuddihy
of California Institute of Technologys Jet Propulsion Lab at a conference in Paris this
past May. I believe it to be of such importance that I will close this paper with a
summary of what Dr. Cuddihy recommends: ...polyester based tape which has become
wet, as caused by a flood or accidentally dropped in oceans or lakes, should be kept
UNDER clean, cold water -nominally at 0 C- until such time as it can be carefully
examined, cleaned of water borne debris, and - if the tape can be easily rewound - wound
loosely onto another reel. This winding should, also, be carried out IN ice-water to rinse
the layers as they become unwound, or in a cold room having a temperature less than
11 C. The loosely wound tapes should then be placed in a vacuum chamber to dry-out.
This chamber may be identical to those used for drying wet books or other wet
documents. DO NOT HEAT THE TAPES. For guidance, Dr. Cuddihy points out that,
under a hard vacuum, 12.7mm tapes require two to three days for total dry-out, and
25.4m tapes require four to five days.
After vacuum dry-out, expose the tapes to an ambient environment equal to their
intended storage conditions. Again as guidance, Dr. Cuddihy points out that this will,
also, probably take two to five days at 20C and 50% R/H, dependent upon the size of
the tape reels and he conditions. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNWIND THE DRY TAPE
AS IT MAY BE BRITTLE.
After the tape has been acclimatized to its storage conditions an effort to carefully
unwind the tapes should be attempted. Dr. Cuddihy reports that tape which has been
exposed to cold water (less than 11 C in his opinion), or moderately degraded tapes,
should unwind with reasonable force which does not cause mechanical damage to or
shedding of the oxide layer. If the tapes can be unwound, a tissue wipe on a standard
tape cleaner is recommended before attempting playback.
At this stage..., there may be two situations.... The first is that the tapes can be unwound
and wound from reel-to-reel, but cannot be played without squeal, shedding, and so on.
The second is that the tape pack cannot be unwound at all, without oxide damage.
To achieve a playable condition, a high risk procedure can be attempted. This procedure
involves heating the tape pack at 75 C, in vacuum or in dry nitrogen, in an attempt to
chemically reverse the hydrolysis reaction, to restart the binder chemistry and its
mechanical and physical properties, and to reduce the quality of hydrolyzed products in
the polyester urethane binders. There is a reasonable chance that a playable state may
be achieved for tapes which could be unwound and wound prior to this heating, and a
very low chance for very severely degraded tapes which could not be unwound prior to
the heating procedure. Attempting the procedure is a risk/reward trade-off decision, and
the heating procedure may have to be repeated several times....
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Dr. Cuddihy does not specifically say so, but I believe it imperative that, once the
above steps are completed, and presuming you are able to play the tape, it should be
copied as soon as possible.
We at the Library of Congress have not tried this process, so I am not necessarily
recommending it, only reporting the information which has come to me. If any of you
have had experience in such cases we would all profit from your knowledge.
In conclusion, the Library of Congress, unfortunately, does not yet have an emergency
plan for audio or moving-image media or data. We are in the first stages of putting
one together and would welcome your comments and experience, particularly if you
have been through a crisis with these materials, or you have such a plan in place. I
would welcome hearing from you at your earliest possible convenience.
DISASTER/EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS
I. Staff Emergency Procedures

A. General Instructions
1. Building Alarms and Evacuations
a. Building Evacuation Assembly Locations
b. Building Evacuation Alarms and Notices
2. Safety Procedures
a. Building Evacuation Procedures
b. Fire Extinguisher Location
c. Fire Notice Procedures
B. Specific Situations
1, Health Service Emergencies
2. Power Outages
3. Bomb Threats and Suspicious Objects
4. Chemical Spills
5. Explosions
6. Fire
7. Flood and Water Damage
8. Medical Emergencies
9. Elevator Emergencies
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II. Collection Emergency Procedures

A. Telephone Tree for Internal Use
B. Emergency Site Plan
1. Blue Print of Facility
2. Location of Alarm Boxes
3. Location of Fire Extinguisher
4. Location of Emergency Supplies
a. Contents
b. Use
5. Location of Water and Electrical Shut-offs
6. Location of Previous Problem Areas
C. Collection Priorities
D. Disaster Recovery
1. Staffing
2. Budget
3. Supplies
4. Procedures
a. Magnetic
1) Open reel
2) Cassette/cartridge
b. Film
1) Nitrate
2) Diacetate
3) Triacetate
4) Polyester
c. Grooved discs
1) Wax
2) Shellac
3) Vinyl
4) Acetate
5) Polycarbonate/Optical
6) Laminates
d. Cylinders
1) Wax
2) Celluloid
e. Mechanical instrument devices
1) Rolls
2) Music box discs
SECTION
XIII
EDUCATION
13.1 NEW MEDIA

TRAINING
REQUIRE
AND EDUCATION
AND TRAINING
SPECIALIZED
ARCHIVISTS
FOR AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVISTS
Wolfgang Klaue, Staatliches Filmarchiv der D.D.R., Berlin
INTRODUCTION
Archives for audiovisual material are relatively new. The first sound recording
process was devised in 1877. The earliest sound archives were set up in the twenties,
but most of them were established after 1945, in close association with the
development of magnetic sound recording. Moving images were projected for the
first time in 1895. The earliest film archives opened after 1930. The technical
foundation for television was laid in the thirties. Television archives multiplied in the
main after 1950, alongside the mass expansion of television. Forty, fifty, sixty years
are a short space of time in historical terms for the evolution of completely new types
of archive, but if we look closely, we find the period can really be narrowed down to
about three decades. When audiovisual archives were in the embryonic stage, it was
impossible to foresee the complexity of the new problems, questions and demands
which would arise. World War II interrupted the process when it was barely
underway, stripping down the functions of these archives to the mere task of
preserving collections. And so it was not really until the years after 1945 that
audiovisual archives received a particular boost to their development. The reasons for
this were scientific and technological progress in the media and communications
industry, which permitted an astonishing impetus to the mass media of film, radio and
television, and also the fact that the young audiovisual archives were able to develop
under peaceful conditions in most countries.
At this point audiovisual material was not accepted either as art or as an historical
source. The history and archive sciences were slow to tackle media which promoted
entertainment as well as disseminating art, culture and knowledge.
Sceptical
reluctance towards audiovisual archives did not prevent their foundation, but it did
hamper timely recognition of new theoretical and practical problems.
Serious
deficiencies in the training of staff for audiovisual archives are due in part to this. In
the industrial countries, audiovisual archives have developed with tremendous
momentum over the last thirty years. One peculiar feature of radio, film and TV as
media is that they cannot function, or else can function only at a very low level?
without archives. The proportions vary greatly, but archive material constitutes
between 20 % and 60 % of the daily programmes of radio and TV broadcasting
stations. And the fact that films can be re-used in a variety of ways for cinema,
television and cassettes has enhanced the status of film archives. Audiovisual
archives house vast economic treasures. The State Film Archive in the GDR stocks
some 700,000 reels of film, *at a raw stock value of about US$450 billion. The
contents of an average televrsron channel archive represent several billion US dollars
of converted production. These figures assume even greater weight when they are
compared to the costs of new productions, which lie between US$ 50 and $100 per
minute for radio and between $ 500 and $ 3,000 per minute for television.
Efficient archives guaranteeing optimum preservation and the fastest possible access
are a conditio sine qua non of the modem mass media. No doubt this complex
integration into a production process is a feature peculiar to audiovisual archives, but
365
this does not mean that their function is radically different. They are archives
courantes on the one hand and historical archives on the other. The dividing line has
become very flimsy.
The dynamic development of audiovisual archives in
industrialized countries should not, however, disguise the fact that: - there is
considerable ground to make up in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin
America, where audiovisual material is deposited on a fragmentary and sporadic basis;
- irreparable losses have been suffered in the past and even today most of the material
worth keeping is not safeguarded in many countries; - inadequate financial support in
particular is jeopardizing the preservation of collections; - staff qualifications do not
match the greater demands posed by audiovisual archives in both developing and
developed countries.
TRAINING
AND IN-SERVICE
EDUCATION
TO DATE
There are approximately 30,000 radio and TV stations around the world. Many of
these have archives at their disposal. Films are made in over 100 countries. Film
archives are known to exist in about 70 countries. Where have the thousands of staff
members acquired their qualifications for work in audiovisual archives? The answer
is paradoxical: with one exception in the USSR, there is no systematic training for the
staff of audiovisual archives. At a UNESCO Round Table in 1987, which will be
discussed in more detail below, the participants arrived at the conclusion: Necessary
qualifications for working in film, TV and sound archives have been acquired so far
through most different scientific disciplines, long professional experience,
supplemented by on-the-spot training and individual efforts. Many staff members of
audiovisual archives are autodidacts. They acquired their professional knowledge in
an indirect way over a long period of time. There is a serious contradiction between
the growing importance of moving image archives in developed and developing
countries and the present possibilities for education. The lack of facilities for initial
and in-service training for audiovisual archives has been evident for many years and
has led to a number of initiatives at national and international level. The Federation
Intemationale des Archives du Film (FIAF) held its first Summer School in 1973.
The event has been run six times since then (five times in Berlin/GDR and once in
Copenhagen), enabling about 100 employees of film archives to acquire a three-week
basic training in all areas of the work of these specialized archives. The Federation
Intemationale des Archives de Television (FIAT) and the International Association of
Sound Archives (IASA) hold symposia and training courses in their special fields.
Several NGOs came together in 1983 (Stockholm) and 1987 (Berlin/West) to
organize technical archive symposia, with discussion of the latest scientific research
into preserving and restoring audiovisual material. On-the-spot training, which is the
practice in an major archives, has definitely been the most crucial method of training
staff. This method has had its advantages and its limitations:
- programmes were narrowly specialized and aimed at limited target groups;
- instruction was restricted to the partial knowledge required by participants or to very
general rudimentary knowledge of film, TV and sound archives;
- training focussed primarily on practical aspects. The aim was to skill or specialize
participants in a certain field of work;
- courses were limited in time. They took place as the need arose. There was a lack
of continuity.
In 1980, at UNESCOs 2 1st General Conference, consensus consideration was given
to the Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images.
This document draws the attention of all governments to the significance of the
audiovisual heritage and to the measures necessary for preserving it. Articles 19 and
2Oc contain an explicit demand for the organization of training programmes and for
366
international cooperation in the field. (Art. 19: Training programmes on the

safeguarding and restoration of moving images should be organized, covering the
most recent methods and techniques. Art. 20: Member States are invited to associate
their efforts in order to promote the safeguarding and preservation of moving images
which form part of the cultural heritage of nations. Such cooperation should be
stimulated by the competent international governmental and non- governmental
organizations and should comprise the following measures: (c) Organization of
national or international training courses in related fields in particular for nationals of
developing countries.) The Recommendation gave an important new impetus to
training audiovisual archivists: UNESCO enabled the holding of regional seminars in
Mexico (1981), Poona, Sao PauloRio de Janeiro (1984), Maputo (1986). UNESCO
has also supported the publication of various basic manuals on. the problems of
audiovisual archives (Handbook for Film Archives, 1980, FIAF. Panorama of
Audiovisual Archives, 1986, FIAT. Preservation and Restoration of Moving Images
and Sound, 1986, FIAF.). UNESCO has subsidized individual fellowships, FIAF
Summer Schools, and technical symposia. A number of projects were also carried out
as part of the RAMP programme, including Sam Kulas study The Archival appraisal
of moving images (UNESCO, 1983) and various regional training courses
(Indonesia, Kenya). The measures mentioned above sparked off more demand than
they could satisfy. Each regional seminar drew up new, urgent appeals for support in
training staff. From the early eighties, too, those NGOs specializing in archiving
audiovisual material have been discussing problems of training in their annual Round
Table. Partial progress has not resulted in any fundamental change. For this reason, a
proposal was made in 1986 to convene an expert meeting concerned exclusively with
initial and in-service training for employees of film, TV and sound archives.
UNESCO took up the proposal, and the meeting was held in Berlin/West in May
1987.
ROUND TABLE
ON TRAINING
STAFF FOR AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVES
The meeting was of historic significance. It was the first time that representatives of
various NGOs (FIAF, FIAT, IASA, ICA, IFLA, CICT - International Film and
Television Council, CILECT - International Association of Film Schools) had come
together to discuss initial and in-service training for the staff of audiovisual archives.
Some of the NGOs which participated had been working on major blueprints for
training audiovisual or media archivists. For several years the IASA Training
Committee chaired by Dr Rainer Hubert (Vienna) has been analysing the practice and
requirements of training in sound archives and elaborating appropriate programmes.
Paul Frtih (Switzerland) presented the 5th General Meeting of FIAT in 1984 with a
framework for in-service education for archivists and documentalists in audiovisual
media. Prof. Friedrich Kahlenberg (Koblenz) had lectured on training media
archivists to the 10th International Archive Congress in 1985. It was soon clear at the
two-day meeting in Berlin/West that, for all this positive experience, there was much
new territory to cover. The value of this Round Table lay in the agreement reached on
several basic principles, the collation of unsolved problems, and the adoption of some
practical measures to intensify cooperation. A long list of recommendations was
compiled, and the following deserve special mention here:
- exchange of regular information about training courses run by NGOs and their
members;
- a record of the teaching programmes hitherto used for in-service training events;
- identification of the archives need for qualified staff in various special fields;
- identification of institutions that might be willing to train audiovisual archivists;
- compilation of a list of suitable instructors.
367
UNESCO is recommended to:

- draw up a feasibility study on how existing institutions in Asia, Africa and Latin
America could be used to support training of audiovisual archivists;
- incorporate in-service training measures for specialists in audiovisual archives and
for instructors into its programme;
- assist in a preliminary study on how to exploit the potential for distance teaching for
audiovisual archivists, and
- facilitate another meeting of experts in 1989. The measures recommended seem
attainable if all concerned demonstrate their goodwill.
MANY QUESTIONS
AND PROBLEMS
- SOME ANSWERS
Is the demand for improved training for audiovisual archivists only being raised by a
handfil of enthusiasts, or is there really an objective need?
In 1986, under contract to UNESCO, FIAF and FIAT carried out a worldwide survey
of the situation in film and television archives. In their final reports they came to the
following conclusions:
FIAF
Insufficient funding and the lack of trained staff for moving image archives were two
fundamental problems stressed by most of the participating 78 countries.
In
questionnaire III (sent to countries with established archives, 44 answers received)
more precise questions were put on the areas in which training is needed:
- film handling and restoration in 28 countries, cataloguing and usage of computers in
25 countries, documentation, librarianship in 18 countries, archive management in 19
countries.
For all incipient and new archives, training of staff is one of the most crucial points in
further progress.
FIAT
Training of archive staff is a clear need stated by all organizations answering the
questionnaire. Those answering questionnaire II state that training at university level
does not exist and that even basic training is quite deficient.
How great is the demandfor today and tomorrow?
The NGOs have agreed to seek an answer to this question. One thing is already
certain: need varies tremendously from one country to another, and specialized
training is not justifiable everywhere.
Education or training: what is required?
Both are considered necessary. Proven forms of on-the-spot training, courses,
seminars and summer schools at national, regional and international level should be
continued, systematized, co-ordinated and expanded. It is, however, also necessary to
create an academic qualification for employees of audiovisual archives. Acquiring
knowledge in the roundabout manner is not very efficient, takes too long and does not
meet practical requirements.
368
In whichJields should audiovisual archivists specialize ? Do the traditional scientific

disciplines not offer an adequate foundation?
Decades of practical experience in audiovisual archives have
theoretical questions. Investigation and analysis are still in the
evident that a new scientific specialization and differentiation
mention but a few of the new problem areas posed in audiovisual
given birth to new

early stage, but it is
are emerging. To
archives:
Access - Is a legal deposit for audiovisual material, similar to that for books and
magazines, possible, necessary or desirable? Archive practice can testify to a wide
variety of models, ranging from compulsory deposit and donation through to purchase.
All these models have their roots in specific social conditions. The advantages and
disadvantages should be analyzed.
Evaluation - Completely new aspects have to be considered in establishing criteria for
evaluation: the cost of the material itself, production costs, the totally new pattern of
users. Individual researchers are not the primary users of audiovisual archives, but
rather institutions in the audiovisual media whose main concern is to use the archive
material again.
Cataloguing - Existing standards for books or non-book material have proved
unsuitable for cataloguing audiovisual material. New methodological demands are
made on cataloguing, documentation and indexing by the specific nature of the
various recording procedures, the manner in which non-readable data carriers are
rendered usable, and the combination of sound and visual elements.
Preservation and Restoration - The physical and chemical properties of recording
materials call for scientifically devised methods of storage, handling and restoration
which are not the same as those applied to conventional archive, library and museum
stock. The ongoing refinement of reproduction technologies gives rise to ethical and
theoretical questions concerning the potential manipulation of original audiovisual
documents.
Source Criticism - The tools hitherto used in source criticism are not adequate to
identify the authenticity of audiovisual material.
Use - In the field of audiovisual media the traditional pattern of division into archives
courantes and historical archives is no longer or else not yet pronounced. Usually
both functions have to be met simultaneously. This places demands on the level of
accessibility, cataloguing and indexing, which must do justice to both day-to-day
reference and scientific processing. The list of interesting problems created by the
work of audiovisual archives could be expanded. This selection is intended as an
indication of the need to respond to the specific problems of audiovisual archives with
specific scientific investigation, and to furnish the archivist with the specialized
knowledge that this work demands.
All-round
training or specialization?
Should there be a general training for work in archives of audiovisual media

specialization in the work of sound, film or television archives? The meeting of
experts in Berlin expressed a preference for an all-round basic training, which would
impart theoretical and practical knowledge about archiving all audiovisual in spite of
the many differences between the various media, the common factors dominate in the
custodial duties of an archive. A training founded on this understanding will produce
staff who could be flexibly deployed. Scientific and technical archive training should
369
be separate. One of the characteristics of audiovisual archive material is the broad

technology applied to its preservation, conservation, restoration and utilization. An
archive manager should be familiar with the general functions of an audiovisual
archive, while an archive scientist must also possess basic technical knowledge about
the various recording processes. A training in av-archive science could lay the
foundation for employment in archive management, cataloguing, documenting, access
Training for specialists in film, video and sound
and customer requirements.
technology, chemistry, air conditioning equipment, etc. must be provided through the
technical disciplines.
At what levels would specialized training be desirable?
Specialised training via the academic path would be appropriate for top and middle
management. Qualified employees with specialist knowledge are also required.
Various forms of in-service training at the place of work have proved their worth for
this group in particular.
Where should staffor
audiovisual archives receive their training?
The realistic approach is not seen in the creation of new institutes, but rather in
integration into existing training programmes at educational establishments for
archivists, librarians, documentalists, and media, information and film scientists.
Quick results can hardly be expected. There is a lack of teaching staff. Training the
trainers, as it was phrased at the Berlin meeting, is a key problem all over the world
in setting up a specialized academic training for staff from audiovisual archives.
There is a lack of adequate scientific teaching material. Initial publications on the
work of film, television and sound archives have just appeared. But many problems
There is a lack of the technical
call for an even more thorough investigation.
equipment required to provide a training that is practically relevant. These and many
more problems can doubtless not be solved in the short term. But wherever possible a
start should be made on specialized training for audiovisual archivists.
The
authorities responsible will have to be reminded again and again of the commitment
they undertook, in adopting the 1980 Recommendation, to preserve the audiovisual
heritage as part of the national culture of every country.
370
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13.2 TRAINING
Curriculum
AND TRAINING
NEEDS FOR AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVISTS
Development Working Party
1. A number of considerations have to be taken into account in the education and

professional development of audiovisual archivists, including economic considerations,
cultural heritage and technical innovation. A 1989 UNESCO study Video-World-Wide
examined the international development of the mass media in 39 countries and
reconfirmed other UNESCO findings.
There are major discrepancies and irregularities in the applications of mass
communication at a global level, by the press, television, radio and cinematograph film.
Nations with a highly developed economy are in a much better position to propagate their
own ideas of culture and civilisation, whereas experience shows that the cultural identity
of the developing countries and their own historical self-understanding is pushed into the
background and neglected. The summit meeting of the seven most highly developed
capitalist industrial nations in Paris, July 1989 estimated the third world debt at 1.5
billion US dollars. The 1989 development report of the World Bank commented upon
this state of affairs as follows: Developing countries in Africa and Latin America which
have fallen behind in the rapidly expanding world economy, will hardly be able to regain
ground in the years to come. This also places restrictions on the preservation of the
international cultural heritage.
Many countries in Asia, Central and South America will be especially hard hit by this
development and it will be difficult to enforce the UN principle of one country - one
voice in the field of audiovisual media. On the other hand, modem satellite television
and audiovisual technology suitable for home use have begun to open up prospects for
increased understanding between peoples and for the preservation and development of
national and cultural identities.
2. Modem technology facilitates exchanges of experience in the preservation of a
nations cultural heritage and allows for the broadcasting of unique aspects of ethnic
cultures. Politicians in conjunction with initiatives launched by UN/UNESCO, have time
and again pointed out the need to extend cooperation in the field of culture. By this they
also envisage a new level of exchange of information and a situation where nations and
peoples can get to know one another. Worldwide, tv can play a special role in this
process through its capacity to establish contact between several hundred million people
and provide them with information.
In Europe, EEC and CMEA countries foresee the possibility of joint cooperation in the
preservation of historical and cultural monuments, the joint production of films to
publicise the achievements of national cultures and the finest artistic creations of past and
present.
Inasmuch as the UNESCO study Video-World-Wide is an invitation to reflect on video
as a medium and to carry out practical experiments in this new and expanding technical
field, it applies equally to videos historic predecessors (photography, film, sound
recording, radio and television broadcasting). Thus archivists will be involved in the
process of growing international understanding and communication as the guardians of
its sources.
3. If their initiatives to promote training and professional development are not to
become Utopian, they must be based on the financial, material and human resources
371
available in order to begin to be able to safeguard, preserve, use and make accessible
the cultural heritage contained in archives. All research done so far in the field of
audiovisual archives, even in the developed industrial nations, has drawn attention to
considerable deficits in the preservation of source material.
It has been recognised and accepted as a world wide priority that in order to safeguard
the audiovisual cultural heritage it is necessary to recruit qualified employees in the
professional fields of information and documentation, in libraries, museums and
archives, who are able to cope with the growing demands being made on them in their
professional duties.
All schemes planned for the training of av archivists - in the form of either short-term
workshops, summer schools, regional seminars, full-time or correspondence courses
with certified leaving examinations - should take account of two aspects in particular:
- the components of the content of study courses
- technical skills which av archivists require for their duties.
4 According to Unesco statistics there are more than 6000 major broadcasting stations
and 1200 major television stations distributed all over the world, indicating the size of
the need for education and vocational development. The exact figure of public and
private stations however is much higher, possibly exceeding 50,000, and each of these
stations will store audiovisual archival records. The lntemational Association of
Sound Archives (IASA) names over 400 institutions (archives, libraries and
museums) engaged in sound recording. The International Federation of Film Archives
(FIAF) embraces more than 100 such establishments in countries all over the world.
In addition figures can be supplemented by the thousands of photograph and press
archives. The current production capacity of broadcasting services can be estimated at
several thousand millions of US Dollars. The Federal Republic of Germany alone
would require an annual budget of more than a hundred million DM to centralise and
expertly safeguard, document and make accessible the material produced by its two tv
stations, ARD and ZDF.
In addition there is the av material stored in archives run by states, towns, economic
enterprises, and social organisations etc. and related museum and library departments.
The ability of these bodies and institutions to preserve existing archival records and to
cope with new additions each year differs considerably. The audiovisual cultural
heritage stored on information carriers which lack even the durability of paper, is at
the greatest risk of being lost. This also applies to the technical aspects of
photography, sound recording, silent and sound film, black-and-white and colour film
and to sound carriers used by radio, tv or for home use.
372
Fig. 1 Source. Australian Archives. Annual Report 198788, Canberra p.38.
Audiovisual records = 3%
- phonograph discs
- photographic negatives
- and prints including
- X-rays
PaPU93%
- cinematograph film
- sound recordings
- videotapes
Percentage of tapes held nationally as at 30 June 1988 under the custodial

management of the Australian Archives - by format, measured in shelf metres or shelf
metre equivalent.
5. Media archives constitute approximately 7% of any one countrys total national

archives, and in terms of the storage material itself this means approximately 3-4% of
the total ie. non-paper archives, which have to be preserved by society in addition to
the mass of paper archives. The situation is illustrated by the graph in Figure 1 above.
6. Archives can be described as the memory of peoples and nations, and their
respective political structures. Their history is closely related to the recorded literature
and recorded information of some 5000 years. Methods for storing records are still
subject to change and can be described as a union of continuity and discontinuity.
There is an element of continuity in the various forms of tablets/plates or scrolls
dating back to medieval times right through to the present-day equivalents. The
modem equivalent of Babylonian clay tablets is standardised paper, photographic
stills and disks; while the modem counterparts of Egyptian papyrus scrolls are modem
printing presses, magnetic tapes and computer reels, film reels and videocassettes.
Thus tradition and innovation complement each other in archive technology and work
procedures.
7. As supporting instruments for the programming of broadcasting stations, news and
picture agencies, av archives are more flexible than traditional archives and have to
In order to remain
adapt to new techniques more promptly and efficiently.
competitive and retain a high level of research capacity these institutions need to adapt
to current technical progress and constantly update information carriers together with
the necessary related equipment and resources. The wealth of practical experience
this brings with it and the resulting theoretical gain for general archive science is
obvious and over the past few decades innovations and suggestions for theory and
practice have been emerging from this kind of archive rather than from any of the
traditional archives.
373
8. It should also be noted that the manner and speed with which new technology is
applied by both production and historical audiovisual archives, differs enormously and
develops in an ad hoc way. Experts throughout the world complain that an increasing
number of photographs, film and sound recordings have been lost and continue to be
lost due to the lack of human and material resources needed to safeguard and preserve
them. Currently for example only seven countries in the world are able to provide
optimal conditions for the storage of colour film. Hence further loss of material of
cultural value in the other countries is inevitable. This represents a great challenge for
independent media archives and historical av archives that have become an integral
part of traditional archives, libraries and museums. It would however be wrong to
suppose that the traditional archives consider themselves in a safe position. The
restoration and preservation of the various types of paper manufactured since the 19th
century appears to be an almost impossible task, and it is feared that more and more
archival records which have emerged on paper during the last hundred years will be
lost unless a suitable and economically viable method of preservation and copying is
found. The situation is even more critical with audiovisual materials.
9. The promotion of av archives has become an integral part of Unesco programmes,
and their tasks have been included in the medium-term plan of the International
Council of Archives (ICA). The archive congresses held in Bonn, in 1984, and in
Paris, 1988, have reflected the integration of audiovisual and related materials into
general archives.
The international specialist organisations of film archives (FIAF), television archives
(FIAT) and sound archives (IASA) have also accepted the challenge and have
discussed, initially independently of each other, aspects concerning content and
For a number of years their approach to this problem has been
techniques.
coordinated by joint Round Table discussions with other relevant international
organisations including the professional librarians association @LA).
10. The development of all av archives into the 2 1st century will be closely linked by
tradition and innovation. This combination of old and new can be identified in every
press, picture, sound, broadcasting, archive, in cinematheques and videotheques and
will inevitably have repercussions on education and continuing vocational
development.
In an endeavour to safeguard archival records of audiovisual media even under
economic restraint attention should be given to the economic and social history of the
19th and 20th centuries and the auxiliary historical sciences and archive theory,
according to which a large number of small and medium-sized firms felt no
commitment to culture and history but were exclusively orientated towards economic
success and financial gain. Large enterprises on the other hand tended to have a
greater interest in investing resources to maintain the traditions and image of their
establishment.
11. For example the production archives of ARD and ZDF of the Federal Republic
of Germany do not feel under obligation to preserve their stocks solely for re-use and
re-broadcasting in programming and productions, but they have also recognised their
importance in the spirit of the 1980 Unesco initiative and the recommendations of
Unesco and have taken upon themselves the responsibility of broadcasting stations
towards cultural policy and are acting as archive terminals. They are prepared to take
on the responsibility for preservation of archival records. Inevitably broadcasting
stations with their integrated archives, cinematheques and historical film archives are
confronted with a large backlog of material which is not readily accessible and not
safeguarded because of a lack of staff and technology. In contrast, television archives
374
appear to be in a much stronger position than other av archives to meet both economic
and cultural policy demands. It pays a large television network such as NBC, BBC,
ZDF to safeguard archives and ensure detailed documentation in order to use the
thousand millions of dollars worth of programme stock held for re-broadcasting,
compilation and sale. The sheer scale of programme capacity can be illustrated by the
following figures of stored television hours - current average production costs differ
between 250 to 2600 US$ per minute transmitted:
Country
TV Broadcasting Hours
USA
France (IN A)
Swiss TV
Federal Republic
of Germany ZDF GDR
Staatliches Filmarchiv
1,500,000
>20 - 200 thousand million
250.000
>4 - 40
118,000
>2/20
50,000-60,000
>l-10
10,000 features
- 20
50,000 documentaries
Est. value of production

US$
More than ever before it is necessary to take economic considerations into account,
and to convince those responsible in broadcasting stations, public institutions, and
government departments that av archives often have to administer capital assets with
considerable value. The experience of two decades has shown that up to 20% of the
programmes transmitted by large radio and television stations are repeats, which take
the place of new production and enable savings in the order of thousands of millions
of dollars. Such savings are impossible unless av materials are safeguarded and made
readily accessible, ln addition to an understanding of cultural policy this requires an
economic awareness of the necessity of investment, subsidies and other funds.
In the final analysis the safeguarding, acquisition, storage, copying processes and the
use of the documents stored in picture and sound archives, historical archives,
cinematheques and videothiques involves replacing obsolete machinery with up-todate equipment. There is a constant reinvestment in new equipment at ever more
frequent intervals, due to the rapid speed of technological change.
12. The training of av archive technical specialists, including restorers, film and
sound engineers, chemists and photographers, and their knowledge should not be
overlooked. Greatly differing manufacturing processes have been applied in the
production of audiovisual materials. It is doubtful if current playback equipment will
remain compatible with materials for more than a decade. The introduction of more
modem miniature format equipment and recording formats often leads to the
manufacturing of security copies implying an almost constant copying process. All av
archives and museums complain that they are more or less forced to store obsolete
technology, recording and professional studio equipment in order to ensure the
possibility of reproduction and copying processes.
13. Technical progress may solve some of the current problems in av archive practice,
but, even if the parameters as promised by industry stand the test of the demands made
by archivists, the plethora of carriers and formats stored in av archives may prevail
well into the next century.
14. Currently, not one of the 100 archive schools and other institutions offering
archive courses in the world is able to offer a curriculum capable of covering the
whole spectrum of existing archives, including av archives. International meetings
held in 1988 in Marburg, Paris and Prague on issues related to training and vocational
375
development indicated that established archives schools are able to train at most, only
20% of the specialist archivists required. And individual archive types differ greatly.
Currently the traditional archives appear to employ a greater number of specialist
archivists than av archives who often rely on outsiders, with or without university or
technical qualifications. The media come off badly, and the demand for trained av
archivists is considerably greater than can be met by the relevant training
establishments.
Organisational and conceptual aspects of professional training have been discussed in
detail, including the extensive experiences gained in European countries with a rich
tradition in this field such as France, Italy, Austria, Great Britain, USSR, FRG and the
GDR and more recent entrants in the field like the USA or Australia. AV archives
with several recognisable levels of qualification require employees whose training
needs to be complemented by the organisation of full-time, part-time, and postgraduate study. This does not mean that the subject should be made more academic,
on the contrary what is required is the adequate practical application of the curricula.
Only a few training centres, such as the national archives of the USA and Canada or
the regional archive schools in Dakar, Cordoba, New Delhi and the national archives
of Malaysia, and European archive schools in France, USSR, FRG and GDR are
qualified to train students in this field, plus some training schemes set up by av
specialist groups or professional associations. However this still leaves a serious lack
of instructors, text-books and teaching aids, not forgetting differentiated curricula.
Further activities dealing with issues of training and vocational development have
therefore been scheduled by the NGOs with seminars, educational packages and
publications.
15. A differentiated professional image and the qualification of archivists in general
and av archivists in particular has been recognised as a cooperative aim which may
lead in the long run to harmonisation and will distribute the burden among
established archive schools on the one hand, and the NGOs on the other, for example
the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the International Federation of
Television Archives (FIAT), the International Association of Sound Archives (IASA),
the International Archive Council (ICA), the Centre International de Liaison des
Ecoles de Cinema et de Television (CILECT), the International Federation of Library
Association (IFLA) and other professional archive associations.
For almost 15 years efforts have been made by archive and library schools to
harmonize curricula. These attempts have only met with partial success despite the
great commitment of the ICA and IFLA. The reason, cited by E G Franz, current
President of the Committee on Professional Training and Current Education of ICA, is
that among the various courses one can only find between 15-20% common elements.
These are more obvious in the technical field, in the purpose-built premises for
archives and libraries, in the setting up of stores and maintaining technical standards
as well as the exchange of professional knowledge on ADP-adaptation among various
establishments.
With the increase in computerisation and expenditure on indexing and description, the
work and thus the professional image of an archivist is under an even stronger
influence of documentation than in the past. In this context promoting contacts, and
cooperation between special institutions and specialist colleges on national and
international levels, the FID represents another component of cooperation.
376
Conversely, libraries and museums, cinematheques and videotheques which often

store av archival material, need to adopt archival methods in order to make material
accessible and document it for the appraisal of stock and making additions to stock.
Thus the qualification of av archivists must be linked with the common features of
neighbouring disciplines and professions.
16. Finally, av archives in developing countries, for whom video technology is a
starting point and who do not have to concern themselves with the sophisticated
historical development of picture, film and sound recordings from the past 150, 100 or
50 years will have an easier task, and a less costly one, as they can dispense with the
expensive printing processes and special archive storage premises which would
necessitate adaptation to various climates.
377
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13.3 Organisation
Curriculum
AND TRAINING
and Harmonisation
of Education Programmes.
1. Introduction.
Systematic training in audiovisual archive techniques is virtually non-existent and
there is considerable scope for development. This section deals with the education
programmes themselves, how they should be organised, if they can be integrated into
existing programmes of training and if so which existing programmes are the most
appropriate and the resources which will be required, both human and
material/financial.
The Working Party were required to look at the harmonization of proposals for the
education of av archivists. This was interpreted as the integration of educational
programmes for all av archivists: whether they work in film, television, sound or
audiovisual archives, and further the integration of training programmes for archive
personnel with that for other related professionals.
One of the first considerations of international schemes for the training of
audiovisual archive personnel is the problem of whether such schemes should be
centred in countries with developed archives - to illustrate elements of good practice or whether to present training schemes in the areas/regions or countries in which the
greatest need occurs. In the case of audiovisual archive personnel it has to be
recognised that the greatest need is for the development of a universal scheme of
training: the developed archives are as much in need of properly organised and
assimilated training programmes as the developing countries and their archives.
Developed countries needed to put their own house in order before preaching to
anyone else. Having said this many developed countries have achieved some measure
of principle and practice for collections management within their aud;ovisual archives
and are gradually reaching a position where expertise and experience can be
disseminated to a wider audience than before. But equally it has to be recognised that
many developing countries have their own special problems and pragmatic solutions
to add to this experience. The developed world is not always any wiser than the
developing world in these new areas of audiovisual archiving and indeed the
developing world has much practical experience to offer with its changing conditions,
financial and other resources, capacities and climates which have to be taken into
account in any training programme if it is to be appropriate to regional and national
interests. The question now is how to achieve a transfer of all this accepted
knowledge and expertise to all those who are in r.eed. If the developed world has a
part to play in this process it is by facilitating with financial and human resources the
transfer of knowledge, prcctice and principle.
-.3
2.1 International vs National training programmes. The Working Party looked at

possibilities for presentation and formation of training programmes: how best to
implement these programmes and which is the better concept, to set up training
programmes in developed archives with all their supposed advantages of equipment,
sufficient staff, some of whom can be spared to tutor trainees, exemplary practices and
wide connections and cooperation with surrounding archives and their practices. This
implies that trainees have to come from far and wide, usually at considerable expense
to their institution or government, take instruction in an alien situation which does not
378
always relate or even appear relevant to their own particular situation and acquire
knowledge which may or may not be possible to turn into practice in their own
position. It is a lot to ask of a relatively inexperienced trainee! Such a scheme allows
for only a limited number of graduates to travel at considerable expense, and courses
held in these situations are usually irregular and designed for a wide variety of trainee,
rather than courses specifically designed to a particular type of participant.
The other pattern is to send lecturers/tutors from a developed archive to the country or
region which requires a training programme. This is sometimes more realistic as it
means the funding of only one or two people into a country or region, who providing
they are well briefed and at least familiar with the situation and climate prevailing in
the region, can relate practical experiences of audiovisual collections management to
the particular circumstances. There is also a most important aspect to this argument
which is that in many instances it is not possible to transfer currency from one country
to another. The problems of currency exchange range widely, but it is difftcult to
convert currency from one country to another and the more which can be spent within
a country or region the more value that currency will achieve.
Although educational programmes may be centred on a particular country the
concepts of regional education and cooperation are essential. The centre within a
region which has the better facilities, and a wide range of different archives and
audiovisual facilities within easy distance is the more obvious choice to conduct a
training programme. Presenting courses in regional centres could ensure a sufficiently
large target audience to make a course a viable proposition and also allow the
participants to acquire much needed hands-on experience of a greater variety of
relevant audiovisual equipment and materials. An audiovisual archive training course
profits greatly from practical experience and fieldwork and this aspect is likely to be
more easily and better arranged on a regional basis with the use of local resources and
facilities in institutions which have audiovisual collections and are prepared to host
working visits - or who may have their own in-training courses.
Training may also be offered under bilateral or international aid projects by attaching
trainees to established archival institutions. The Working Party felt that this had more
value for advanced training of senior staff, than for basic initial training.
3 Related disciplines.
The Working Party recognised that there is a need to attach training programmes to
existing training centres which are capable of expanding to include additional
disciplines, or can be given the necessary resources to do so rather than set up new
completely independent training centres for av archivists only. Such a new centre
would find it difficult to be a viable proposition at least in the short-term. This
introduces the concept of harmonisation. Training courses for audiovisual archivists
could be associated with existing schools or training centres, for a variety of related
disciplines including those of archive management courses, librarianship, film
schools, etc.
3.1 Harmonisation
The concept of harmonisation is useful for any subject where the target audience is
relatively small and the subject matter is capable of being used by more than
Harmonisation of training programmes between related professions
profession.
should enhance and improve the training possibilities for archivists and librarians.
There are two applications of the word which apply to training. Firstly there is a
harmonisation of practices between different training centres and schools in the same
379
country - which is important for equivalence of qualification. The second aspect is

harmonisation of education and training programmes for the three information
professions: archivist, librarian, and information scientist.
Subjects such as
preservation and conservation would seem to be a good case for harmonisation. It
makes sense to look for cooperation and coordination between related professions in
training for special aspects of work such as the archival aspects of audiovisual
materials. The skills and resources of the three professions can be utilised for the
benefit of all. Of the several areas recommended for inclusion in a plan of action for
harmonisation; preservation and conservation, audiovisual materials, information
technology and records management are of particular relevance to the audiovisual
librarian. There are other benefits to be gained from collaborative training projects
including economic benefits, when both human and financial resources can be used
for mutual benefit; benefits for the students in that their range of skills is increased
and barriers between professional groups are lessened giving the trainees greater
mobility and job opportunities.
3.2 Training for av archivism is of course additional to basic education in an
academic discipline. One of the first necessities is to raise the level of awareness of
archival problems in all related disciplines. It would be preferable to integrate training
with existing programmes rather than add another strand, but which disciplines should
be selected as suitable for integrating av archivism ? The major discipline is archival
science. Documentation although important is less closely connected. Library
schools could provide useful training for the disciplines of documentation, but archive
science should form its own discipline and not be seen as an add-on aspect of a
librarianship course.
The Working Party would recommended that consideration is given to the value of
harmonisation of training for audiovisual archive and library personnel. However
although the similarities between libraries and audiovisual archives are close in terms
of formal description, cataloguing, access; preservation and technical aspects require
other skills and training possibilities. There will not be complete harmonisation and
the training programmes of the different skills cannot be used as substitutes for one
another.
The Working
included:
Party decided that related disciplines which
should be explored
Archive Science
Librarianship
Information/Documentation science
Film/Sound/video engineering
Photographics
4 Survey of potential teaching centres and existing courses
In pursuing the idea of harmonising training for av archivists with that of other related
professions the Working Party conducted a survey. Brief details of the findings are
given here.
During July 1989, a questionnaire was sent to all establishments listed in the IFLA
International Guide to Library and Information Science Education (1985), and the
computer updates to this list. A total of 564 institutions were surveyed. The enquiry
occurred during the vacation of many institutions and the number of returns was
restricted as a consequence. It is possible to obtain an idea of the range of courses
(and their level) which are available in many countries from an analysis of the returns.
380
A further, more detailed enquiry has been recommended to identify suitable training
centres. The preliminary enquiry elicited the following statistical information:Number of organisations circulated
Number of returns
Number of countries returning forms
..
564
211 (37.2%)
65
In response to a question asking whether organisations would be interested in

developing their courses to accommodate the needs of av archivists, the following
interest (or non-interest) was expressed:
a) Develop av archive studies only
b) Develop av librarianship and
av archive studies
c) Develop av librarianship only
d) Not interested in further development
e) Incomplete forms, or question
left unanswered
23
73
51
43
21
Total
211
The survey was conducted by a questionnaire which was circulated to Library and
Information education institutions mainly and the questions were worded in such a
way as to find which organisations are currently devoting time specifically to av
materials. It was designed to find out whether librarianship was the only aspect
taught, or whether some had courses especially suited to archive needs. Such training
establishments might be able to develop courses which would take into account the
needs of av archivists, or be in a position to offer accommodation for short vacation
courses. Additional questions relating to equipment and contacts with av archives,
broadcasting organisations and other institutions were also considered relevant,
indicating potential areas for development.
Information from the returns indicated the differing education and training patterns in
various countries. In the USA, many organisations present their courses in blocks,
and students opt for particular sessions. The probably reflects the credit system of
qualification in that country - a system which is becoming increasingly common in
other countries.
Many returns mentioned the difficulty of developing courses in a time of economic
restraint. While the Library Schools might like to expand and offer more in-depth
studies relating to audiovisual archives, this is often difficult because of the limited
number of students who might be interested - and consequently the course would be
uneconomic for the parent organisation. Some organisations, however, indicated that
they would consider offering short courses in the vacation as a way forward.
4.1 Financial implications.
Many returns indicated that if some financial support were forthcoming, then
organisations would be willing to develop courses. At this stage, it is too early to
identify those which might be serious contenders for such support, but if this were to
become a possibility, it would be useful (and necessary) to investigate the potential for
development more fully.
The question as to how much liaison takes place with av archives, broadcasting
libraries, recording studios, indicates that currently there is very little practical
involvement. A few institutions place students in such organisations for fieldwork
381
and others organise visits. However, the majority have no such contact. Most
organisations rely heavily on the resources and facilities on the campus, or within the
immediate locality. Clearly any plans for either short vacation or full length courses
must take into consideration the proximity of well-established archives which have
laboratory facilities, either for visits to them or for possible lecture purposes. Good
coordination with practising audiovisual archivists could - with careful planning result in a dynamic and valuable partnership.
5 Resources needed.
The Working Party considered that in implementing the training programmes
recommended, certain resources would be essential. All training programmes need
basic support services, including human, financial and material resources. These
include:
a)
b)
c)
d)
highly trained staff

adequate funding
fully equipped to train trainees and existing staff
supporting services
5.1 Human Resources

Although the Working Party
institution, the help of practising
essential: that is people who
considered that for a scheme for
considered a training centre as an independent

archivists as part-time teaching staff was regarded as
It was
remain in touch with the archive world.
50 students the following staff was desirable:
1 Director/professor - Permanent
2 Assistant teaching staff - permanent
Up to 10 invited teaching staff
1 Administrator
2 Secretaries
Any training programme requires staff who are experienced in av archivism and in
educational methods. Teaching staff themselves will require some training. In some
of the more specialised areas of audiovisual work it will be something with which
many educators and trainers are unfamiliar, and therefore, at least initially, teaching
should be done by professional staff rather than the educators. The use of visiting
lecturers drawn from the practitioners in particular aspects of conservation
management is recommended. The difficulty has always been that practitioners are
kept busy enough doing their own work. There needs to be a recognition on the part
of the larger institutions that these practising professionals should be allowed time to
assist in training programmes, just as the larger institutions may also consider
providing facilities for practical work and demonstrations.
The invited teaching staff will be specialists in particular fields. It is more useful for
regular and consistent presentation of courses to have a prescribed circle of regular
teaching staff, not one-off lecturers.
These are the human resources, but other resources will be needed to cope with
audiovisual conservation training.
382
5.2 Material Resources

No training programmes are possible without financial resources but actual levels of
finance will have to be determined locally. The areas which will require consideration
in drawing up budgets or financial requirements should include:
1. Overheads/Buildings/lecture space
2. Permanent staff
3. Equipment - purchase and rent
4. Materials - purchase and rent
5. Invited teaching personnel
6. Services of neighbouring institutions
7. Library and teaching materials
8. Running costs
9. Unforeseen/ inflation etc.
In addition to these a library is essential for any training course, a collection of
relevant books, periodicals, audiovisual instruction and teaching materials where
available.
Equipment is also necessary for both administration and teaching/demonstration
purposes. Not all equipment need be acquired by the teaching institution, but contact
could be made with neighbouring institutions for the use of the more specialised
equipment.
5.2.1 Basic Technical Equipment
Film
Sound
Video
General
for Training
purposes.
16/3 5mm viewing table

(4 plates for optical/magnetic separate sound)
Projection for 16/35mm
Rewinder
Splicer (16/35mm)
Tape recorder of semi-professional standard at least speed and track
formats according to tapes held in stock
Cassette recorder
Record player, including a preamplifier for historic recordings
CD player
Transfer/mixing console
Amplifiers, Loudspeakers, Headphones
Recorders VHS./ Umatic with colour capacity for PAL, SECAM and
NTSC
Slide projector, Tape slide projector,
Overhead Transparency projectors and related equipment
6 Certification
Another point which the Working Party referred to was the final certification of any
training course. It was thought that certification, or a diploma at the end of a training
course was a necessity, but it should be based on national practice.
383
AND TRAINING
13.4 Recommended Standards for Training

Curriculum
1. These recommended standards refer to academic education:

2 year course for senior staff (top management) of audiovisual archives
1 year course for specialist workers (middle management) of audiovisual
archives
2-year course for technicians/engineers (middle management) of audiovisual
archives
1.1 The curriculum has been conceived for the education and training of av archivists,
to enable them to operate and handle all types of moving images and recorded sound
material. There are three reasons in favour of a combined and non-specialist
education:
- integration of audiovisual materials in an individual archive or a department of a
larger institution
r common features in the preservation, cataloguing and using of audiovisual materials
- greater flexibility of placement after completion of training
1.2 The curriculum recommended for the education and training of av archivists shall
serve students who wish to take up an additional course following university or
The curriculum can also be applied to course integrated
college education.
instruction. The recommended curriculum shall not be regarded as a substitute for
full-time academic education.
Specialist education of audiovisual archivists should be based on or be integrated in
basic education of history, archive science, librarianship, information science,
documentation, museology, media science or technical sciences.
1.3 The curriculum was drawn up with the intention of integrating the education and
training of av archivists in the syllabus of existing institutions.
1.4 Academic education cannot dispense with the following:
- continuing professional education. Audiovisual media develop at a rapid pace, and
all changes in technology have repercussions on the work of archives. Continuing
education of top and middle management personnel of av archives is imperative to
enable them to cope with their duties. This aspect will not be dealt with in detail, as
the recommended curriculum does not include any measures in this direction
- education and training of skilled workers for specific jobs by in-service training
There is no known establishment offering specialist vocational training to skilled
workers of av archives. It is therefore considered necessary to provide them with a
minimum of training to enable them to carry out their duties competently. The length
of such training would depend on the size of the institution and the staff available. It
could spread over a period of time, but a minimum of 20 working days is
recommended. It should be regarded as an induction period, including a general
introduction to all departments of the archive, not only the one in which the trainee is
to work.
384
1.5 It is recommended that the education and training of av archivists should be as

practice-related as possible, including work in film, television and sound archives. By
the use of fieldwork and/or practical periods students should be given the opportunity
to learn by experience to help them find suitable work after completion of training. A
practical period of several weeks should be part of the curriculum.
1.6 Extensive knowledge of the history of film, video, broadcasting, the technical
processes and feasible audiovisual recording modes is a prerequisite for a career as an
av archivist. The curriculum provides only 30 hours for the imparting of theoretical
knowledge on the history of the media and 120 hours for demonstrations. This is not
nearly enough time for students to cover the subject thoroughly. Students should
therefore be encouraged to acquire as much knowledge as possible by availing
themselves of any options offered. The teaching establishment is expected to arrange
film screenings and provide video and sound recordings thus stimulating students to
further research.
1.7 The pattern suggested for the study programme is based on the following
calculation:
The 2-year course will cover 44 weeks per year, leaving 8 weeks holiday. Seven
hours per week will be devoted to lectures and/or demonstration.
Students are
expected to spend at least 30 hours per week studying literature and dealing with the
materials.
1.8 Top management students should be expected to speak two foreign languages
fluently, middle management students should have a good command of at least one
foreign language.
1.9 On completion of specialist education an av archivist should be awarded a
certificate or diploma, whichever may apply in accordance with national conditions.
Every profession requires motivation - an av archivist needs more than this: The
majority of staff employed for archival work with historical records, tv productions
and films have received their training in a wide variety of fields, including
librarianship, literary studies, museology and even direction and production. They all
share a devotion to their media which might even be said to dominate their lives, a
statement which does not apply only to cinema enthusiasts working with film
archives. Such devotion has come to characterise the pioneers of the archival
preservation of sound archives and of tv production and the traditional written records
in broadcasting corporations. (Prof. Dr Kahlenberg, President of the Bundesarchiv of
the Federal Republic of Germany).
An av archivist shall be motivated by his great love and devotion to the medium, its
history, artistic and documentary feasibilities, the creators and interpreters and also the
technical aspect of the medium. He is expected to have a thorough knowledge of
general history, in particular of the 20th century. The nature of his work requires an
av archivist to be meticulously accurate, be able to concentrate and apply himself in
pragmatic and systematic work. The close ties between av archives and av media, and
the frequent combination of production archive with historical archive, and the large
number of users tend to beget a contradiction between the thoroughness expected
from an archivist and his operative ability. Top and middle management staff shall be
385
expected to show decent social behaviour when associating with employees to give
them expert guidance. They should be able to motivate staff and interest them and
also external individuals in the work of av archives. Their bearing in public should
also contribute to enhance an archives reputation.
3 DEFINITIONOFAVARCIIIVEJOBS
3.1. AV archive jobs can be divided into three categories, each fulfilling
qualification requirements:
different
Top management
(level 1)
Heads of archives, Heads of departments.

Require basic academic qualification with university degree in
relevant disciplines, plus additional or integrated 2-year
education as an av archivist.
Middle management
(level 2)
integrated
(level 3)
Division heads, specialist workers

Should have a good basic education to at least diploma or first
degree level in relevant disciplines plus additional or
l-year education as an av archivist
and in case of technicians/engineers plus 1-year specialised
technical training
Skilled workers
should have completed vocational training in a related
profession plus additional in-house training
3.2 TOP MANAGEMENT(LEVEL
1) INCLUDES
Head of Acquisition
Duties:
- to organise av materials accessions and possibly also related materials through
deposit systems, purchase, exchange
- to keep in contact with potential originators of av material (producers, distributors,
broadcasting stations, private collectors, museums and archives)
- to contribute to the drawing up of fundamental rules of an archives stock, formation
and principles of appraisal and selection.
Knowledge required:
- history and contemporary history of the national and international production of
audiovisual materials, artistic, documentary significance
- copyright, archive law, law of contract
- organisation and management
- professional knowledge of properties of av materials, cataloguing, appraisal and
selection
- specific personal characteristics, including application, interpersonal skills when
representing archive in public
Recommended basic education: archive science, librarianship, information sciences.
386
Hezd of Cataloguing
Duties:
- to develop cataloguing. systems to record ownership, compile filmographic
technical data and content data
- to develop cataloguing systems
- to organise data-flow between departments
- to organise descriptive cataloguing duties
- appraisal of stock
data,
Knowledge required:
- basic knowledge of general history
- extensive knowledge of the history of the medium
- detailed knowledge of cataloguing principles
- basic technical knowledge of technical aspects of the medium
- knowledge of appraisal and selection
- extensive knowledge of cataloguing methods, including computer applications
Recommended basic education:
computing studies
librarianship, information science, archive science,
Head of Documentation
Duties:
- to organise the stock and related material, structure of collection, cataloguing,
storage, use and restoration
- to organise accessions (if this is not included in acquisition), including appraisal
- to cooperate in drawing up general rules of stock formation
- to guarantee permanent preservation and use
Knowledge
required:
- history of the medium, history and aesthetics of related materials

- extensive knowledge of the origin of related materials
- cataloguing, information processing including computer applications
- technical knowledge of storage and preservation of related materials, reproduction
techniques
- legal knowledge
- documentation science and qualified to deal with bequests
- museology and qualified to deal with objects of museum value, practical skills in
arranging exhibitions
Recommended basic education:
arts degree
archive science, librarianship, information science,
Head of Technical Services

Duties:
- permanent safeguarding, storage, technical inspection, restoration and preservation
of av materials
- procurement, maintenance and repair of an archives technical equipment
387
Knowledge required:
- history of the medium, in particular its technical development
- storage techniques, air conditioning, operation and handling of av materials
- basic knowledge of aesthetic, economic and legal aspects, cataloguing, in particular
of technical data
Recommended basic education : electronic and mechanical engineering, film, sound
and video techniques
Head of Library
Duties:
- responsible for supplementing, organising, making accessible, safeguarding and
preserving the stock of books and periodicals
- to initiate stock and acquisition policy
- to organise accession through purchase, exchange and donation
- to direct stocktaking, cataloguing and use
- to guarantee the safeguarding of stock
Knowledge required:
- history of the medium, and in particular of publications dealing with the medium
- thorough knowledge of cataloguing and documentation, in particular indexing of
periodicals
- general archive knowledge and of collections of related materials
- knowledge of bibliographic duties
Recommended basic education: librarianship
Head of Publications
Duties:
- to see over all publication activities, including topics and contents and also technical
and organisational aspects
- to initiate publication programmes
- to cooperate with internal and external authors
- to organise publication, publicity, distribution and cooperation with publishers
- to act as a public relations officer
Knowledge required:
- history and aesthetics of the medium
- sociology, in particular knowledge of publications and information in demand
- to manufacture and design printed material
- economy and law
-journalistic flair
Recommended basic education: journalism, publishing
388
Head of Education/Exhibition
Duties:
- to initiate and organise an archives cultural activities in public, using film theatres,
clubs, exhibitions, lectures, retrospectives, seminars, concerts and others
- to organise cooperation with museums and other partners in disseminating an
archives cultural activities
- to organise cooperation with partner institutions abroad
Knowledge required:
- extensive knowledge of history and contemporary history of the medium
- sociology, cultural requirements
- teaching skills on how to propagate aspects of culture
- museology and skills of arranging exhibitions
- general knowledge of archive stock and how to locate material
Recommended basic education: archive science, museology, pedagogics
Head of Public Relations
Duties:
-to make entire stock accessible to users
- to initiate access policy and practices
- to organise user information, user education and advice
Knowledge required:
- history of the medium
-journalism
- technical knowledge of medium and playback techniques
Recommended basic education:-archive science, cultural policy, journalism
Head of Administration
Duties:
- internal management, fund raising, planning, accounting, record of ownership,
procurement, personnel management
Knowledge required:
- history of the medium
- basic knowledge of archive structure
- knowledge of economic, planning, legal aspects
Recommended basic education: management, economics, law
The aforementioned
functions
of top management are considered as
recommendations.
There are no rules regarding the internal allocation of duties
applicable to all types of archives. An archives structure always depends on its size
and the national tasks it has to fulfil. Responsibilities and duties shall therefore be
assigned to suit individual needs.
389
3.3 Division heads and specialists of departments referred to in para 3.2 come under
middle management (Level 2). Previous education for people working in the archive
at this level is high school education, diploma, technical college or university
education in relevant disciplines.
4 cuRRrcuLuM
As it is not feasible to offer a tailor made syllabus for all education establishments,
archive and library schools or in-service training, the recommended standards have
been designed to serve as outline proposals. It is hoped that the responsible training
institutions, tutors and students take note of the balance between individual modules
being used to guarantee the objectives and central issues suggested. It is left to the
user of the curriculum outline to add missing concepts or establish relevant
correlations.
The Working Party recommend the following topics are included in any curriculum
for the education of av archivists at various levels.
4.1 Table 1.
No.
Topic
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Technical
1.
2.la
Introduction.
History of the media
showings
History of av archives
Terminology
Standards
(including demonstrations and visits
Organisation and structure
of institution.
Accessioning
Acquisition and Appraisal
(including demonstrations)
Arrangement and Description
Documentation sources
Computers and Micrographics
User education and Public relations
Related material
Technical expertise
20
301
10
30
10
15
2.lb
2.2
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
7.1
7.2
8.
9.
10.
120
120
60
18
30
90*
9
15
30
30
10
fiSncluded
in 10)
6
40
60*
15
30
6
15
35
45
10
20
60
10
12
5
6
122
216
216
433
120
120
563
TOTAL
336
60
276
plus 4-6 weeks practical work

In any training programme the following subject areas should be covered under
individual topics. The complete list of subject areas is meant for Level 1 students;
selected subjects should serve Level 2 and 3 students to suit individual needs.
390
Table at 4.1 refers.

Level 1 - 20 hours
Level 2 - 10 hours
4.1.1 Introduction
It has been recommended to deal with the following subject areas

- the role of audiovisual media in the past, present and future
- cultural, historic and economic reasons for the archiving of audiovisual
recordings
- specific audiovisual archive records as works of art, contemporary
documents and historical sources
- principal functions of audiovisual archives; acquisition, preservation,
cataloguing, accessibility of material
- individual aspects of av archives in their capacity as production and historical
archives
- relationship and differences between audiovisual recordings and other forms
of tradition
- basic principles of librarianship, archive science, application and modified
application to av archives
- the national and international situation concerning the audiovisual heritage
4.1.2.1 a History of the media
Level 1
30 hours
Level 2
30 hours
Level 3
15 hours
for demonstrations/showings
Level 1
120h
Level 2
120h
Level 3
60h
The lectures should be designed to cover in 10 hour units the history of film,
television and sound recordings
Subject areas to be covered:
- technical development of the media
- development of production conditions
- expansion and sociological function of the media in different periods of time
- the most important stages of media development on a national level
While the lectures should be designed to promote a students understanding of the
most important trends in the development of the media, extensive factual knowledge
should be acquired through self-study and demonstration.
Demonstrations.
It has been recommended that the time available be used equally for the presentation
of films, videos and sound recordings. Demonstrations should be accompanied by
introductory discussions and practical exercises, in support of the lectures. The
demonstrations should bring out the technical and artistic potential and content which
are typical for the development of the media:
391
Film: silent, sound; black/white; colour, other colouring techniques. Film categories:
newsreels, science films, documentaries, popular science, advertisement,
spots, feature film. Film genres
Sound recordings:
formats: cylinders, tape, disc,
CD and CD-ROM, DAT
categories: music, spoken word, oral history, dialect, sound
effects, wildlife and environmental sounds
Video recordings:
black/white, colour, different formats; live recordings, graphics
4.1.2.1 b History of av archives
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
18h
9h
6h
Approximately equal time should be devoted to the coverage of the history of sound.
film and video archives. The following subject areas should be included:
- national history of audiovisual archives
- important trends of the international development of audiovisual archives
- the development of audiovisual archives and the emergence of their vital importance
- the development of audiovisual archives and related issues concerning archive
science and archive techniques
- activities of the NGOs in the field of av archives
4.1.2.2 Terminology
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
30h
15h
15h
The extensive treatment of issues relating to terminology presupposes practical skills

and knowledge of av archives and/or the manufacturing of av recordings. The
prerequisite for appreciation of issues of terminology by students are field trips to
archives and manufacturing sites, and/or object teaching.
The topic should cover terminology of the av media and av archives. 75% of the time
available should be spent on the terminology of the media, the other 25% on the
terminology of audiovisual archives.
Imparting knowledge of media terminology
closely the process of production
should, by recommendation
follow
- preparatory work of audiovisual recordings (literary treatment, set and costume

design)
- the process of av recording (individuals involved, techniques used, information
carriers)
- technical operation of audiovisual recordings (printing, editing, mixing, multiplecopying, techniques used, individuals involved)
- playback of audiovisual recordings (film theatres, television, radio, home systems)
- related individual materials emerging in the process of preparation, manufacturing,
handling, distribution and playback of audiovisual recordings
The terminology of audiovisual archives should also be presented in conjunction with
archive science, librarianship and documentation science.
392
Special attention should be paid to:

- appraisal and selection
- acquisition
- cataloguing
- filmography, discography
- restoration and preservation
- access
4.1.3. Standards and techniques
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
see 10 in Table 1 including demonstrations
90h
30h
Dealing with the following subject areas:

- physical and chemical properties of various carriers of audiovisual recordings
- factors influencing the permanent preservation of audiovisual recordings (quality and
handling of the carriers, storage conditions, environmental factors, use)
- definition of preservation materials
- optimal storage conditions for film, video and sound recordings (tapes and discs)
- depositories for the storage of audiovisual recordings (air conditioning, storage
technique, fire protection)
- technical handling of audiovisual recordings prior to archival storage (inspection of
technical condition, cleaning)
- reproduction of audiovisual recordings. Technical feasibilities, advantages and
disadvantages (transfer to same carrier, transfer to different formats, transfer to a
different carrier)
- technical feasibilities and ethical aspects of restoring audiovisual recordings.
including electronic and digital methods
- preservation techniques
- technical equipment needed for the handling, restoration, reproduction and use of
audiovisual recordings
- principles concerning the description of the technical condition of material
- technical principles governing the use of audiovisual material
- transfer of audiovisual recordings to miniature formats for the purpose of archival
storage. Feasibilities and restrictions
- new techniques and their effect on the development of media technology and
audiovisual archives
- standards applied by a number of countries concerning storage, handling.
reproduction, restoration and the use of audiovisual recordings.
393
4.1.4. Organisation
and structure
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
30h
10h
6h
Knowledge imparted should include:

- principal functions of av archives
- administrative structure of av archives (autonomous or integrated institution,
production archive and historical archive, special or general collection, multi media or
single media stock)
- legal status (board. internal rules and regulations)
- relationship between size of collection and archives function, equipment, number of
staff, storage and working premises requirements
- internal techniques and working regulations (technical inspection, principles of
reproduction and restoration, principles of cataloguing and description of contents.
principles of use)
- organisation of the use of audiovisual archives, user services
- financing audiovisual archives
- cost of equipment, outfit and maintenance of av archives
- assignment of duties and cooperation with related institutions
- international cooperation of av archives
4.1.5. Access
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
40h
15h
6h
The topic should include the following subject areas:

- legal issues of audiovisual archives
. International Copyright convention and audiovisual archives
. national legislation and audiovisual archives
. Unesco recommendation on the Safeguarding and
Preservation of Moving Images
- user categories of audiovisual archives
- how to use audiovisual archives
- priority of stock preservation and restricted use for technical and legal reasons
- the necessity of setting up contractual relations between archives and users
- fees for various services rendered by av archives
- the use of unpublished audiovisual materials and respect for privacy
- reproduction and access
- definition of basic principles of use of archives
4.1.6. Acquisition
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
and appraisal
The topic should include:

- archive policy and acquisition
. national production and national archives
. specialised collections and accessions
. national and international assignment of duties and coordination
- sources of audiovisual recordings and methods of accession
. legal deposit, mandatory deposit
. voluntary deposit
. donations
. purchase
394
60h
30h
15h
- principles of appraising audiovisual materials

. theory of appraisal applied by document archives
. theory of appraising audiovisual materials (priority of national
production; proportion of national to foreign productions;
safeguarding the technically best preserved and most
complete
materials; complexity of audiovisual recordings
as works of art and
contemporary documents
. reducing subjective decisions
- relationship between production archive and historical archive
- growth rates of audiovisual materials of national provenance and questions
pertaining to selection (quantity and quality of production; definition of national
criteria of appraising audiovisual materials)
- organisation of accessions (implementation of national legislation or other rules and
regulations; procurement of audiovisual materials of a national interest from foreign
sources)
- prevention of undesirable destruction and export of audiovisual materials
4.1.7. Arrangement
and Description
Level I
Level 2
Level 3
45h
45h
10h

- classification systems of collections and audiovisual materials
- Film: preprint, preservation, distribution materials, different formats, different
storage conditions
- Sound recordings: different formats, published and unpublished, oral history, sound
effects, edited/unedited
- video recordings:
different formats, edited/unedited, stockshots, serials/series,
newsreels, programme material
- description of audiovisual archive stock by recommended standards
- methods of classifying data for international and external archive functions
Internal: monitoring technical preservation conditions, issue record,
ownership record, record of material received on loan
External: Feasible use and records for material of restricted use, accessions
control
- record of national av productions
. recommendation for the acquisition of data for filmographies, discographies
and others
. methods of collecting and publishing data
. essential national and international reference publication on the production of
audiovisual materials
. the reliability of secondary sources
. efficient use of computers in audiovisual archives (data storage of national
and international production, stock control, accounting, planning,
records)
ownership
- computer use and programmes for cataloguing of av materials
- effective application of computers
395
4.1.8 Public relations
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
20h
10h
5h
Three different aspects of public relations should be singled out:

- user education
- publicity for the archive
- an archives cultural activities
User education includes:
- contents of user education
. methods of accessing an audiovisual archive
. conditions of use
. awareness of an archives technical, material and
administrative issues
. restrictions of use
- methods of user education (lectures, guided tours, publications, exhibitions)
Publicity for the archive:
Since related governmental authorities together with producers of audiovisual material
cannot be expected apriori to appreciate fully the role and tasks of an av archive, all
senior staff should take part in drawing public attention to an archives objectives,
including:
- national and international publicity campaigns for the promotion of audiovisual
archives
- effective forms of arousing public awareness
- methods of archive publicity (press conferences, press campaigns, showings of
newly discovered and/or restored material, exhibitions, analyses of situation and
issues of development of audiovisual archives; information of parliamentary
committees and government offices; benefiting from international meetings of NGOs)
Cultural activities of av archives
Implies measures of use and publication of archives own stock.
knowledge imparted should include:
Experience and
- activities of archive film theatre in propagating film history and film culture
- activities of audiovisual archives in the promotion of societies for film, video and
sound recordings
- lecture tours
- publications, exhibitions, seminars on historic and aesthetic subjects
396
4.1.9 Related materials
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
60h
12h
6h

- definition of related materials emerging from the process of production, handling,
distribution and showing of audiovisual recordings
- information value, historic and cultural value of related materials
- principles of storage, preservation and restoration of paper, photographs and
museum objects
- principles of description, cataloguing and classifying related material.
4.1.10 Technical expertise
Level 3
122h
Technical tasks of av archives require specialised knowledge in handling of film,

video and sound material and the relevant equipment for reproduction, restoration,
recording, storage, safeguarding and protection.
A university education in chemistry, physics, electronis, electrical, mechanical, video,
sound or film engineering could be a solid basis for a specialised training in
audiovisual archive techniques.
The specialised education should include:
- basic requirements for archive buildings
- principles of air conditioning of av material, function of an airconditioning plant
- storage conditions
- worker protection, work safety and fire protection in av archives
- chemical and physical properties of av materials
- equipment for handling, reproduction, recording, restoration and storage of av
materials
- treatment against all kinds of chemical, physical and electronic defects and damage
- standards on storage, handling, reproduction, restoration
- development of av technology and its impact on archives
- history of film, video and sound technology.
Editors Note
At the time of writing the first report the Curriculum Development Working Party did
not have the advice of Technical staff concerning the education and training of
technicians for audiovisual archive work. Subsequently this advice was sought and
information provided by the following paper.
397
SECTION XIII; EDUCATION

13.5 Curriculum
AND TRAINING
Development for Archive Technicians
Technical Co-ordinating
Committee
1. Introduction
1.1 The range of skills required by an ideal archive technician is very wide. This is
because of the number of methods used to make recordings and the number of
technical disciplines employed in the construction of recording systems over the years.
For example, in a small film archive, the technician is likely to be expected to be
knowledgeable about the film processing systems, the chemical degradation of film,
the optics of the projectors, the acoustics of viewing theatres, the mechanics of
viewers, the maintenance of the electronic and electrical apparatus and, in the spare
moments, program the computer for the cataloguers.
1.2 It is unlikely that one person can be an expert in all these areas. A basic
understanding of all the processes with a deep understanding of one or two areas is,
however, not an unreasonable demand. Larger archives will be able to employ lower
graded, specialist staff to assist the senior staff.
1.3 Because of the variation of terms used and qualifications granted in different
countries, the word Technician has been used as a generic term in this document.
This includes titles such as Diploma and Chartered Engineers and levels of education
and training such as graduates in science and technology and students with higher
level school leaving certificates.
2. Education
2.1 A distinction must be drawn between the wider education given at school, college
and university and the vocational training provided specifically for archive work.
2.2 Prospective archive technicians should achieve a good, general education
covering the sciences and technology and mathematics.
2.3 Candidates should be able to read, write and speak a minimum of two languages,
of which one should be English.
2.4 The standard of education required will vary depending upon the entry level into
the archive.
2.5 It should be remembered, however, that qualifications alone do not make a good
archive technician. There are practical skills that cannot easily be taught in a school
or university environment.
2.6 For this reason, it may be found better to recruit archive technicians with less than
ideal academic qualifications but possessing enthusiasm tempered with caution, with
the correct ethical approach to the preservation of the materials and with a practical,
commonsense approach to problem solving and learning.
2.7 These recruits can then be trained within the archive community to the required
technical and ethical standards.
398
2.8 The subjects that should offered by a candidate will vary depending on the type of
archive.
2.8.1 For those intending to seek work in a photographic and/or film archive, the
science education should major in chemistry and optics. Sound, electronics and
computing should also be covered.
2.8.2 For those intending to work in a video archive, the science education should
major on electronics and optics. Chemistry, sound and computing should also be
covered.
2.8.3 For those intending to work in a sound archive, the science education should
major on the properties of sound, electronics and mechanics. Chemistry, optics and
computing should also be covered.
3. Pre-Employment
Experience
3.1 For a number of archives, it may be beneficial to recruit technicians with some
practical experience of working in a commercial environment that has some
connection with the work of the archive.
3.2 For technicians who will be required to use equipment, operational experience
will be sufficient. Those who will be required to maintain equipment will, however,
need experience in the maintenance department plus some operational experience.
3.2.1 For a film or photographic archive, a period of work in a laboratory to gain
practical experience of the commercial processes.
3.2.2 For a television archive, a period of work in the videotape and telecine
department of a television broadcasting or recording company to gain practical
experience of the equipment and processes currently in use.
3.2.3 For a sound archive, a period of work as a recording technician in a sound
broadcasting or recording company to gain practical experience of the equipment and
processes currently in use.
4. Vocational
Training
4.1 The specialised training will almost certainly have to be organised by the archive.
There are at present no courses of higher and/or vocational education for sound and
moving image archive technicians at any college in the world. The archive must,
therefore, budget both time and money for training new recruits.
4.2 The initial recruitment should normally be as a trainee. A schedule of training in
the methods and equipment employed by the archive should be prepared.
4.3 It is essential that time for training is allocated within the schedule of the
designated tutor-technician.
4.4 In addition to the practical, on-the-job training, tuition in the basics of
cataloguing, the history of the media and the ethics of preservation must be included
to help underline the difference between the role of an archive technician and the role
of a technician in industry.
399
4.5 It may be possible to arrange a suitable course in these essential, but nontechnical subjects, at a local library school. Also possible off-site at a local college is
further theoretical training in computing, electronics, chemistry etc.
4.6 The progress of the trainee should be formally reviewed at least twice a year and
the training schedule adjusted if necessary.
4.7 After completion of this training, which may well last two or three years in total,
the trainee should be classed as a trained technician and paid accordingly.
4.8 This should not be considered the end of learning. The advent of new
technologies and ideas requires all archive technicians to constantly keep their
procedures under review.
4.9 Time and money must be allocated to the technical department to permit this
continuous training of staff.
4.10 The involvement of technicians in national and international associations should
be encouraged as should be the publication of ideas. Only by this interchange can
technology play its full part in the preservation of the sounds and images in the care of
the archive.
5. The Structure of the Technical Department
5.1 The question of how many levels or grades of technician required in an archive
will depend upon the size of the archive. Three levels can be identified clearly:
5.1.1 Technical Manager in charge of the Technical Department,
5.1.2 Senior Technician taking responsibility for an area within the archives
operation and supervising a group of technicians and/or performing the more complex
tasks.
5.1.3 Technician carrying out the simpler, more routine tasks.
5.2 More or fewer levels may be required depending on the type and quantity of work
carried out by the archive.
5.3 Additional categories such as Technical Porter or Drivers may be required in
larger institutions.
5.4 These must be better trained and rewarded at a higher level than their equivalents
in book archives and libraries. If a book is dropped, it may be damaged but the print
is unharmed. If a disc is dropped it will break and be completely lost.
5.5 It is important that the lower categories be given opportunities to develop their
skills and to increase their educational standards to permit them to apply for the higher
level positions. This will help generate the continuity of staffing that is so beneficial
to an archive.
400
6. Responsibilities
of Technicians
6.1 The Technical Manager Level

6.1.1 In all archives the Technical Manager must be a member of the management
team of the archive.
6.1.2 The education level required must be to at least degree standard or equivalent
and the postholder must have a good level of practical experience in appropriate fields
of conservation.
6.1.3 The Technical Manager must be allocated a budget for staff, for equipment
repair and replacement and for training. Without these, the postholder cannot run the
department effectively.
6.2 The Senior Technician Level
6.2.1 The Senior Technician should have at least a good school leaving certificate or
equivalent in appropriate subjects and several years of practical experience in an
archive.
6.2.2 The postholder will take responsibility for part of the Technical Departments
work under the overall control of the Technical Manager.
6.2.3 The postholder will be able to supervise a team of Technicians and also perform
complex tasks within the archive.
6.2.4 The ability to take part in the decision making process on matters affecting the
Senior Technicians area of responsibility is essential.
6.3 The Technician Level
6.3.1 The Technician will not necessarily be in possession of formal qualifications.
Many of the jobs performed at this level are repetitive and do not require high levels
of education.
6.3.2 If brought into the archive as a trainee, the postholder must be taught the
practical skills required.
6.4 In many small archives, there may not be sufficient work to justify a structure
with all three levels. If this occurs, the Technician level is the unnecessary level.
7. Conclusion
The Technical Department is essential to the work of the archive. The skills and
experience that the technical staff bring to the archive are diverse and require proper
training at all levels. Because of the lack of colleges and university courses teaching
the required skills, the archive technician is sometimes seen as being less of an archive
professional than say, one of the cataloguing section. It is impossible to separate out
the technicians role in a sound and image archive. As with the other departments, it is
woven into the structure and operation of the archive. For example, without the
cataloguing section, it is impossible to find the required material; without the
technical department, the material will not be usable. The two departments are in a
symbiotic relationship.
401

13.6 Training
for Audiovisual
AND TRAINING
Archivists
Helen P Harrison
It has long been recognised that audiovisual materials have a place in the cultural
heritage of the 20th century, although some have a longer history, particularly
photographic materials and other visual resources.
But what about avm as archive materials.
Curiously enough because of the
concentration of most conventional archives on printed materials it has taken some
time for the recognition of av as archive materials to penetrate the general
consciousness, but there have been av archives, usually single media archives, in
existence since early in the twentieth century. The National Film Archive and the
National Sound Archive (Previously the British Institute of Recorded Sound) were set
up in the mid-thirties. Other archives such as the Phonogrammarchiv in Vienna go
back as far back as 1899. These archives are single media archives, but in more recent
times the concept of audiovisual archives, collecting materials in several formats has
appeared. Sometimes this was as a result of amalgamation of collections under the
same administration, film and sound coming together as in the National Film and
Sound Archives of Australia, or the film, television and sound archives in the Library
of Congress, or the Moving image and recorded sound archives in the National
Archives of Canada. Such multi-media archives may have separate administration
according to media, but more and more they have a function based administration
with departments for collections management, acquisition, documentation, and
preservation, of all materials. In addition to such older established archives, those
being newly established, especially in developing countries, tend to be more generalist
in approach and contain several of the audiovisual materials as well as printed
materials. It makes more economic sense when financial resources are restricted to set
up function based archives. This trend began in the audiovisual collections in
libraries, especially the resource centres of educational institutions. Until resource
centres had tried it the archives were more tentative in their approach.
With the collection of av materials has also come a recognition by the archives of the
need for conservation/preservation and restoration of all archive materials, including
av materials and an even sharper reminder of the particular problems of preservation
which these materials exhibit. Av materials may be relatively recent in production,
but they have some horrendous inherent problems which need separate and particular
treatment. Film materials are vulnerable to casual damage: scratches on the emulsion
impossible to eradicate, damage in projection and use, once caused difficult to repair.
Film is also subject to particularly nasty disease such as the spontaneous destruction
of nitrate and the vinegar syndrome of acetate or safety film. In order to preserve
material subject to these troubles, copying (at considerable expense) is essential.
Nothing else will do. Video materials are not immune either- developing systems
mean the obsolescence of materials, formats and machines at intervals of ten years if
you are lucky! Again copying to more recent formats is necessary. Sound materials
are some of the most stable, but even they together with their video counterparts are
subject to vinegar syndrome or laser rot for discs. Once again a constant copying or
re-recording is required in an archive where preservation of the material is the primary
aim.
An audiovisual archivist needs special skills and such skills do not come unaided or
untaught. But where does the education and training in these skills come from? Are
there institutions to which the archivists or potential archivist can turn for help in
402
updating his own knowledge or acquire special knowledge to deal with the materials
and their preservation ? If not, why not, and how can some provision be initiated,
encouraged, and organised.
Such questions have been asked increasingly in recent years and there have also been
moves towards creating an environment in which rational solutions can be sought or
the situation improved. In particular education and training of archivists, and in
particular audiovisual archivists has recently been under investigation by a group of
representatives of interested audiovisual archive associations.
Why Training?
Firstly we have to establish the need for a profession of audiovisual archivist and then
to investigate whether training for this profession exists. We have seen already that
the cultural heritage is in danger of destruction and loss due to the rapid deterioration
of records on many formats, and audiovisual material forms a major part of the
cultural heritage of the 20th century as well as being an important information carrier.
Audiovisual material requires archival treatment and preservation in the same way as
any other source of information, and it is essential that this should be carried out by
professionally qualified personnel if the cultural record is to be preserved. Archivists
and librarians need education and training for professional work, but further they need
training in the special skills and techniques for working with audiovisual formats:
bibliographic description, handling, storage and conservation require a somewhat
different approach to other materials in the librarians care. Archivists have the
additional responsibility for selection and longer-term conservation and preservation
of audiovisual materials. Both professions have to pay attention to the further training
of individuals to equip them adequately to carry out this work. The library profession
is tentatively grasping the nettle after a steady campaign of some 20 years and more
and more we see optional courses or special options within regular courses appearing
in the Library and Information Departments. All too often the cry is lack of time and
space in already busy departments, but light is appearing at the end of the tunnel. In
one respect librarians are at an advantage in that probably more librarians will come
across audiovisual materials in their daily work than will archivists. There is a larger
target population for training librarians in work with audiovisual materials than there
appears to be for archivists. This has implications for the harmonisation of training
programmes for different professions.
This is not to say that because there are fewer audiovisual archivists they do not have
to be trained as systematically as other professionals. An archivist normally requires
education to at least tertiary or first degree level, and then additional education in
archive principles and practice. Nothing less is required for an archivist dealing with
audiovisual materials, and in addition special skills in dealing with the materials. The
education and training of audiovisual archivists is a key issue for the further
development of sound, film and television archives. In most countries safeguarding
the audiovisual heritage, and working off the backlog in this field, will depend on the
mobilisation of human resources, with a knowledge of the tasks, objectives,
management and structure of the audiovisual archives. This knowledge has to be
imparted through systematic programmes of training, updating or continuing
education in addition to basic education.
Do these programmes
already exist?
Although there is an expressed need for systematic training programmes for av

archivists, these do not exist at present. Although the training of new archivists is a
recognised need and university education for traditional library and archive careers is
403
possible in many developed countries, no university, film or tv school specialis& in av

archive operations. There is also a need for training in highly technical operations for
restoration and preservation tasks.
On investigation one finds only evidence of seminars, short courses, summer schools
or symposia, given on a national, regional or international basis. Although these can
help the situation by giving knowledge or know-how and skills needed for certain
jobs, they will never be a substitute for professional education based on scientific
methods. These method can compensate for the lack of professional education, but
not replace it. Such training courses and seminars usually specialise in selected
practical problems, are available to very limited target audiences, and are very limited
in terms of time. Even the best of them last for only a few weeks. Theoretical
knowledge is seldom part of the course, there is not enough time to develop themes
adequately, and the function of such courses is more often restricted to the
improvement of performance on specific and limited tasks.
Is help at hand?
Obviously significant improvement in the situation will not be achieved overnight, but
a start has been made. The education and training of AV archivists has been a subject
of investigation by the International Round Table on Audiovisual Records for the past
decade. This started as an exchange of information on the various national, regional
and international efforts geared to the education and training of av archivists. In 1988
a Working Party was formed under contract to Unesco to analyse the current situation
and make recommendations for future action. This report was published in the
Unesco RAMP series in 1990, and the speed with which the Working Party got
through its work is an indication of the urgency archivists feel towards finding some
solutions as soon as practicable. Among other features the report includes theoretical
aspects of archiving, training needs and standards, a draft curriculum and
recommendations for implementation as well as the results of a survey of institutions
with the potential to present audiovisual archive training programmes. See Section
XIII: 13.2, 13.3, 13.4.
Who requires training?
There is widespread recognition that training should be provided for audiovisual
archivists in general, that is people dealing with a range of av materials rather than
specialist single media archivists. Several reasons can be found for this attitude: the
integration of audiovisual materials in archives; the common functions found in
activities such as acquisition, preservation, cataloguing and use of audiovisual
materials; and from the point of view of the trainee the greater flexibility of placement
after training. Harmonisation of education programmes for all audiovisual archivists,
includes the general audiovisual archivist and the specialist film, television, or
Coordination between
recorded sound archivist as well as related disciplines.
practising audiovisual archivists, librarians and documentalists is to be encouraged to
the benefit of all who can be trained to a level at which they can be useful in several
professional posts.
But the need for training cannot be restricted to any particular level of staff in
audiovisual archives: there are different requirements for different levels, and this
could influence the type of training and decide the most useful in some circumstances.
Basic education to an appropriate level is essential, for example senior and middle
managers will probably have at least first degree level, but there is still a need for
additional systematic training programmes for all av archivists. It is also necessary to
raise the general awareness of the importance and need for the proper handling and
404
conservation of audiovisual materials in all situations, from archives and libraries to

general use.
Education/training should include full-time courses for qualified personnel, short
courses for specialist topics and personnel, workshops, seminars and symposia to
present new knowledge, in-service training of skilled workers for specific jobs, handson experience and other updating activities and finally brainstorming seminars for
the updating of the trainers. There is a blend of full-time and continuing education
involved here. No academic education can dispense with continuing professional
education. Audiovisual media develop at a rapid pace, and all changes in technology
have repercussions on the work of archives. Continuing education of top and middle
management personnel of av archives is imperative to enable them. to cope with their
duties.
Where should training
be provided?
Systematic training for av archivists is in a very early stage of development, and there
is no institution which currently offers a full-time course. If systematic training
programmes could be developed, the next question is where to present them. This
produces many thorny problems. Should the trainees be brought to the developed
archives, or should courses be presented in situ. Also which institutions are best
suited to present such programmes.
There have been many discussions about the best way to handle training in
audiovisual archivism and some experiments from which to draw tentative
conclusions. Short courses and seminars have been presented in developed centres
and also in regional centres in developing countries. FIAF has presented summer
schools in film archivism in both types of region and ICA (International Council on
Archives) has experience in presenting short courses in developing regions. Other
developed archives have accepted trainees from developing countries. But is it really
useful to bring trainees (often at considerable expense to their institutions) into a
developed archive where they will gain the sort of training and experience which
cannot be applied effectively to their own situation, nor are such trainees in a position
to influence management policy. They are in danger df being overtrained for the jobs
to which they return. People who would most benefit from training overseas in
developed countries are more likely to be at the senior management levels. They
should be in a better position to relate the experience gained overseas to the home
situation. Graduates should be in a position to be able to identify issues on their own
and establish a sequence of priority for practical solutions in archives and av media,
subject to different conditions prevailing in different countries and institutions. The
transfer of basic knowledge and the employment of graduates as trainers in the sense
of the snow-ball system might contribute to the emergence of personnel, institutional,
educational and teaching materials in the last decade of the 20th century.
In addition the trainers themselves would benefit from the opportunity to study as
many different systems as possible. It is likely that in the initial stages, trainers from
among existing practitioners could be sought out and sent on visiting fellowships or
secondment to develop the training programmes. Such practitioners would have to
receive familiarisation training in order to relate their existing principles and practices
to the region they are teaching in. The use of existing staff from archives for training
purposes also has certain disadvantages in that these people cannot always be spared
from their jobs. But if training programmes are to initiated effectively this is a
responsibility which the archive profession will have to face.
405
Harmonisation
of Professions and Training
Programmes
The concept of harmonisation is important in establishing training programmes for

audiovisual archivists. Harmonisation can be interpreted in two ways: the integration
of educational programmes for all av archivists: whether they work in film, television,
sound or audiovisual archives, and further the integration of training programmes for
archive personnel with that for other related professionals.
The concept of harmonisation is useful for any subject where the target audience is
relatively small and the subject matter is capable of being used by more than
profession. Harmonisation of training programmes between related profession should
enhance and improve the training possibilities for archivists and librarians. There are
two applications of the word which apply to training. Firstly there is a harmonisation
of practices between different training centres and schools in the same country - which
is important for equivalence of qualification. The second aspect is harmonisation of
education and training programmes for the three information professions: archivist,
Some subjects such as preservation and
librarian, and information scientist.
conservation appear to be good cases for harmonisation. It makes sense to look for
cooperation and coordination between related professions in training for special
aspects of work such as the archival aspects of audiovisual materials. The skills and
resources of the three professions can be utilised for the benefit of all. Of the several
areas recommended for inclusion in a plan of action for harmonisation, preservation
and conservation, audiovisual materials, information technology and records
management are of particular relevance to the audiovisual librarian. There are other
benefits to be gained from collaborative training projects including economic benefits,
when both human and financial resources can be used for mutual benefit; benefits for
the students in that their range of skills is increased and barriers between professional
groups are lessened giving the trainees greater mobility and job opportunities.
It seems to be preferable to integrate training with existing programmes rather than
add another strand, but which disciplines should be selected as suitable for integrating
audiovisual archivism? The major discipline is archival science. Documentation
although important is less closely connected. Library schools could provide useful
training for the disciplines of documentation, but archive science should form its own
discipline and not be seen as an add-on aspect of a librarianship course.
Consideration needs to be given to the value of harmonisation of training for
audiovisual archive and library personnel. but although the similarities between
libraries and audiovisual archives appear close in terms of formal description,
cataloguing, access; other skills of preservation and technical aspects require different
training. There will not be complete harmonisation and the training programmes of
the different skills cannot be used as substitutes for one another.
One of the first considerations of international schemes for the training of audiovisual
archive personnel is the problem of whether such schemes should be centred in
countries with developed archives - to illustrate elements of good practice - or whether
to present training schemes in the areas/regions or countries in which the greatest need
occurs. In the case of audiovisual archive personnel it has to be recognised that the
greatest need is for the development of a universal scheme of training: the developed
archives are as much in need of properly organised and assimilated training
programmes as the developing countries and their archives. Developed countries need
to put their own houses in order before preaching to anyone else. Having said this
many developed countries have achieved some measure of principle and practice for
collections management within their audiovisual archives and are gradually reaching a
position where expertise and experience can be disseminated to a wider audience than
406
before. But equally it has to be recognised that many developing countries have their
own special problems and pragmatic solutions to add to this experience. The
developed world is not always any wiser than the developing world in these new
areas of audiovisual archiving and indeed the developing world has much practical
experience to offer with its changing conditions, financial and other resources,
capacities and climates which has to be taken into account in any training programme
if it is to be appropriate to regional and national interests. The question now is how to
achieve a transfer of all this accepted knowledge and expertise to all those who are in
need. If the developed world has a part to play in this process it is by facilitating with
financial and human resources the transfer of knowledge, practice and principle.
But how best to implement these programmes and which is the better concept, to set
up training programmes in developed archives with all their supposed advantages of
equipment, sufficient staff, some of whom can be spared to tutor trainees, exemplary
practices and wide connections and cooperation with surrounding archives and their
practices. This implies that trainees have to come from far and wide, usually at
considerable expense to their institution or government, take instruction in an alien
situation which does not always relate or even appear relevant to their own particular
situation and acquire knowledge which may or may not be possible to turn into
practice in their own position. It is a lot to ask of a relatively inexperienced trainee!
Such a scheme allows for only a limited number of graduates to travel at considerable
expense, and courses held in these situations are usually irregular and designed for a
wide variety of trainee, rather than courses specifically designed to a particular type of
participant.
The other pattern is to send lecturers/tutors from a developed archive to the country or
region which requires a training programme. This is sometimes more realistic as it
means the funding of only one or two people into a country or region, who providing
they are well briefed and at least familiar with the situation and climate prevailing in
the region, can relate practical experiences of audiovisual collections management to
the particular circumstances. There is also a most important aspect to this argument
which is that in many instances it is not possible to transfer currency from one country
to another. The problems of currency exchange range widely, but it is difficult to
convert currency from one country to another and the more which can be spent within
a country or region the more value that currency will achieve.
Although educational programmes may be centred on a particular country the
concepts of regional education and cooperation are essential. The centre within a
region which has the better facilities, and a wide range of different archives and
audiovisual facilities within easy distance is the more obvious choice to conduct a
training programme. Presenting courses in regional centres could ensure a sufficiently
large target audience to make a course a viable proposition and also allow the
participants to acquire much needed hands-on experience of a greater variety of
relevant audiovisual equipment and materials. An audiovisual archive training course
profits greatly from practical experience and fieldwork and this aspect is likely to be
more easily and better arranged on a regional basis with the use of local resources and
facilities in institutions which have audiovisual collections and are prepared to host
working visits - or who may have their own in-training courses.
There is a need to attach training programmes to existing training centres which are
capable of expanding to include additional disciplines, or can be given the necessary
resources to do so rather than set up new completely independent training centres for
av archivists only. Such a new centre would find it difficult to be a viable proposition
at least in the short-term. This introduces the concept of harmonisation. Training
courses for audiovisual archivists could be associated with existing schools or training
407
centres, for a variety of related disciplines including those of archive management

courses, librarianship, film schools, etc.
Training programmes should really be set up in several centres. The training and
education of audiovisual archivists needs to take place in existing archival institutions
and institutions of higher education. The demand for one or more new institutions at
national or international level to teach the staff of film, tv and sound archives is
neither realistic nor financially feasible at present. Having accepted that training
programmes need to be set up in several centres there is a need to begin the
establishment as a matter of urgency. This will involve the international organisations
of Unesco in particular, national archive schools and training centres of relevant
institutions.
Exemplary models can also be developed to serve for individual
countries, perhaps even for regions sharing similar historical traditions and a common
language. Existing regional or national centres such as national archives, archive
management schools, library and information science departments etc. could be used
for training programmes as well as other resources including archives and film
schools which are available in the immediate neighbourhood. These institutions could
form a pool of resources in which students of the programme could gain the very
necessary practical experience.
The results of the initial survey carried out by the Curriculum Developmen> Working
Party indicate that there is sufficient interest in developing courses for av archives
within existing institutions, and a follow-up survey could be conducted to identify
those organisations which have the greatest potential for such development.
Teaching Materials
Before training programmes can be successfully instigated there has to be some
improvement in the provision of suitable teaching materials for the trainers to use.
This ranges from the very basic manuals of practice, through other normal library
tools such as bibliographies, to audiovisual teaching aids which can be used in for
instance a distance teaching situation. Few of these exist at present, but there are
plans to rectify some of the damage before too long. A bibliography of audiovisual
archive materials is in preparation, a basic manual divided into theory and practice,
technical and non-technical is also being prepared. Other aids such as a series of basic
library handling pamphlets have also been initiated. While one would continue to
encourage the production of these basic aids and manuals the further production of
useful audiovisual materials indicating principles and practice which can be used in a
teaching situation is to be encouraged. Distance learning has a value for audiovisual
archive training and there is a ready market for the production of suitable teaching
tools.
Finally we should not forget certification - that piece of paper which proves we have
all gone through some period of training to fit us for the tasks ahead. Certification is
becoming of importance within our own society as education edicts take hold, but they
are of even more importance in developing countries - they give a person some kudos
within their own society and the better the certificate the better the end result in the
way of employment. It is therefore essential that when the audiovisual training
programmes are in place the certification should be recognised throughout the various
There should be little problem with this providing the
professions involved.
professions accept their responsibility for the better education of audiovisual
professionals, whether these be archivists, librarians or information scientists. The
opportunity is there, let us hope we will not be found wanting.
4Q8
FURTHER
READING
EDITOR'SNOTE
The Audiovisual Archive Reader has been designed to include the most relevant,
practical articles on all aspects of audiovisual archiving. Inevitably there will be
missing items and the following list of further reading is a selection of useful and
important works on the subject. It is organised into sections which reflect the
structure of the Reader and contains longer, complete works in which many of the
articles for the Reader appear.
The user of the Reader may wish to refer to some of these works, but it is appreciated
that some may not be available to everyone, as they may be out of print, or
unobtainable for a variety of reasons. Wherever possible we have tried to refer to
works currently available.
This is by no means a full list of possible readings and the user is referred to the
following publication for a more comprehensive listing:
Audiovisual
archive literature:
a select bibliography,
Harrison. UNESCO, Paris, 1992. PGI-92/WS/2
edited
by Helen
REFERENCES
Introduction
to Audiovisual
Archives, Collection and Management
Walne, Peter. Selected guidelines for the management of records and archives: a
RAMP reader, prepared by Peter Walne. PGI-90IWSI6 UNESCO, Paris, 1990.
Ellis, J (ed.): Keeping Archives, published by D W Thorpe Australian Society of
Archivists, 1993.
Houston, Penelope, Keepers of the frame: the film archives. British Film Institute,
London, 1994. This is a descriptive, accurate history of the development and work of
film archives and archivists. Packed with useful information about the preservation of
the cinematic heritage through preservation, restoration, the search for lost films, and
the thorny questions of what to keep and how. Not a book about administration but a
background book or history of the preservation of the cultural heritage on film.
FIAT. Panorama of audiovisual archives. FIAT (BBC Data Publications), London,
1986. 298~. Major work with over 30 articles covering the administration and
preservation of audiovisual archives, especially those of television organisations.
Sections are devoted to policy and structures, procedures, preservation, documentation
and legal aspects. Individual papers cited separately in this bibliography.
FIAT. Handbook on Audiovisual archives. FIAT, London, 1997 (provisional date)
FIAT. Guide to audiovisual archives. FIAT, Helsinki, 1990. Directory of FIAT
member archives including holdings, catalogues, access arrangements, contacts etc.
Lance, David. Sound Archives: a guide to their establishment and development.
IASA, Vienna, 1983
409
Ward, Alan. A manual of sound archive administration.

Gower, Aldershot, 1990.
Major up-to date work for sound archivists, surveying existing sources and practice.
Draws much of the current work together and cites many documents. Valuable also
for its compilation of current documents. Appendices include codes of practice for
archival procedures and a very useful glossary of terms, based on the ARSC AAA
project.
FIAF; FIAT. Report on the moving image heritage. Survey on the implementation of
the Unesco 1980 Recommendation for the safeguarding and preservation of moving
images. FIAF/FIAT, Brussels/Madrid, 1989. 25~.
Detailed survey on the history of the Unesco Recommendation to ascertain steps
which have been taken as a result of the Recommendation. Useful guide.
Cook, Michael, Information
Publishing, London, 1993
management and archival data.
Library Association
A core text for training in archives administration and information management.

Retraining of staff is necessary in the face of developments in archival description and
the management of information. Common elements between records management,
archive management, librarianship, information services and museology are
examined. Clear directions are given for archival description. Little specifically
about audiovisual materials, but of relevance to the av archivist.
Directories
Klaue, Wolfgang, editor. World Directory of Moving Image and sound archives.
Film-television-sound series Vol. 5. K. G. Saur, Munich, 1993. 192~.
577 entries. Compiled basically from the membership of the Audiovisual federations
of the Round Table on Audovisual Records: FIAF, FIAT, IASA, ICA and IFLA. The
entries contain name of archive, address, collection size and subject content, access
and general notes about fees and copyright.
FIAF. 50 years offilm archives: 2938 - 1988. FIAF, Brussels, 1988. 201~.
This is a celebration of 50 years. Includes details of FIAF, its commissions and
activities. Also forms a directory of member archives.
FIAT. Guide to audiovisual archives. FIAT, Helsinki, 1990. Directory of FIAT
members including holdings, catalogues. access arrangements, contacts etc.
Glossaries
Gartenberg, Jon. Glossary offilmographic terms, version II. FIAF, Brussels, 1989.
149p.
Updated edition of the polyglot dictionary of terms including terms in English,
French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Czech,
Hungarian, Bulgarian. The dictionary covers film and television credit terms useful
Arranged hierarchically according to related functions with an
for cataloguing.
alphabetical index and short description of each term.
410
Legal Issues
Legal questions facing audiovisual archives.
Kofler, Birgit.
PGI-9 1!WS/5.
UNESCO, Paris, 199 1. 7 1p. Proposes a set of guidelines, or model provisions which
might be considered in preparation of new, or the revision of existing legislation on
audiovisual archives. The principles are aimed at the preservation of the audiovisual
heritage. The proposals are accompanied by an explanatory commentary indicating
how the guidelines evolved. Useful appendices include: a bibliography (pp.55-58); a
list of relevant national legislation; and a detailed analysis and description of
international legal instruments.
NORDINFO
Legal deposit with special reference to the archiving of electronic
materials. Proceedings of a seminar organised by NORDINFO and the British Library
R & D Department, Windsor UK. 27-29 October 1994. ISBN 95 l-53-021 2-9.
NORDINFO/British Library London 1995
Proceedings of the seminar covering 5 sessions:
Legal issues - now and the future
Selection criteria/scope
Access to materials/security
Archiving and preservation
Oral History
Lance, David. An archive approach to oral history. IASA, London, 1978. Reprinted
1985.
Moss, William W and Mazikana, Peter C. Archives, oral history and oral tradition: a
RAMP study. PGI-86/WS/2. UNESCO, Paris, 1986.
Selection and Appraisal
Kula, Sam. The archival appraisal of moving images: a RAMP study with guidelines.
PGI-83/WS/18. UNESCO, Paris, 1983.
Harrison, Helen P. The archival appraisal of sound recordings: a RAMP study with
guidelines. PGI-84/WS/12. UNESCO, Paris, 1987.
Harrison, Helen P editor. Selection in sound archives: collected papers from IASA.
IASA, Vienna, 1984.
Documentation
and Information
Retrieval
Harrison, Harriet W, compiler and editor.

Archives. K. G. Saur, Munich, 199 1.
The FIAF Cataloguing Rules for Film
Evaluating computer cataloguing

Smither, Roger.
archivists. FIAF, Brussels, 1989.
systems: a guide for film
Cook, Michael and Procter, Margaret., A manual of archival description, 2nd Edition.
British Library R & D report 5965. Gower, Aldershot, 1989.
411
-.
_-..
-_-_l-l___ _-__..
Cook, Michael; Procter, Margaret. A MAD user guide: how to set about listing
archives.. a short explanatory guide to the rules and recommendations of the manual of
archive description.
Gower, Aldershot, 1989.
55~. Sampler for descriptive
cataloguing of archive materials, including the audiovisual materials. .
Storage, Handling
and Conservation
FLAF Preservation Commission.

FLAF, Brussels, 1985. 18~.
Handling, preservation and storage of nitrate film.
Eastman Kodak Company. The book of$lm care. Eastman Kodak ltd, Rochester,
New York, 1983. Handy guide to the safe handling and conservation of film
materials.
FIAF. Preservation and restoration of moving images and sound. FIAF, Brussels,
1986.
Includes major articles on properties and preservation methods of film and magnetic
recordings, conservation and restoration of magnetic recordings and film. technical
practices of audiovisual archives. equipment. storage techniques and a section on the
staffing of a technical department.
Bogart, John W C Van, Magnetic tape storage and handling: a guide for libraries
and archives. Commission on Preservation and Access. National Media Laboratory
Washington DC 1995
Lesk, M. Preservation of New Technology.
Preservation and Access, October 1992.
Washington, D.C.:
Commission on
Photographs
Hendriks, Klaus B.
1991
Fundamentals of photograph
conservation.
Lugus, Toronto,
Weighty tome which gives a thorough analysis of the conservation and preservation
processes of photographs. Lucid and informative. Purpose stated is a study guide to
summarise laboratory experiments and their theoretical foundation in the field of
photographic conservation.
Contains a training programme for photographic
conservation, darkroom and laboratory equipment, black and white processing,
duplication and copying, preservation, storage and display of photographs, tests for
image stability and preservation surveys. Author is director of conservation research
at the National Archives of Canada.
Eastman Kodak Company. Conservation of Photographs.
Rochester, NY, 1985
Eastman Kodak Company,
Very useful basic manual intended for conservators of photographs in art galleries,
Contains data on all aspects of the subject:
museums, archives and libraries.
collection management, photographic processes, the structure of contemporary
materials, stability of black and white and colour images, preservation and restoration.
storage environment
standards and guidelines,
Sections
on technical
recommendations. Kodak processing chemicals analysed. The book is based on the
scientific and technical expertise of the company as well as experienced photographic
conservators and curators.
412
Clark, Susie. A practical guide to the care, handling, storage and display of
photographic and related material. Museums and Galleries Commission, London,
1997
Museums and Galleries Commission.
Standards in the Museums care of
photographic coZZections. Museums and Galleries Commission London, 1996
Hendriks, Klaus B. The preservation and restoration of photographic materials in
archives and libraries: a RAMP study with guidelines. PGI-84lWSll.
UNESCO,
Paris, 1984.
One of the foremost authorities on the technical preservation and conservation of
photographic materials.
Technical
Picket& A G and Lemcoe, M M. Preservation and storage of sound recording.
Library of Congress, Washington DC, 1959. Reprinted by ARSC in 1991
Remains one of the most important documents on sound recording technology and
preservation.
FIAF. Preservation and restoration of moving images and sound. FIAF, Brussels,
1986. FIAFs technical handbook with plenty of guidance on technical matters.
Reilly, James M. IPI storage guide for acetate film: Basic strategy for film
preservation. Rochester, New York: Rochester Institute of Technology, Image
Permanence Institute; 1993.
Child, Margaret S, compiler. Directory of information sources on scienttjk research
related to the preservation of sound recordings, still and moving images and magnetic
tape. The Commission on Preservation and Access, Washington DC, 1993. 14~.
FIAF, FIAT, IASA. Archiving the audiovisual heritage: a joint technical symposium.
Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, 1988. 169~. Proceedings of the Joint
Technical Symposium held in Berlin, May 20-22, 1987. 3 1 papers dealing with the
preservation, restoration and conservation of film, video and sound recordings.
Technical Coordinating Committee of FIAF, FIAT, IASA and ICA. Archiving the
audiovisual heritage: Proceedings of the Third Joint Technical Symposium, Ottawa,
Canada, May 3-5 1990. TCC, Milton Keynes, 1991. State of the art papers on the
preservation and restoration of audiovisual carriers, with an analysis of several factors
which cause deterioration, decay or breakdown. New recording systems and life
expectancy of both machine and carrier are examined as well as the current state of
the use of digital technology in the audiovisual archive world.
Technical Coordinating Committee of FIAF FIAT IASA and ICA. Guide to the basic
technical equipment required by audio, film and television archives. TCC, Milton
Keynes, 199 1. 93~. Basic tool for the selection of archive equipment and configuring
the equipment to suit the particular needs of AV archives. Divided into three areas of
film, television and sound archives.
413
Disaster Planning
Buchanan, Sally A. Disaster planning, preparedness and recovery for libraries and
archives: a RAMP study with guidelines. Extensive bibliography by Toby Murray.
UNESCO PGI-88AVS/6. UNESCO, Paris, 1988.
A recent study in an area which has become of increasing concern. Print archive and
library based, but the principles can be carried over to a consideration of audiovisual
materials.
Education and Training
Harrison, Helen P, editor . Curriculum development for the training of personnel in
moving image and recorded sound archives. Report of the Curriculum Development
Working Party. PGL90/WS/9. UNESCO, Paris, 1990.
The study, carried out by members of the Round Table on Audiovisual Records, a
Unesco group of NGOs, includes sections on the training needs of av archivists,
recommended standards for training, a draft curriculum, the organisation and
harmonisation of education programmes, and proposals for implementation of the
programmes. Appendices include a survey of potential training institutions and a
select bibliography.
414
.^_-____l____l__-
.-...
._---.~-_-..
._
AUDIOVISUAL
INTERNATIONAL
ARCHIVE
FEDERATION
ASSOCIATIONS
OF FILM ARCHIVES
AND CONTACTS
(FIAF)
WHAT IS FIAF?
FIAF, the International Federation of Film Archives, brings together the worlds
leading institutions in the field of moving picture heritage. Its affiliates are the
defenders of the Twentieth Centurys own art form. They are dedicated to the rescue,
collection, preservation and screening of moving images, which are valued both as
works of art and culture and as historical documents. When it was founded in 1938,
FIAF had four members. Today it comprises more than 100 institutions in over 60
countries - a reflection of the extent to which preservation of moving image heritage
has become a world-wide concern.
FIAFs aims are:
- to uphold a code of ethics for film preservation and practical standards for all areas
of film archive work
- to promote the creation of moving image archives in countries which lack them
- to seek the improvement of the legal context within which film archives carry out
their work
- to promote film culture and facilitate historical research on both a national and
international level
- to foster training and expertise in preservation and other archive techniques
- to ensure the permanent availability of material from the collections for study and
research by the wider community
- to encourage the collection and preservation of documents and materials relating to
the cinema
- to develop cooperation between members and to ensure the international availability
of films and documents.
WHO IS ASSOCIATED WITH FIAF?
FIAFs members are archives which are actively engaged in the activities and fully
committed to the ideals described earlier. Current members reflect a wide range of
non-profit institutions, including government archives, independent foundations and
trusts, self-contained cinematheques, and museum or university departments. FIAF
also welcomes links with non-profit institutions that support the goals of the
Federation and have significant preservation or other activities in areas related to film
preservation but are not involved in film preservation per se. If not eligible for full
membership, such institutions are affiliated with the Federation in another category.
In this way, FIAF is joined by moving image museums, television and video archives
and videotheques, documentation centres, and so on. Organisations interested in
seeking affiliation should contact the Federations secretariat, at the address given
below. Secretariat staff will provide up-to-date information on application procedures
and the costs of affiliation.
415
WHAT DOES FIAF DO?
Much of the work of FIAF takes the form of active cooperation between members on
projects of mutual benefit or interest - for example, the careful restoration of a
particular film, or the compilation of a national or international filmography. The
more visible activities include the annual congress, publications and the work of the
specialist commissions.
The Annual Congress. FIAF meets every year in a different country. The Congress
combines a General Assembly at which the formal business of the Federation is
transacted with a programme of symposia and workshops on technical or legal aspects
of film archive work and on aspects of film history and culture.
Publications.
FIAF publishes a regular Journal of Film Preservation (formerly the
FIAF Bulletin). A special office compiles and publishes the International Index to
Film Periodicals and the International Index to Television Periodicals - an activity that
has recently developed into the annual production of a Film Archive CD-ROM. The
Secretariat in Brussels publishes annually the FIAF Directory, the minutes of the
Congress, and a composite volume of the annual reports of its membership. Other
publications include an annual bibliography of members publications, the proceedings
of symposia or workshops, the results of surveys and reports, manuals and discussion
papers prepared by the specialist Commissions and the results of other FIAF projects.
The commissions. The Commissions are groups of individual experts from affiliated
archives who meet regularly to pursue work programmes that promote and assist in
the development and maintenance of standards at both the theoretical and the practical
level. Projects are suggested by the membership of FIAF, by the Federations
The Commissions
Executive Committee, or by the Commissions themselves.
communicate with the FIAF community through publications and special workshops.
There are at present four Commissions: the Technical Commission (former
Preservation Commission), the Cataloguing Commission, the Documentation
Commission and the Commission for Programming and Access to Collections.
HOW IS FIAF RUN?
FIAF operates under Statutes and Internal Rules approved by its members and is
administered through an Executive Committee and three offricers - a President, a
Secretary-General, and a Treasurer - elected by the full members every other year
during a General Assembly. The Federation maintains a small permanent Secretariat.
FIAF AND THE OUTSIDE WORLD?
FIAF has always had an active international profile. It was closely involved in the
preparatory work for the UNESCO Recommendation .for the Safeguarding and
Preservation of Moving Images, approved in Belgrade in 1980. In pursuit of the goals
of the Recommendation, and frequently with support from UNESCO, the Federation
organises a common programme of actions in Asia, Latin America and Africa, sends
experts to advise developing archives, and facilitates contacts with older archives to
make sure that their experience is passed on.
416
Traini,lg of archive personnel takes place at FIAF Summer Schools which have been
held several times in various countries. Their aim is to introduce participants to the
necessary skills of preservation, cataloguing documentation and even administration.
FIAF cooperates closely with the International Federation of Television Archives
(FIAT) the International Association of Sound Archives (IASA) the International
Council on Archives (ICA) and the International Federation of Library Associations
(IFLA).
Annual round table meetings are held to exchange views and develop
common activities, and there have been several successful Joint Technical Symposia.
The continuation of FIAFs work requires direct and indirect personal, political and
financial support and commitment from its affiliates and from all who share a concern
for the survival of, and access to, the worlds moving image heritage. If you are
interested in seeking affiliation with FIAF or otherwise helping its activities, please
contact the Secretariat.
Subscription offers a method of direct support for FIAF to those not seeking formal
affiliation. Subscribers form a growing group of individuals and organisations of
many kinds - including donors, ciniastes, sponsors, film libraries and equipment
manufacturers who wish to express their commitment to the Federations goals and to
be informed of the activities both of FIAF itself and of its affiliates.
For further information please contact:
FIAF (International Federation of Film Archives)
rue Defacqz 1
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: 32 2 538 30 651534 61 30
Fax: 32 2 534 47 74
e-mail: fiaf(@mail.interpac.be
Web site: http://www.cinema.ucla/eduEIAF/fiaf.html
417
__--...-__---
-I-_
~...
~NTERNATIONALFEDERATIONOFTELE~SI~NAR~~~ES
(FIAT)
The International Federation of Television Archives, a non-profit association, was

created in Rome on June 13 1977 by the ARD, the BBC, INA and the RAI. Its main
interests are in the Broadcasting Archives, Information services, Rights management,
Multimedia applications, Production, Technological development, and Professional
training.
GOALS
IFTAs initial goal is to encourage cooperation between television archive departments

and, in particular, to promote :
- improvement and compatibility of documentary systems ;
- exchange of information and archive documents ;
- study of storage techniques and mediums ;
- and, more generally, study of all questions relating to the exploitation of audiovisual
archives.
A number of complementary points of interest have emerged since definition of this
initial goal :
- applications of digital and multimedia techniques to safeguarding and storing of
holdings, to documentary processing, to on-line access systems, and to referenced
documents ;
- ways for archives to be re-used in production : ethical rules and creativity;
- professional and commercial exploitation of archives and related copyright
problems ;
- archive management.
MEMBERS
IFTA today totals 120 members. They come from about fifty countries on the five
continents, and represent state and private television archive departments, press
agencies and leading national conservation organizations.
BOARDOFDIRECTORS
IFTA is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of a President, Secretary General,

Treasurer, two vice presidents and nine members.
COMMISSIONS
IFTAs activities are coordinated by four Commissions :

- > the Documentation Commission, chaired by Annemieke Westenbrink (NOB):
shot segmentation, image-based
new documentary tools (automatic indexation,
search (Project Euromedia)) ; digital servers and multimedia applications ;
documentary data bases.
418
- > the Technical Commission, chaired by Denis Frambourt (INA) : safeguarding old
standards - film, 1 and 2, video ; choice of storage mediums ; mass digital storage ;
digital restoration; digital compression, networked servers in television information
services : consequences on archiving.
- > the Programming and Production Commission, chaired by Lasse Nilsson (SVT) :
organization of the IFTA Television Archive Award ; recommendations for archive
program selection; rules for reutilization of archives; archive restructuring.
-> the Training Commission, chaired by Dr. Peter Dusek (ORF) : organization of or
participation in training activities in developing archive departments (East European
countries, Africa, etc.).
For further information please contact:
Steve Bryant,
Secretary General
National Film and Television Archive
2 1, Stephen Street
London W 1P 2LN
419
The International
Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) is a
non-governmental UNESCO affiliated organisation. It was established in 1969 in
Amsterdam to function as a medium for international cooperation between archives
which preserve recorded sound documents. The Association is actively involved in
information; and in all subjects relating to the professional work of sound and
audiovisual archives and archivists including acquisition, documentation, copyright,
access, distribution, preservation, and the technical aspects of recording and playback
and in the exchange of recordings between archives and of related literature and
information.
Membership of the Association is open to all categories of archives and other
institutions which preserve sound and audiovisual recordings, and to organisations
and individuals having a serious interest in the purposes or welfare of IASA. The
Association includes members representing archives of music, histoT, literature,
drama and folklife recordings; radio and television sound archives; collections of oral
history, natural history, bio-acoustic and medical sounds; recorded linguistic and
dialect studies.
IASA holds an annual conference which includes business sessions, working sessions
for IASA committees, and sessions on topics of general interest. The Association has
over 350 members, individual and institutional in more than 49 countries.
Organisation
of IASA
The Association is controlled by an elected Executive Board, supported by a number

of committees with special subject interests. The constitution of IASA provides for
national branches, as well as affiliated organisations represented in the National and
Affiliated Organisations Committee (NAOC).
The Cataloguing
committee discusses the problems of existing rules in an
international context and two committees: Cataloguing and Discography, are working
on a set of Cataloguing Rules on Audiovisual Media with special reference to sound
recordings in conjunction with other audiovisual archive associations.
The Legal and Ethical committee discusses guidelines for archives and libraries and
maintains contact with international rights protection agencies including, WIPO
(World Intellectual Property Organisation), and IFPI (International Federation of
Phonogram Industries) to discuss archive concerns with legal. ethical and copyright
matters.
The National Archives Committee provides a working forum for discussion of
procedures appropriate to the larger state archives.
The Radio Sound Archives Committee provides a forum for discussion of the
particular problems of sound archivists working in broadcasting stations.
The Technical Committee provides an important forum of exchange amongst archive
technical staff and builds important international technical links which help guard
against the dangers of working in isolation. The committee plays a major role in
communicating with the non-technical members of IASA, and acts as an interactive
resource for the membership as well as undertaking specialist work. In recognition of
the increasing overlap of interest the Technical Committee is equally keen to establish
contacts with other archive groups in the hope that the technical media may be better
understood, preserved, valued and used.
7he Training Committee collaborates with other IASA committees in presenting
sessions at conference aimed at introducing specialist matters at a basic level. The
committee is also working on course curricula in collaboration with other audiovisual
420
archive associations, and is investigating and promoting training facilities for sound
and other audiovisual archivists.
Publications
The journal of the Association, the IASA Journal is published twice a year and an
Information
Bulletin quarterly. Both publications are sent to all members. A
cumulative Index for the IASA Journal (formerly the Phonographic Bulletin) was
published in 1993 and further cumulations are planned. Other publications include a
Membership List and a Directory of Member Archives, and a series of Special
Publications including:
Sound Archives : a guide to their establishment and development, edited by David
Lance.
Selection in sound archives; collected papersfiom IASA conferences, edited by Helen
Harrison
An Archive Approach to Oral History, by David Lance.
Other publications which have been accomplished by IASA with the assistance of
other NGOs include a Bibliography of sound archive literature, a Glossary of
Technical Terms, a Reader in Audiovisual Archiving, and Cataloguing and
Documentation Committee is working on the Cataloguing Rules for Audiovisual
Media.
IASA contributed a study to the RAMP programme of Unesco entitled: The Archival
appraisal of sound recordings and related materials: a RAMP study with guidelines.
This was published in 1987.
IASA is a member of the Round Table of Audiovisual Records which includes
representatives from other audiovisual archive associations and Unesco.
The
Association collaborates with several members of this Round Table in working
groups, the presentation of additional symposia and conferences, and the preparation
of publications and projects sponsored by Unesco. The Association helps to support
the Technical Co-ordinating Committee. This committee presents the Joint Technical
Symposia - held in Stockholm, (1982) Berlin (1987) Ottawa (1990) and London
(1995)) dealing with the conservation and preservation of audiovisual materials.
One of IASAs main concerns at the present time is to extend this type of cooperation.
We realise that as the technologies develop they will inevitably converge and although
there is scope for specialised consideration dealing with the specific materials there is
also a great deal of scope for wide ranging discussion on audiovisual archives.
Membership application forms and copies of the Associations statutes may be
obtained from the Secretary General. Subscriptions for the IASA Journal are
available to libraries and other organisations and individuals.
Secretary General
Albrecht Hamer
Stidwestfunk Baden-Baden
Postfach 8 20
D-76522 Baden Baden
Germany
Fax: +49 7221 922010
421
THE TECHNICAL CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE

The Technical Co-ordinating Committee (the TCC) was formed in 1987 to help foster
co-operation between the technical committees of the international sound and moving
image archive associations. Its members are drawn from the technical committees of
FIAF, IASA, ICA and IFTA. IFLA supports the work of the committee but is not
currently represented on the TCC. The initiative for the creation of the new
committee came from several places including UNESCO, the archive federations and
a number of equipment manufacturers.
A primary aim of the TCC is help spread knowledge of the technical problems facing
A-V collections and to assist with the search for solutions. Members of the TCC also
take an active part in a number of associated groups such as the various standards
committees working in the film. sound and video fields.
Since the committee was formed, it has produced several publications. These include
A Guide to the Basic Technical Equipment Required by Audio, Film and Television
Archives and a Directory of Archives with Technical Staff.
The committee has also contributed to work undertaken by other groups such as the
report on Curriculum Development for the Training, of Personnel in Moving Image
and Recorded Sound Archives and the Reader in Audio-visual Archives.
The TCC has organised two Technical Symposia on behalf of the A-V archive
federations. The first was in Ottawa in 1990 and the second in London in 1995.
Initial discussions about a third symposium are currently in progress.
The
Proceedings of these Symposia are published by the TCC.
For further information about the TCC and its work, please contact:
George Boston
TCC Chair
14 Dulverton Drive
Furzton,
Milton Keynes MK4 IDE
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (1908) 502610

Fax: +44 (1908) 502520
E-mail: keynes2@aolcom
422
REGIONAL AUDIOVISUAL
ARCHIVE ASSOCIATIONS
SEAPAVAA
South East Asia-Pacific Audiovisual
Archive Association
What is Seapavaa?
The South East Asia Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA) is a
regional forum for addressing common issues and concerns related to the collection
and preservation of, and provision of access to, the audiovisual heritage of member
countries. It was established in 1996, and embraces the full spectrum of audiovisual
media - film, television, video, radio and sound.
SEAPAVAA
works to encourage the support growth and use of audiovisual archives,

development of archivists, and to aid resource sharing and
communication within the region. It is based on the concept of organisational
membership, while also serving as a professional forum for individual practitioners.
the professional
OBJECTIVES
As defined in its constitution SEAPAVAAs
objectives include the following
* Promote awareness and development of audiovisual archiving

* Strengthen national capabilities through research , training and technology
transfer
* Undertake technical studies and projects addressing common concerns
* Establish regionwide standards, methods and procedures
* Encourage communication and mutual assistance among members
* Advance professional development and recognition of audiovisual archivists

* Cooperate with other international bodies towards achieving recognition and
support of audiovisual archiving in the region
ACTMTIES
Current activities include:

*
*
*
*
*
Technical collections and training committees and programs

Annual conferences
Newsletter
Professional network and information exchange
Joint projects
* Advocacy and representation

MEMBERSHIP
CATEGORIES
There are three categories:

FULL membership is open to audiovisual archives within the region
ASSOCIATE INSTITUTIONAL
membership is open to other
organisations
ASSOCIATE INDIVIDUAL
audiovisual archiving field
audiovisual
membership is open to individuals active in the
423
Article I of the SEAPAVAA
constitution defines:
S E Asia-Pacific as the geographic region embracing the members and

observers of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australasia,
Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia
An audiovisual archive as an organisation or unit of an organisation which is
focussed on collecting, managing, preserving and providing access to or making use
of a collection of audiovisual and related materials. This includes government and
non-government, commercial and cultural organisations which pursue these four
functions.
The constitution and rules of SEAPAVAA are available from the Secretariat. The
Supreme body of the Association is the annual General Assembly of members, which
elects an Executive Council to manage the Associations activities.
Membership applications are processed, and provisionally accepted or rejected by the
Executive Council, which must be satisfied as to the bona fides of each applicant. All
applications, and their outcomes, are subject to ratification by the next General
Assembly.
For further information contact the SEAPAVAA
Ms Belina Sb Capul
Secretary General
SEAPAVAA
c/- Philippine Information Agency
PIA Building
Visayas Avenue, Diliman,
Quezon City
PHILJPPINES
Tel: +632 920 4395
Fax: +632 920 4347
424
Secretariat.
ARCHIVE
and LIBRARY
INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
COUNCIL ON ARCHIVES
(ICA)
ICA has recently decided to review its activities related to audiovisual archiving,
which has been up to September 1996 the responsibility of the Committee on
Audiovisual Archives and, also, of the Committee on Oral Sources. The former
Committee was also responsible for maintaining ICAs contacts with the other non
governmental organisations in AV archiving.
With the increasing role of audiovisual documents in society and consequently in the
different areas of archiving though, ICA has decided to study the possibilities of a
Section on Audiovisual Archives. In general the proposed Section is expected to look
beyond archiving in the narrow sense of the term, and to cover also education and
training; legislation; descriptive standards; building and equipment; automation;
image technology; archive sources, access to and use of collections; preservation.
Obviously the final mandate depends on the proposals of the ICA Executive and the
agreement of its membership.
Present situation
Audiovisual archiving is part of the package of information and services ICA offers to
its membership. It therefore needs sufficient backing by the Council, to be able to
service its members properly. At the same time audiovisual archiving (i.e. archiving
of moving and still images and recorded sound) is taken care of by specialised
international and regional professional organisations such as FIAF, FIAT, IASA,
IFLA, and regional organisations in Europe and S.E. Asia. Most of these focus on
one or two groups of AV media, but so far ICA is the only one that considers AV
media as a group, as archival materials just like written records and not to be
considered as separate because of their technical aspects. Within ICA some regional
branches like ESARBICA have underlined the importance of AV archiving by setting
up themselves regional committees for that area. Meanwhile professional
developments in audiovisual archiving are taking place at what seems to be an ever
faster pace, and are establishing their own standards. ICAP-AV, a committee, has so
far been ICAs response to the audiovisual archiving, together with P-OS to cover oral
history and tradition sources.
Proposal
Against the background summarised above it is strongly felt that a more effective
body is needed in ICA to be the appropriate partner - for ICA and within ICA policy
framework - for other NGOs that cover audiovisual archiving, and regional
organisations. Such a body would group the AV archiving elements now spread over
different ICA bodies and thus facilitate cross-fertilisation as well as integration of the
audiovisual media complex in the general field of archiving.
This body should replace P-AV and P-OS, whose duties are integrated into its new
responsibilities which cover
* education and training; * legislation; * descriptive standards;
* building and equipment; * automation; * image technology;
* AV archive sources; * access to and use of collections; * preservation.
425
The new body will therefore add to, not duplicate existing services. It will also
coordinate within ICA all internal and external requests for information and
assistance. It is observed that in the past; P-AV has not always been involved in such
requests addressed to other ICA bodies.
The proposed body will in short, have to cover in fact all aspects of audiovisual
archiving and it is suggested that such a body should be a new Section within ICA.
For further information concerning the proposal please contact
Karl Griep,
Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv,
Fehrberliner Plats 3,
10707 Berlin,
Germany,
fax +4930-868 1 3 10
426
ASSOCIATIONSANDINSTITUTIONS
INTERNATIONALFEDERATIONOFLIBRARY
ROUNDTARLEONAUDIOVISUALANDMULTIMEDIA
Definitions
: origins
The AV Media RT was created in IFLA in 1973 to cover all non book materials, or,
according to another definition, all documents requiring equipment to be consulted :
sound records, slides, films and video.
Knowledge of formats and equipment is already part of the expertise of AV librarians.
Nevertheless, questions to be faced are wider than technical aspects .: legal restrictions
to collection development and access rules and formats for cataloguing, uses for
indexing, and classifying, conditions and technical solutions for preservation, are also
specific to audiovisual.
On the other hand, audiovisual documents have to be
integrated into library services for the general public, and can also offer special
services for special publics.
. . . and evolution
Recently emerged, successful and major new services in libraries, multimedia

documents (CD-I and CD-ROM) and multimedia on-line services represent an
evolution of audiovisual documents as they contain or deliver at the same time several
audiovisual media, electronically organised. Management of such documents and
services require the same or very similar expertise as single audiovisual documents or
databases.
This is the reason why, the Audiovisual Media Round Table has changed its name to
Audiovisual and Multimedia Round Table, as several library associations
audiovisual groups have already done.
It is an enlargement of the field as we have still to consider single audiovisual
production, as well as important heritage collections. It is a controlled enlargement,
as we emphasise multimedia containing a major part of sounds and/or still and/or
moving images. We do not consider all electronic publishing and on-line services,
even if texts are illustrated by sound and image.
Programme of activities
The main issues are defined as:
Technical issues regarding historical, present and future carriers and
In order to preserve heritage collections, and to use technological
equipment.
developments to copy and to deliver collections to the public.
Legal issues affecting collecting and delivering, collections, restrictions to
access. Legal and voluntary deposit to set up heritage collections.
427
Adaptation of cataloguing rules and formats to audiovisual and multimedia

documents. Adaptation of indexing languages and classification. New development
Producing
of enriching catalogues by sounds and images, automatic indexing.
national bibliographies
Use of audiovisual and multimedia for special services as language and
educational centres, disadvantaged people, multicultural publics, children.
Philosophy of archiving
Philosophy of use
Activities are exchange of information, development of knowledge, expertise.
They are developed on an international level with IFLA, as with other IFLA groups, as
with external professional groups.
Relations with IFLA groups
To accomplish the programme, the Round Table works in relation to several Sections
and Divisions: National Libraries (heritage collections and legal deposit), General
Public Libraries, Arts Libraries, Information and Technology (standards of electronic
publishing and digitalization, networks and interfaces,. ..), Conservation (preservation
of old and new carriers and equipment), Cataloguing. This cooperation is not an
overlap, but an exchange of expertise.
Increasing expertise, developing projects and activities, enlarging membership are the
aims over the next years, that should lead the Round Table to become a section in
IFLA.
Relations with other professional groups : Round Table of AV Records
As members of AV RT are audiovisual experts in IFLA, they are also professionals
whose expertise is available to other organisations.
From the history of production of audiovisual media it is clear that heritage collections
have been set up mainly not by libraries but by archives, public and private, linked or
not with national libraries, based or not on legal deposit. These archives are
represented by professional groups: International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF),
International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT), International Association of
Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), International Council of Archives (ICA).
These Non Governmental Organizations and IFLA, established a group, the
International Round Table on Audiovisual Records, with the participation of
UNESCO. In this group, IFLA represents heritage collections of national and special
libraries, as a body of professional specialists in managing, and delivering documents
to the public.
With the support of UNESCO, the International Round Table on Audiovisual Records
has in recent years developed useful tools regarding common issues of audiovisual
archiving: legal, technical, training.
428
Curators and technicians of our institutions participate in Technical Symposia. IFLA

Projects can contribute to fund joint surveys or publications. IFLA Round Table and
members can act as consultants for actions and publications funded by UNESCO.
Participation by IFLA is a major opportunity of information and cooperation in the
audiovisual archiving field. We have to face the same preservation and bibliographic
questions for the heritage collections. The more so because in recent years, archives
have tended to become libraries, as several of them are in charge of legal deposit, or
have begun to set up services for the public.
For further information contact :
Isabelle Giannattasio, Chair
Bibliotheque Nationale de France,
Department de la Phonotheque et de 1-audiovisuel
Quai Francois Mauriac 75706 Paris Cedex 13
France
Fax: +33 1 46 71 47 21
Tel: +33 1 56 79 53 01
e-mail: Isabelle.Giannattasio@bnf.fr
Bibbi Andersson, Secretary
Kultur- och utbildningsforvaltningen
Upplands-Bro kommun
S- 196 8 1 Kungsangen
Sweden
e-mail: bibbi.andersson@fc.dialog.se
Tel: +46858 1696 10 Fax: +46858
169088
429

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Contents List - Source Materials

1.1 Audiovisual archives

1.2 Nature of the AV Media

1.3 Worldview and Paradigm of Av Archiving

1.4 Audiovisual Records as Archival Material

1.5 General Principles of Audiovisual Archiving

1.6 A Typology of Media Archives 1993

LEGAL ISSUES IN ACCIOVISUAL

1.8 Legal Issues Facing Audiovisual Archives

1.9 Legal Issues in Av Archives: an Introduction

1.10 Copyright, Neighbouring Rights and Film Archives

1.11 UNESCO AV Copyright Meeting Report. December 5-6 1994

1.13 Ethics and New Technology

2.1 Approaches to the National Organisation of Sound Archives

2.2 History and Organization of Moving Image Archives

2.3 Records Management in Sound Archives

2.4 Guidelines for Establishing and Maintaining Television Programme Archives

Royal Television Society

3.1 Oral History

3.2 Oral Tradition and Oral History

SECTION IV SELECTION AND APPRAISAL

4.1 Archival Appraisal

4.2 Selection and Audiovisual Collections

4.3 Archival Appraisal of Moving Images

4.4 Selection Policy and Selection Standards for Television Archives

4.5 Recommended Standards and Procedures for Selection for Preservation of

5.1 Introduction to FIAF Cataloguing Rules

5.2 The Special Problems of Cataloguing Moving Images in an Archive

5.3.1 IASA Cataloguing Rules for Audio-Visual Media Cataloguing and

5.5 Towards Standards for Audiovisual Materials

5.6 The Cataloguing of AV-media

Rainer Hubert, Osterreichische Phonothek, Vienna

SECTION VI USE OF COMPUTERS IN AUDIOVISUAL

6.1 Evaluating Computer Cataloguing Systems

SECTION VII STORAGE, HANDLING

7.1 Film Archives

7.2 The Care of Grooved Recordings

Gilles St. Laurent et al 19%

7.3 Magnetic Tape Deterioration: Recognition, Recovery and Prevention

7.6 Data Density Versus Data Security

7.7 Strategies for the Safeguarding of Audio and Video Materials

7.8 Photographic Conservation

SECTION VIlI TECHNICAL

8.1 General Definitions used in Preservation

8.2 Television Archives

8.3 Audio Archives

9.1 Film Specific Practices and Procedures and Equipment

10.1 Costs of Storage in Sound Archives

Cor L. Doesburg NOB, Hilversum

10.2 Format-specific Preservation Costs - A First Attempt

SECTION XI FUTURE TECHNOLOGY

11.1 NEW TECHNOLOGY

11.1.1 What New Technology Can Be Recommended?

SECTION XII EMERGENCY

12.1 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Recovery in Audiovisual Collections

Gerald D Gibson, Library of Congress, Washington DC

SECTION XIII EDUCATION

13.1 New Media Require Specialized Archivists

13.2 Training Needs For AV Archivists

Curriculum Development Working Party