IASA 2018 Annual Conference

Co-edited by Will Prentice and Lars Gaustad, this is the 4th Edition, published in 2017. While the earlier versions concentrated on audio, this new edition is extending these general principles and strategies to include moving images. The tutorial concentrates on the content migration for audio and video documents, the only viable method to preserve their contents in the long-term, because of the instability of original carriers and the obsolescence of replay equipment The principles of optimal signal extraction from original carriers, unmodified transfer to digital archival formats, and the importance of metadata for the authentication of contents will be discussed.

Edited by Dietrich Schüller and Albrecht Häfner, IASA-TC 05 was published in 2014. While IASA-TC 03, presented in another tutorial at this conference, underlines that, ultimately, long-term preservation of audiovisual documents can only be achieved by “eternal” digital content migration, TC 05 explains that carrier preservation has still its important place in audiovisual archiving, as by far not all audiovisual documents have as yet been transferred to digital repositories. Also, IASA-TC 03 strongly recommends that originals be kept for potential later reference. IASA-TC 05 explains how handling and storage of audio and video carriers can be optimised to preserve original holdings, until professional long-term preservation can be organised and financed. In the presentation, reference will be made to specific precautions against the unfavourable climatic conditions in tropical zones.

As more and more collection objects are born-digital and non-physical in nature, archivists must develop core competencies regarding the fundamental nature of digital objects. Just as knowledge of the chemical composition of cellulose (for example) is essential for the care and maintenance of paper materials, the knowledge of file construction at a bit-level is essential for archivist to make careful decisions about what are and are not unique characteristics of a given digital collection object and how best to determine sustainable and safe care and maintenance plans for the digital collection object over time.
This tutorial illustrates the fundamental binary elements of digital audio and video objects, from bits to bytes to formal format structures. The tutorial will demonstrate methods for understanding and interpreting these many technological layers, including how to translate bytes into understandable information based on file format specifications, and how to distinguish file object information from file system information in order to understand the true boundaries of a digital object within a given computer system.

Disaster or emergency management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, responding to disaster and rebuilding after natural or human-made disasters. In general, an effective emergency management is an ongoing process, based on a thorough integration of disaster/emergency plans at all that can be used to manage of any kind of heritage institution. This tutorial will present some examples and discuss possible solutions.

Are you in need of a way to provide access to oral histories not recorded in English? Do you dream of creating multilingual metadata for interviews recorded in one language but made accessible in another? In 2016 The University of Kentucky Nunn Center updated the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS) application with multilingual functionalities, creating the capability to synchronize both a transcript/translation, as well as to create a bilingual index, making all of these searchable and synchronized to the corresponding moment in the audio or video. In this half-day workshop, OHMS founder and creator Doug Boyd will demonstrate the multilingual functionalities of OHMS. Through demonstration of a bilingual use case, power users Teague Schneiter and Brendan Coates will walk attendees through each step of the indexing process to prepare a sample bilingual index. Brendan will also demonstrate extensions of the OHMS xml data structure, converting the index into both Matroska and DVD chapter xml. Instructors will also guide attendees to develop workflows to support multilingual indexing.

The concept of “special collections” covers a wide range of notions that commonly refer to rare and unique material archives or cultural institutions possess. Its meaning ranges from precious manuscripts, to a particular material type collection, or an individual’s personal archives. Because these collections are special, they add to the uniqueness of the cultural institution's general collection. However, precisely because they are special, they present specific challenges and require specific treatment. Given the vastness of this notion for the purpose of this tutorial we will narrow it down to one particular kind of special collections: mixed collections that documents of a wide variety of media or carriers, e.g., written documents, photographs, audio, and video recordings. It is customary that such collections remain closed, but there is scarcely an institution, which can handle all forms of documents and recordings in a competent manner. Therefore, various competences should join and collaborate in dealing with such collections. By first attempting to define the main characteristics of mixed collections, this tutorial will then try to outline a framework and a methodical approach that should allow an archive to receive and treat correctly these collections, to describe and contextualize them properly, and to give them an appropriate place in the general collection. Great attention will be paid to the definition of workflows necessary to the management of these special collections.

This tutorial explores all aspects concerning the pre-emphasis and de-emphasis that may be applied to a modulated groove. The characteristics, in terms of frequency vs. amplitude response, of the different cutting and replaying processes (mechanical, electromagnetic, optical, etc.) are comprehensively exposed. The goal is to answer most of the where, why, and how questions, to build a solid background that will help choosing and applying the correct de-emphasis, in both the analog and the digital domains.

The presentation, although supported by a number of sound examples, is very technical, and easier to understand for those who are already familiar with this topic, or who have attended my presentation in the Expert Transfer Techniques series of last year.

Training for TV Ltd has recently prepared an introductory level 5-day training course that provides archivists with the knowledge they will require to understand the role and work of an archivist in TV or radio. The course followed a request from Ilse Assmann for a training course specifically aimed at broadcast archivists and to be delivered to staff in South Africa. It is primarily for those coming to the business with limited technical and practical knowledge of television or radio media and covers the technical side of legacy formats, as well as the design and workings of modern archive and MAM systems, along with discussion and reviews of the major issues which an archivist working in broadcast needs to deal with.

It is proposed that excerpts from this training be offered at the conference to potentially enhance the delegates' own knowledge, but more importantly to give members an opportunity to assess and see what the program can offer.

In addition to an explanation of the course's curriculum and syllabus, it is proposed that two topics from the course are offered as a taster of the content and style. The section on working with videotape will look at the basics of how machines work and the range of tape formats and types an archivist might encounter. The section on working with film will look at types, gauges, and uses of film and film sound and the practicalities of working with film.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has funded the University of Michigan Information for a project to develop, test, and deploy education and training resources for teaching digitization standards (IASA, FADGI, and underlying technical documentation) in classrooms, workshops, and on the job.  Resources will be developed independently for digitizing analog audio, analog videotape, and photographic materials (based on FADGI guidelines). The two target audiences for the new resources are (1) educators who teach university students (upper and lower divisions) and (2) managers of digitization labs and services who need to train student workers or upgrade the skills of existing or new staff.  The educational resources will be developed as highly modularized self-guided courses available free online and partially in print on demand.  The purpose of the half-day workshop is to gather a mix of seasoned experts in analog audio and analog videotape digitization together with prospective users of the educational resources.  Guided by the workshop instructor, participants will review components of IASA-TC 03, TC 04, TC 05, and TC 06 (forthcoming) and brainstorm on the content of modules that could serve as a bridge for students and independent learners between technical standards and informed practice. Participants will also develop recommendations on resources that could support proposals for outsourcing digitization work to third-party vendors and grant-writing activities. The workshop could be viewed as allied with and supporting the work of the IASA Training and Education Committee.

Training for TV Ltd has recently prepared an introductory level 5-day training course that provides archivists with the knowledge they will require to understand the role and work of an archivist in TV or radio. The course followed a request from Ilse Assmann for a training course specifically aimed at broadcast archivists and to be delivered to staff in South Africa. It is primarily for those coming to the business with limited technical and practical knowledge of television or radio media and covers the technical side of legacy formats, as well as the design and workings of modern archive and MAM systems, along with discussion and reviews of the major issues which an archivist working in broadcast needs to deal with.

It is proposed that excerpts from this training be offered at the conference to potentially enhance the delegates' own knowledge, but more importantly to give members an opportunity to assess and see what the program can offer.

In addition to an explanation of the course's curriculum and syllabus, it is proposed that two topics from the course are offered as a taster of the content and style. The section on working with videotape will look at the basics of how machines work and the range of tape formats and types an archivist might encounter. The section on working with film will look at types, gauges, and uses of film and film sound and the practicalities of working with film.