Preservation
Preservation is one of the central responsibilities of an archive. UNESCO CCCAA defines preservation as “the totality of the steps necessary to ensure the permanent accessibility – forever - of an audiovisual document with the maximum integrity".
Both passive and active strategies (including digitisation) are employed to maintain and ensure accessibility to an archive’s content (and for some archives, the physical carriers) over time. Since every archive has limited time and resources, the creation of a “preservation plan” (sometimes called a “preservation strategy”) is required. Such a plan outlines selection criteria which specifically defines which material has priority for active or passive preservation. Selection criteria should consider copyright considerations as well as the content and physical deterioration of materials.
» Examples of preservation strategy ..Links will follow soon !
Passive preservation strategies
Passive preservation (also referred to as preventative preservation) covers the maintenance of proper storage conditions, establishing professional handling procedures, carrying out low level physical treatment of material in order to stabilize its physical condition and performing condition surveys (through random sampling) in order to establish priorities for active preservation treatment over time. It also includes writing a Disaster Preparedness Plan so that the archive knows precisely how to act when something unpredictable brings the collection in physical danger.
» Examples of condition surveys ..Links will follow soon !
» Examples of disaster plans ..Links will follow soon !
Resources
(See also General Resources which may include chapters on these topics)
Active preservation strategies
Active preservation (also referred to as restorative preservation) involves physically treating material in order to restore it to an original form and/or reformatting the material. Reformatting results in copies of the content on another carrier or data storage device. Within the audiovisual archive domain, reformatting is usually referred to as ‘digitisation’.
Resources
(See also General Resources which may include chapters on these topics)
Digitisation
Digitisation is conversion of an analogue signal to digital. For some archives, digitisation is a strategy to preserve deteriorating originals; for others it is primarily to enhance access. The process usually includes making a digital master as well as access copies. It is a skilled technical process and one of the best options is to use a professional service provider. For anyone planning their own digitisation work, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of technical standards and quality. Digitisation will only happen once, and any loss of quality is permanent.
It is important to recognise that digitising the collection requires creation of a digital preservation plan so that the newly created digital collections remain in a usable and interpretable form for the long term. Digital resources must remain viable and will need to be protected against technological obsolescence.
Resources
(See also General Resources which may include chapters on these topics)
Projects
- Descriptions & links to relevant international projects ..Links will follow soon !
