EUscreen

The EUscreen project aims to promote the use of television content to explore Europe's rich and diverse cultural history.

It will create access to over 30,000 items of programme content and information, and by developing a number of interactive functionalities and dynamic links with Europeana it will prove valuable to the widest range of cultural, educational and recreational users.

EUscreen started in October 2009 and the project consortium, which includes 28 partner institutions from around Europe, is being co-ordinated by Utrecht University.

Crossing Boundaries for AV Preservation

5 April 2013, 2:04 pm

Screening the Future is a two-day conference with a focus on the preservation of digital media.This international conference brings together leaders in the fields of technology and research and those with a strategic responsibility for digitisation and digital preservation in the creative and cultural industries. The conference aims to navigate participants through current case studies and the latest thinking on standards and planning for the digital preservation of audiovisual assets.

Screening the Future 2013

May 7-8, London, Tate Modern.

For thirty years (or more in some cases) institutions and individuals have been producing sound and moving image content digitally, whether born digital or converted from analogue sources. What is the range of all this content? Are there common solutions to preservation questions? Can we find and share solutions by bringing together communities of practicefrom as wide a range as possible?

PrestoCentre is a non-profit organisation set up specifically to support audiovisual preservation any way it can. It promotes activities to support nine av preservation-connected communities:

Artists and Art Museums
Music and Sound Archives
Video Production and Post-Production
Footage Sales
Film Production and Collection
Research
Education
Broadcasting
Personal collections.

The annual showcase by PrestoCentre takes place from May 7-8 at the Tate Modern, London, UK. Visit the conference website (http://2013.screeningthefuture.com) to find out more about the programme and speakers. The Tate venue should attract the notice of the Art and Art Museum community, but the conference has a wider programme and a wider ambition: to bring all these communities to one place (and time) so they can help each other out.

“Meet someone you don’t know – with problems you do know”

Key Topics of the conference include:

Sector-based responses to the changing technological nature of media assets in our collections and archives
Sector-based trends in preservation technology
Institutional responses to how collection and preservation mandates are realised and stretched by the digital
Media preservation as a sound investment; new methodologies for valuing our media assets
The psychology of preservation; our motivations and dynamics in practice
Maintaining a vision in a culture of operational alliances and partnerships
Acknowledging and advocating for difference; understanding the impact of sector-based and institutional distinction on preservation strategies and solutions

Featured Speakers include:

Matthew Addis (Arkivum Ltd.)
Sam Gustman (USC Digital Repository and Shoah Foundation)
Rob Hummel (Group 47, LLC.)
Michael Moon (GISTICS Inc.)
Kara van Malssen (AudioVisual Preservation Solutions)
Mark Schubin (SMPTE Fellow)
John Zubrzycki – conference chair (British Broadcasting Corporation)

The Early Bird Registration for the Screening the Future 2013 Conference has been extended until April 15. Don’t miss your last chance to benefit from this discount and register now at http://2013.screeningthefuture.com. For more information about the conference and registration please visit: http://2013.screeningthefuture.com

Filed under Conference, Events, News, Partner projects.

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Call for Papers on the Hidden Professions of Television

29 March 2013, 11:43 am

Picture shows a transmitter van on a remote site in the heart of the West Country. Publisher / Broadcaster: BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). Broadcast date: 01/01/1954.

VIEW, the Journal of European Television History and Culture, is the first peer-reviewed multimedia e-journal in the field of television studies. The theme of the fourth issue is Hidden Professions of Television, which can be interpreted broadly within the European television context. The issue seeks to shine a light on the ‘behind the scenes’ activities of television and their hidden, often unrecognised and uncelebrated personnel and processes.

Call for Papers: Hidden Professions of Television

VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, Vol. 2, Issue 4
Deadline for abstracts: May 1st, 2013

Offering an international platform for outstanding academic research on television, VIEW has an interdisciplinary profile and acts both as a platform for critical reflection on the cultural, social and political role of television in Europe’s past & present and as a multimedia platform for the circulation and use of digitized audiovisual material. The journal’s main aim is to function as a showcase for the creative and innovative use of digitised television materials in scholarly work and to inspire a fruitful discussion between audiovisual heritage institutions (especially television archives) and a broader community of television experts and amateurs. In offering a unique technical infrastructure for a multimedia presentation of critical reflections on European television, the journal aims at stimulating innovative narrative forms of online storytelling, making use of the digitized audiovisual collections of television archives around Europe.

For the issue on Hidden Professions or Television, we welcome contributions that may engage across a wide range of selected organisational, administrative or technical activities that have played their understated, invisible parts in the historical formation of television: from aspects of TV continuity for instance, to television outside broadcast management, TV retailing or manufacture, television music or the TV weather forecast. These indicate some of the gaps that this issue seeks both to fill and to explore.

Topics

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to):

Personnel involved in all aspects of television, from technicians, production staff, editors to preservationists, administrative staff or media managers
‘Behind the scenes’ activities across the whole spectrum of television broadcasting, including organizational, administrative and technical activities
‘The making of’ understudied TV programmes like the weather forecast
Services associated to television consumption, such as TV retailing, manufacturing or repair services
Practices that focus on preserving the content (film, video or audio) and making it available for reuse
Material artifacts used in television production or post-production

Submission info

Contributions are encouraged from authors with different kinds of expertise and interests in television broadcasting, from researchers to television professionals, to archivists and preservationists.
Contributions can be in the form of conventional articles, illustrated commentaries or photo-essays.
Paper proposals (max. 500 words) are due on May 1st, 2013. Submissions should be sent to the managing editor of the journal, Dana Mustata.
Articles (2-4,000 words) will be due on September 1st, 2013.
For further information or questions about the issue, please contact Tim O’Sullivan and Andy O’Dwyer, guest editors on this issue.

Hidden professions on EUscreen

Filed under Partner projects, Post. Tagged academic community, Behind-the-scenes, CFP, journal, research

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Citing Films, Television and Audio in your Content – Could it be Easier?

27 March 2013, 11:51 am

In the era of YouTube, podcasts and vidcasts new pioneering guidelines, launched today, will be crucial for students, researchers and academics when they cite moving image and sound sources, or provide advice on referencing them.

The British Universities Film & Video Council’s (BUFVC) guidelines respond to the 2011 Jisc report, Film and Sound in Higher and Further Education: A Progress Report with Ten Strategic Recommendations. The report found that despite the exponential increase in the use of audiovisual material in teaching, learning and research in higher and further education, existing guidelines for the referencing of moving image and sound are often insufficient as they are based on standards developed for the written word. This has the effect of discouraging the citing of moving image and sound, as well as creating barriers in its discovery, use and re-use.

Best Practice

Professor John Ellis, professor of media arts, University of London, says: Citation exists so that you can find the source of any quotation. The rules have long since been worked out for print sources. However, for moving image and sound, no-one quite knows what to do, so references are usually imprecise and sometimes left out completely. This guide now makes it possible for any writer (even a student) to lead their readers to the exact audiovisual source they are discussing. It might seem a simple problem to solve, until you realise that there are a multitude of different types of audiovisual source!

The guidelines are practical, accessible and applicable to a wide range of different users across all disciplines. They encourage best practice in citing any kind of audiovisual item. They cover film; television programmes; radio programmes; audio recordings; DVD extras; clips; trailers; adverts; idents; non-broadcast, amateur and archive material; podcasts; vodcasts and games.

Professor Miles Taylor, director, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, says: The difficulty of referencing such important sources has only been compounded by the increasing availability of much of this material online. The wonderful new guide produced by the BUFVC cuts through the uncertainty and complexity and will undoubtedly encourage historians and researchers in other disciplines to make greater use of audiovisual source materials – whether a computer game, a television channel ident, a previously unaired radio programme or a Hollywood film. I strongly encourage journal editors in particular to add it to the guidance that they provide for authors.

Academic Working Group

To produce these guidelines, BUFVC established a working group of academics, researchers, journal editors and archivists, formed as part of the HEFCE-funded Shared Services project. Richard Ranft, head of sound and vision at The British Library, says: From the beginning of the 20th century, sound and moving image media in all their various formats have captured the most significant moments in human creativity and endeavour. Yet even in the present century, there remains doubt over the validity of referencing sound and moving images, whether in academic publishing or the popular media, due in part to the absence of accepted citation guidelines. By establishing clear instructions that are on a par with traditional bibliographic citation styles, this new publication will help unlock the vast resource that is preserved in sound and moving image archives.

This is the first edition of the guidelines and it will be reviewed periodically to respond to advances in technology, the development of new media platforms and the needs of the user. The BUFVC welcomes comments and feedback via avcitation@bufvc.ac.uk, or join the discussion by tweeting @bufvc #AVcitation

An interactive version of the guidelines is available to download from the BUFVC website: http://bufvc.ac.uk/avcitation/guidelines.

Read Richard Wright’s reflection on Where Citation and Preservation Join over at the PrestoCentre blog

Filed under News, Partner, Partner projects, Publication. Tagged AVcitation, BUFVC, guide, references

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The Value of Audiovisual Archives

4 March 2013, 1:25 pm

Try imagining all the world’s existing audiovisual material: all the films ever made, plus the television footage ever shot, plus all the sounds once recorded – add the scientific and military observations and home videos, the (super) 8 mm recordings, the YouTube generation’s creations. Then, try to visualise not the kilometers of celluloid or optical disks or hours and lifetimes it would take to see it all, but what the possible value of all those sounds and images would be.

Do they indeed, as the author of the just released report Assessing the Audiovisual Archive Market, Peter B. Kaufman, proposes, form a sort of crude oil – ready to be refined, reassembled and made into a new creative product?

In the same way that oil, pumped from the ground, is refined and then used to fuel transportation and industry, or iron, mined from the ground, is smelted into steel and used in construction, so audiovisual materials mined from the archives form part of the backbone of information, com- munication, and our creative knowledge economy, worldwide.

Assessing the Audiovisual Archive Market

Assessing the Audiovisual Archive Market: Models and Approaches for Audiovisual Content Exploitation was commissioned by PrestoCentre, the international competence centre for digital audiovisual preservation. It explores the ways that a audiovisual archives have been “examining, appreciating, and even embracing business and commercial interactions in the digital age”. The report takes a look back at 124 years of audiovisual archiving and how the challenge of preserving moving images and sounds has reached increasing levels of complexity.

This increased complexity, not in the least caused by the advent of digital production and storage methods, leads to a mirrored exchange between the access and preservation tasks of the contemporary archive: twin missions, as Kaufman calls them, that “twist around each other like the double helix of a modern memory institution’s DNA.” The paper investigates the forms and methods audiovisual archives have been approaching to fund this double mission and how they have shifted some of their attention towards possible cooperation with businesses and even taken advantage of existing commercial opportunities.

new opportunities for cultural heritage institutions to develop business models, revenue streams, and business knowledge — and in the process gain an even greater appreciation for the role they play in media, society, and our economies today — abound. This paper, focusing as it does on such opportunities, may provide activists in the field with inspiration and support.

In order to define the value of an audiovisual collection, one needs to get a clear idea about the costs involved – by mouth of one of the interviewees, the report states that “use has begun to define value”. Inversely, an item that is not well preserved, cannot be found and thus not used by anyone, ever again. The paper stresses the importance of access as a form of open access: the value that lies in use, sharing, reuse can only be realised when unrestricted online access allows participant from different online realms can use web tools to popularise and contextualise the assets. The paper intends to suggest that in the double helix between preservation and access, “support for one is support for both”.

It also underlines the need for the audiovisual archiving field that in dealing with the multi-billion dollar business partners who are currently so important for finding, exploring, discovering and buying media on the web, the field of archives and museums needs to be well aware of its value and importance, as well al the sensitivities we share and the experiences we’ve had.

No agent has been retained to represent the interests of libraries, archives, and museums, in the way an author or musician might retain one. No lawyers have been hired to pore over the body of agreements to date and highlight best practices for the community. No working group focused exclusively on improving public-private partnerships has been assembled and charged with a mission and a deadline. If the commercial sector is investing hundreds of millions of Euros, and a hundred billion are needed, we had better get started.

7 Recommendations

The report offers 7 Recommendations and proposes the development of four new tools for a smarter (re-)use of audiovisual archival content. The recommendations are:

Audiovisual archives should consider themselves part and parcel of the knowledge economy.
Audiovisual archives should recognize that multibillion-dollar businesses are growing based on materials they curate; and as a result their institutions deserve to participate in the revenue these materials are generating, in the knowhow that they are contributing, and in other direct and indirect benefits these materials are making to the world.
Audiovisual archives more than anything need something approximat ing an old-fashioned guild, where collective knowledge can come to rest, and where business savvy from attorneys, dealmakers, and others might be fielded and centralized.
The field needs to hire, in effect, an advocate — perhaps a sanhedrin of wise men and women who can look after its collective interest and help it argue on its own behalf and on behalf of the public sector.
When approaching business relationships, audiovisual archives should consider the arrangements from the perspective of their commercial partners, recognizing that the strongest players in the audiovisual marketplace are in the business now for the long term, making strategic rather than tactical investments in the sector.
Archives should recognize in particular the value of their building comprehensive metadata resources and optimizing their audiovisual resources for search and discovery.
In the audiovisual archive world, archives have been dealt a strong hand. They need to recognize that audiovisual material now and over time will be the most sought- after assets to monetize.

The reasoning behind these recommendations and the well-recommended, 30-page report, are available for download as a PDF in the PrestoCentre library.

Metadata as the Cornerstone of Digital Archiving

21 February 2013, 2:09 pm

Changing Sceneries, Changing Roles: Part VI

The International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA)’s Media Management Commission organises an international seminar on metadata and it’s significance for digital AV-archiving on the 16th and 17th of May 2013 at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum.

Since 1997, the Media Management Commission of FIAT-IFTA has organised a series of seminars for AV-documentalists, archive policy-advisers, middle management and staff. The main theme of these seminars is always: the consequences of the technological developments for the work of moving image and sound archivists. This year, the MMC dedicates its 6th Seminar in the serial Changing Sceneries, Changing Roles entirely to the phenomenon of metadata and its increased significance to access, collection management and the preservation of AV-collections.

In digital archiving, the concept of metadata is crucial. Only with the help of metadata can archives make their treasures accessible to users: metadata is capable of linking the contents of many different collections, forming a huge worldwide (or, in the case of EUscreen: European-wide) network of online sound and images. Ingesting, managing and preserving the rapidly growing amount of digital files in each individual archive would be impossible without the controlling power of standardised metadata.

Programme

The two days of the seminar will be divided into four sessions that each consist of a keynote address, two to three case studies/concrete projects and panel discussions. The four types of metadata developments that will be addressed in the four sessions are:

Automatically generated metadata (keynote: Cees Snoek , computer scientist at the University of Amsterdam who leads a research team working on the development of a smart search engine for digital video: the Media Mill Semantic Video Search Engine)
Linked (meta)data (keynote: Seth van Hooland, who holds the chair at the Digital Information and Communication Science Department of the Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Preservation metadata (keynote: Rebecca Guenther, who works at the Library of Congress and is currently the worlds leading authority on Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies or PREMIS)
User-generated metadata (keynote: Lora Aroyo, associate professor Intelligent Information Systems at the Web and Media Department of Computer Science at the VU University Amsterdam)

While the keynote speakers will explore these areas, archive-practitioners from prestigious broadcasters and institutions will present how they collect, create and employ metadata in new and/or digital ways. Every session is evaluated by way of discussions between a variety of AV-experts, focusing on the professional impact of the presented views and developments.

More information

Register for the FIAT/IFTA MMC Seminar on metadata at http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/MMCSeminar2013
Download the conference programme as a PDF or as an application for your tablet or smartphone.
For questions about the programme or logistics, get in touch with the commission at: mmc2013@beeldengeluid.nl
To read up on how the EUscreen project handles metadata interoperability between audiovisual archives in 19 countries, making use of the EBUcore metadata standard, you can consult the EUscreen Report on Semantic Interoperability with Europeana

Filed under Conference, Events, News, Post. Tagged cataloguing, FIAT/IFTA, Linked Open Data, media management, metadata, preservation, seminar, Sound and Vision, user-generated metadata

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Transnational Mediascapes Conference

29 January 2013, 4:45 pm

CALL FOR PAPERS – Deadline for applications: February 28^th, 2013

In recent years, quite some progress towards a transnational point of view on historical processes and on contemporary developments has happened in the fields of television and sound studies – both finding shared theories, methodologies, and analytical tools, and identifying useful case studies and histories.

The conference Transnational Mediascapes: Sound and Vision in Europe will take place at the Department of Media and Performing Arts of the Catholic University of Milan on May 14^th-15^th, 2013. The conference is organised in association with Ce.R.T.A. – Centro di Ricerca sulla Televisione e gli Audiovisivi and ALMED – Alta Scuola in Media, Comunicazione e Spettacolo. Abstracts are invited for contributions to the two main topics of the conference:

Day 1: Transnational Television: Towards a Comparative TV History
Day 2: Transnational Soundscapes: Sound and the Media in Europe

Media studies have been forced by convergence, digitization and globalization to look beyond the traditional structure of national media systems, histories and habits, and to begin to analyse their phenomena according to a wider, and more complex, point of view. On one side, they have started to reconstruct the global flows of information and entertainment, the basis of a “mainstream culture” that unifies – at least partially – different geographical, political, social and cultural areas. On the other, they have begun to follow media products and trends in their complex paths across various countries and macro-regions, underlining both the differences and the deep similarities in shapes and meanings, in production processes as well as in consumption practices.

Day 1 – Transnational Television: Towards a Comparative TV History

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, May 14^th, 2013

Following the comparative approach to European television established by recent works as Jonathan Bignell and Andreas Fickers’ A European Television History (2008) and Jérôme Bourdon’s Du service public à la télé-réalité. Une histoire culturelle des télévisions européennes (2011), the focus on trans-nationality in television is one of the most compelling and current challenges for TV studies. If the medium is still deeply national in many aspects, in fact, digitization and globalization include TV into wider multi-national exchanges of ideas, formats, programmes, genres, trends, and also viewing practices.

Confirmed keynote speakers: Jérôme Bourdon (Tel Aviv University), John Ellis (Royal Holloway, London), Peppino Ortoleva (University of Turin). There will be also the presentation of the latest issues of View. Journal of European Television History and Culture and Comunicazioni sociali.

Abstracts are invited for contributions to the conference that seek to compare television histories, genres, trends, production, and distribution practices across different countries and regions, in Europe as well as in the rest of the world, offering a wide approach on methods, theories and case histories.

Topics can include:

The (im)possibility of a transnational history of television;
Definitions and methods for the comparative approach;
Public Service Broadcasting, Commercial TV and Pay TV across different countries;
Logics of broadcasting in different countries;
Production practices in different countries;
Scheduling practices in different countries;
TV brands in different countries;
Genre definitions and redefinition in different countries;
Textual evolutions in different countries;
Consumption practices in different countries;
Transnational circulation of TV products;
Production and consumption macro-areas (i.e. European Community, English-speaking countries);
Original research findings on single case histories across two or more nations.

Scholars from all areas of TV and media studies are invited to submit proposals for contributions. Each speaker will have about 20 minutes of speaking time. Proposals (250 words, written in English, French or Italian), along with short biographical notes and key bibliographical references, are due by February 28^th. Submissions should be sent to Attilia Rebosio. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than March 10^th.

Day 2 – Transnational Soundscapes: Sound and the Media in Europe

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, May 15^th, 2013

In post-WWII Europe, popular culture began to relate to a wide range of mediatized practices, at the centre of which the growing music industry essentially revolutionized the media- and soundscapes we live in. This already convergent network expressed a wider social change towards modernity, mobility, new gender relations, that could also be felt as a generational shift. For us today it seems likely to have been the place for the building of individual and collective life histories, allowing an interpretation in terms of personal and collective memories and cultural heritage.

In order to begin a reconceptualization of such cultural practices, we are in need of more information concerning the historical background, the modes of production and the industrial strategies, the textual and paratextual output and the patterns and ways of consumption that characterized the crucial encounter between audio-visual media and popular music, gathering different methodological perspectives as much as comparing different national or transnational trajectories.

As a consequence, the aim of this symposium is to explore from a comparative perspective, European popular culture in its crucial journey towards mediatization from 1945 to the Seventies, as an exemplary trajectory for its seemingly excessive foregrounding of music and sounds within the national film, radio and television cultures and the transnational mediascape. Topics of papers may include:

popular music and media industry
European Media industry vs American media industry
amplification and high fidelity;
audiovisual performance and the canonization of popular forms;
national/transnational pop music and culture;
popular music in film, radio and television;
cross-media singers and performers
stardom and fandom.

Confirmed keynote speakers are: Franco Fabbri (University of Turin), Andreas Fickers (Maastricht University), Wolfgang Mühl-Benninhaus (Humboldt Universität Berlin). Scholars from all areas of media and popular music studies are invited to submit proposals for contributions. Each speaker will have about 20 minutes of speaking time.

Proposals (max. 250 words, written in English, French or Italian), along with short biographical notes and key bibliographical references, are due by February 28^th. Submissions should be sent to Attilia Rebosio. Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than March 10^th.

Filed under Dissemination, Events. Tagged CFP, Conference, television studies

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Guidelines to Properly Cite Audiovisual Productions

14 January 2013, 3:24 pm

In the era of YouTube videos, podcasts, adverts, off-air recordings and DVD extra features, it is crucial for students, researchers and academics to be able to cite these sources properly. The BUFVC’s AV Citation Guide brings together academics, archive historians, journal editors and researchers to address the complexities of audiovisual citation.

The AV Citation Project

In an exciting initiative, the BUFVC has brought together academics, archive historians, journal editors and researchers to address the complexities of audiovisual citation. As part of the HEFCE-funded Shared Services project, this working group is currently producing a series of guidelines to enable the citation of a range of audiovisual sources for teaching, learning and research. The guidelines are being created for two purposes: to provide sensible, clear and practical uniform ground rules for the citation of audiovisual material and to ensure that all audiovisual material referenced and used in research and higher education can subsequently be found by others.

Current Citation Practice

Existing guidelines for audiovisual resources are modelled on standards established for text-based sources. They frequently privilege the author, a practice that is unsatisfying when applied to a great deal of audiovisual material. In the era of YouTube videos, podcasts, adverts, off-air recordings and DVD extra features it is crucial for students, researchers and academics to be able to cite these kinds of sources according to what is useful rather than simply the title, author, date and publisher. Useful information for audiovisual sources may include detail on date uploaded or created, version, format, date accessed, chapters, URL or point of access, and owner of material.

These guidelines don’t equal a catalogue record or a database entry. As with any source, you can find out a great deal about audiovisual material which does not need to be included in a straightforward citation. Digital records often include extensive metadata such as catalogue numbers, length of the footage in feet, the date of the original footage, when it was digitised, related items in the series and if it has been broadcast since its original transmission. This is important information, yet including all of this in a citation is not appropriate or practical.

Project Status

Following a survey of existing guidelines on AV citation the working group, led by Dr Sian Barber, is now producing a set of new guidelines to offer a practical approach to this tricky problem. Once finalised, the guidelines will be thoroughly tested and incorporated into the final template. Rigorous enough to provide all the necessary information for referencing purposes and yet flexible enough to allow for the citation of material as diverse as YouTube videos, radio programmes and lecture podcasts, the guidelines will be made freely available in March 2013.

More information

Have you ever wondered how to cite a TV advert? Or extra features on a DVD? What about a scene from a director’s cut feature film or amateur film footage held in an archive? Or how do you ensure that those writing for your journal provide enough information on the resources they have used? How can you give the best advice to students and how do you make sure that your own resources are being correctly cited?

For more information see: http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/sharedservices/avcitation
Join the discussion on Twitter: @bufvc #AVcitation

Filed under education, Partner projects, Post. Tagged AVcitation, bibliographies, BUFVC, Guidelines, higher education, working group

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SOIMA2013 Expert Course

8 January 2013, 11:35 am

Safeguarding Sound and Image Collections

DATES 23 September – 16 October, 2013
PLACE Nairobi (Kenya) with study visits to partner institutions

Today sound and image records account for a large portion of the world’s memory and are found in diverse cultural institutions. As documents of intangible heritage and contemporary culture they are of immense value; yet, archives, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions around the world are struggling to conserve their sound and image collections in both analogue and digital formats. Moreover, conservation of sound and image materials is complex and requires specialized guidance, skills and infrastructure. While digitization offers new possibilities for wider access and preservation, many institutions lack expertise to assess the technological implications and to make informed choices that do not strain institutional resources and at the same time respect the authenticity and inherent values of this heritage.

The course will provide an overview of issues related to the preservation and access of sound and image materials e.g., photographs, films, video and audiotapes, and digital materials. It will discuss the value, meaning, selection and use of sound and image collections in various institutional contexts, exploring the potential of sound and image media in transmitting knowledge and cultural traditions. Initial sessions will especially focus on identification of various formats including the playback equipment, life expectancy of media and ways of detecting deterioration. Additional course topics will include: current knowledge and practices for documenting and cataloguing, media handling and storage, risk assessment of collections, emergency preparedness and response, criteria and technologies for migration and reformatting, planning preservation projects, outsourcing options, digital preservation and management. Issues such as curating and access, copyright laws, legal deposit, and institutional and national preservation policies will be discussed in context with participants’ working realities. Adaptation to technological changes and related cost-effective preservation strategies will form a key component of the course.

Objectives

At the end of the course, participants will be able:
1) to recognize materials and media in their sound and image collections,
2) to identify the risks to such collections,
3) to make informed choices for preservation and access within given means;
4) They will have improved their skills to communicate effectively across disciplines and to work in teams.

Course Methodology

The course will comprise lectures, a variety of group activities, practical sessions, case studies and site visits. Significant time will be allocated for independent consultation with the course team. Case studies for the course will be based on participants’ inputs and will address issues and challenges identified by them. Thus, active involvement of participants will be sought during the course preparation phase. A follow-up programme, will involve working on self-defined initiatives in participants’ home institutions and communicating as well as networking through a platform supported by the organizers.

Participants

The course is aimed at professionals working with mixed collections that have sound and image records of national or regional significance. In particular, it will interest archivists, collection managers, conservators, curators and librarians in charge of preserving such collections in various cultural institutions around the world. It will also interest Information Technology professionals working on projects involving digitization of sound and image collections or allied professionals and managers working for broadcasting institutions. Preference will be given to people actively involved in teaching and advising.
A maximum of 22 participants will be selected.

Organisers

ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property)
TARA – Trust for African Rock Art
In cooperation with: National Museums of Kenya

Teaching Team

International team of recognized experts identified through professional networks of the partners.
WORKING LANGUAGE: English
COURSE FEE: 900€

Travel, Accomodation and Living Expenses

Participants will be responsible for their round trip travel costs to and from Nairobi (Kenya). In order to cover living costs during the course, participants should plan for a minimum total allowance of approximately Euro 1200. This sum would include the costs of accommodation in moderately priced hotels identified by the organizers. Candidates are strongly encouraged to seek financial support from sources such as governmental institutions, employers and other relevant funding agencies. . ICCROM may be able to offer a limited number of scholarships to selected candidates who have been unable to secure funding.

Application

Please use the course application form at http://www.iccrom.org/eng/01train_en/forms_en/2013_SOIMA_applfrm_en.doc and send it by e-mail to Soima2013@iccrom.org. Please note it is mandatory to include the statement stating your reasons for applying. Application deadline: 1 March, 2013. Applications without the statement of intent will not be considered. Should you be sending the application by mail, please send to the following contact address: SOIMA 2013-Collections Unit, ICCROM, 13, via di San Michele, 00153 ROME RM, ITALY.

Filed under education, Events, Heritage. Tagged access, preservation, Training

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Open Access Journal Advances Scholarship in the Field of European Television History and Culture

29 November 2012, 10:16 am

VIEW Journal Vol 01 Issue 02/2012

Second VIEW Journal issue

In March 2012, EUscreen launched the first issue of the Journal of European Television History and Culture - the first peer-reviewed, multi-media and open access e-journal in the field of European television history and culture. It offers an international platform for outstanding academic research and archival reflection on television as an important part of our European cultural heritage. Today, EUscreen is proud to present the second issue: Europe on and behind the Screen, which is freely available at: http://journal.euscreen.eu

Embedded audiovisual sources

This second issue comes in a brand new form, with a new title: VIEW, a fresh design and a new member in the team of editors-in-chief: John Ellis from Royal Holloway, University of London.The journal makes use of an open access publishing system, OJS, and has developed a tool to insert relevant audiovisual sources in the online reading experience. The journal also received a redesign to maximise readability. The new name, VIEW, indicates a clear vision for the future of the Journal of European Television History and Culture.

Europe on and Behind the Screen

Its second issue enables a discussion of European television through different themes, approaches and case studies. The Discovery articles zoom in on case studies from different corners of Europe, while the Explorations offer different approaches to writing Europe’s television history and advancing theoretical discussions in the field. The full table of contents for the second issue is:

Editorial - Dana Mustata

DISCOVERIES

1.    Mapping Europe: Images of Europe in the Eurovision Song Contest - Mari Pajala
2.    Spain Was Not Living a Celebration. TVE and Eurovision Song Contest during the years of Franco’s Dictatorship - Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano
3.    The Golden Stag Festival in Ceausescu’s Romania (1968-1971) - Alexandru Matei
4.    Comunicar Europa/Communicating Europe. Spain and television co-productions - Manuel Palacio & Concepción Cascajosa
5.    Zen and the Art of Adaptation - Jeremy Strong

EXPLORATIONS

1.    Live from Moscow: The Celebrations of Yuri Gagarin and Transnational Television in Europe - Lars Lundgren
2.    Reading Between The Lines. A Transnational History of the Franco-British Entente Cordial in Post War Television - Andreas Fickers & Andy O’Dwyer
3.    Transnational Relations Between The BBC And The WDR (1960-1969): The Central Roles Of Hugh Greene And Klaus Von Bismarck - Christian Potschka
4.    Poland’s Return to Europe: Polish Terrestrial Broadcasters and TV-Fiction - Sylwia Szostak
5.    Hello, Lenin? Soviet Nostalgia on Post-Soviet Television - Kateryna Khinkulova
6.    From European Identity and Media Imperialism to Public Diplomacy: the Changing Rationale behind Euronews - Eva Polonska-Kimunguyi & Patrick Kimunguyi
7.    Télé-clubs and European Television History Beyond the Screen - Ira Wagman

As Dr. Dana Mustata from the University of Groningen, managing editor of the journal, says: “After the book A European Television History by Jonathan Bignell and Andreas Fickers, this issue on Europe on and behind the Screen is the second concerted effort on an European scale dedicated to advancing our understanding of European television.”

View, the Journal of European Television History and Culture, is published by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in collaboration with Utrecht University, Maastricht University and Royal Holloway University of London. With its interdisciplinary profile, the journal journal is open to many disciplinary perspectives on European television – including television history, media studies, media sociology, cultural studies and television studies. Read more about the journal.

More info

View is made possible by support from the EUscreen project and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The journal works in partnership with the European Television History Network.

Download the Table of Contents here (PDF)
Read the press release here

Filed under Accessibility, Dissemination, education, News, Post, Publication. Tagged Europe, journal, Media studies, television history, View

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Newest Exhibitions Celebrate World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

5 November 2012, 10:16 am

In honour of last week’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, EUscreen released – one year after launching the portal – a new selection of exhibitions, which explore politics, history, culture, controversy, scandal and violence.

Communist Romania

The newly curated TVR exhibition on Communist Romania offers an insight into aspects of this society captured on television. It includes footage of the building projects which were so dear to Ceausescu’s heart, the importance of youth organisations under the communist regime and the cult of personality which surrounded the dictator and his wife.
Go to exhibition.

Exhibition created by Irina Negraru, Gabi Fiter, Denisa Badea, Irina Bordeianu and Mihai Ciobanu.

The Dutch Dream Machine

Discover more about the history of Dutch broadcasting and the growth of television technology in the latest fascinating exhibition by Sound and Vision. This exhibition details how television operated and developed with the socio-political ‘pillarisation’ of Dutch society and demonstrates how debates about television addressed the function and purpose of the new medium.
Go to exhibition.

The Dutch Dream Machine. Exhibition curated by Rianne de Neef, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision/Utrecht University.

Taboo and Controversy

The exhibition Taboo and Controversy has been curated using material from all the EUscreen content providers and covers a range of topics including controversial television programming, extreme content, the first nudity on television and debates about sexuality, drugs and promiscuity.
Go to exhibition.

Taboo and Controversy. Exhibition curated by Sian Barber, Royal Holloway, University of London, Dana Mustata, University of Groningen and Berber Hagedoorn, University of Utrecht.

More to come

These new exhibitions will soon be joined by a second exhibition from RTE which offers a political and social introduction to the period of ‘the Troubles’ in Ireland. Video footage and stills of interviews with politicians and activists, news reports of violent activity and discussions about the political and economic background combine to create a thoughtful and sobering account of this complex period. Explore these new exhibitions and many more on the EUscreen portal: www.euscreen.eu

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

Filed under Dissemination, News. Tagged exhibitions, release, wdavh

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Screening the Future 2013

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