Theme: A Future for the Past: AV Archiving in the 3rd Millennium
Singapore, Singapore
SEAPAVAA President Ray Edmondson and IASA President Crispin Jewitt together presented three resolutions to the Joint IASA-SEAPAVAA Conference held from July 3 to 7 in Singapore.
The five-day conference, hosted by the National Archives of Singapore, was the first international and regional gathering of audiovisual archivists in the country It served as a forum for issues, concerns, and major developments in the audiovisual archive sector not only in the Asia-Pacific region,but also in the international arena.
Mr. Lee Yock Suan, Minister for Information and the Arts & Minister for the Environment was the Guest of Honour at the Opening Ceremony. He stated that the presence of some 180 participants representing 40 countries worldwide was an indication of the keen global interest in the systematic and purposeful application of modern methods and technology to preserve significant audiovisual records of our past for posterity. Crispin Jewitt in his Opening Remarks expressed the need for international meetings where people from different backgrounds could meet and share common concerns and professional interest. On the same note, Ray Edmondson said that SEAPAVAA has gained a level of global visibility since its establishment.
The Conference was attended by delegates representing audiovisual archives in Australia, Austria, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Laos, Malaysia, Mozambique, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland,, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vanuatu, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. The Conference consisted of the Symposium, the General Assembly Meetings, launching of the SEAPAVAA-sponsored book: “Film in Southeast Asia. Views from the Region”, film posters exhibit, institutional and museum visits, and a tradeshow exhibit.
During the Conference, a multitude of issues on preservation, copyright, the application of new technologies, the storage and retrieval of the audio materials, the professional development of the AV archivists and the importance of regional and international cooperation had been discussed and deliberated.