8th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (IPRES 2011)
http://ipres2011.sg/
November 1-4, 2011
Singapore

The National Library Board, Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University are pleased to host the International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2011) in Singapore in November 2011. iPRES2011 will be the eighth in the series of annual international conferences that bring together researchers and practitioners from around the world to explore the latest trends, innovations, and practices in preserving our digital heritage.

Digital Preservation and Curation is evolving from a niche activity to an established practice and research field that involves various disciplines and communities. iPRES2011 will re-emphasise that preserving our scientific and cultural digital heritage requires integration of activities and research across institutional and disciplinary boundaries to adequately address the challenges in digital preservation. iPRES2011 will further strengthen the link between digital preservation research and practitioners in memory institutions and scientific data centres.

PROGRAMME:
http://ipres2011.sg/pages/programme-overview
iPRES2011 will feature an intensive 1-week program, starting with a set of tutorials on Tuesday, November 1st. This will be followed by 3 days of the main conference Wednesday-Friday including panel sessions, poster sessions and spotlight talks. Between Wednesday and Friday a number of focussed workshops will take place. All this will be accompanied by a social programme offering ample room for discussion and deliberation.

REGISTRATION:
Registration is now available online at http://ipres2011.exxelnet.com/. For all enquiries, please write to Roslinda_Rahman@nlb.gov.sg with the title “iPRES 2011 Registration”.

Early bird registration closes October 15th 2011
Please make sure to register as early as possible to make sure you benefit from the reduced early registration rates!

TRAVEL INFORMATION AND ACCOMMODATION:
Travel information is provided at http://www.yoursingapore.com/content/traveller/en/plan-your-trip/travel-essentials/general-travel-information.html.

A list of accommodation options in the vicinity of the conference venue can be viewed at http://ipres2011.sg/pages/arrival-and-accomodation. Accommodation should be booked directly.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Singapore in November.

Sent on behalf of the General Co-Chairs:
Schubert Foo, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Shigeo Sugimoto, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Download (PDF, 470KB)

Long-Term Audiovisual Digital Preservation: Strategy, Planning and Tools

From 12-16 September in Paris and Bry-sur-Marne, France, PrestoCentre organises as part of its Professional Development Training Series a course in “Long-Term Audiovisual Digital Preservation: Strategy, Planning & Tools”. Participants in the course include large audiovisual archives, service providers and technology providers.

Training Course Summary
The audiovisual (AV) record of the 20th century is at risk, with digitisation being a solution, but this created a new problem: the preservation of digital AV content. Managers and technical staff of the AV industry need to be knowledgeable of, and understand how to use, the latest digital preservation technologies, in order to procure the safety of these documents of cultural heritage. Based on the experiences of some of the largest audiovisual and broadcast archives in Europe, this training will give a complete account of the tools and technologies available for the digital preservation of, and access to, audiovisual content, outlining strategies, workflows and architecture planning. In addition, the training provides a range of informative visits to a variety of relevant sites.

Course Topics
Strategy; preservation planning; OAIS; workflow; architecture; mass storage; formats; encoding; compression; metadata; preservation metadata; quality control; service management; risk management; rights management; partnerships; state of the art; support mechanisms; future developments.

More Information and Registration
Visit training2011.prestocentre.eu for programme, background and more information. Registration is limited to 40 delegates, so click here to register now.

About PrestoCentre
PrestoCentre brings together a community of stakeholders in audiovisual digitisation and digital preservation to share, work and learn. PrestoCentre helps custodians and creators of audiovisual content make the most of their digital archives through advocacy, information creation, knowledge leveraging, and valuable practical workshops. Using free tools and simple strategies PrestoCentre saves you money and time whilst improving long-term access to your digital audiovisual collections. PrestoCentre does this by helping you share your experiences and learn from best practices.

Contact
For questions or further information, please contact the PrestoCentre communication officer at: events@prestocentre.eu, direct number +31 20 894 3570.

Canberra, May 2011 – Australia’s leading audiovisual digitisation agency, DAMsmart, has been appointed by PRIME Media to digitise and manage their vast archives held by the network that are currently being stored at Canberra, Orange, Newcastle and Wollongong locations.

Since the commencement of television in this country, the Prime network has been capturing the rich history of regional Australia. Prime’s archives are full of diverse and valuable footage that represents a cultural narrative of country Australia and provides a window back in time.

In an effort to maintain and preserve the footage, Prime has commissioned a project to ensure the archives are secure for future generations. Gerry Smith, Prime’s CTO said “Prime has been entrenched in country Australia for many years, sharing the good times and the bad with many regional communities. We have great audiovisual archives, which contain some rare and unseen footage of major events that have taken place throughout regional Australia. We want to make this footage available in a contemporary format, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the culturally significant collection. Smith went on to say, “to maintain the archives they need to be digitised and stored somewhere safe. We contacted DAMsmart as I knew they have been appointed to a several specialist audiovisual digitisation projects recently both in the preservation and commercial spaces. After speaking to them it was obvious they had the skills, experience and technology to digitise and manage all of our archives. They delivered an end-to-end solution that will preserve the integrity of the archive as well making it accessible across the network.”

Joe Kelly, DAMsmart’s Media and Preservation Manager: “We provided Prime with a total archive solution, from logistics to digitisation and a hosted access service. We are digitising several thousand hours of footage that is currently maintained on various videotape formats such as 2U-matic, Betacam and DVCPro as well as film including 16 and 35mm before making it accessible to Prime stations through our Hosted Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform. Once in a digital format the archive will reside on DAMsmart’s hosted DAM platform that allows access through a secure web client and integrates seamlessly with Prime’s internal workflows.” Not only are DAMsmart managing the technology and access component of the project, DAMsmart is logistically managing the physical requirements of the job, relocating the media from the regional network locations back to Mitchell.

Once all the network archives are digitised, DAMsmart will deliver the digital archive to Prime on LTO media. Using a secure web client, Prime will be able to view the footage and request shots. DAMsmart will then deliver the requested files in a production quality format via FTP or external hard drive to the editing team. Over time Prime will also build on the descriptive metadata that already exists, increasing the ability to search the collection with more meaningful and robust results.

Ron Anderson, Managing Director at DAMsmart, said, “It’s great to see private enterprise playing a big role in saving Australia’s cultural heritage and we are really excited to be given an opportunity to be part of it. It is going to be a challenging project for us that will touch all divisions of the business in a true end-to-end archive preservation and management solution.”

The digitisation project is underway, and DAMsmart has been contracted to provide Hosted DAM services until 2018.

For further information please contact:

Adam Hodgkinson
DAMsmart
Business Manager
0403 242 372

About DAMsmart:
DAMsmart are Australia’s leading audiovisual digitisation specialists. DAMsmart offer a comprehensive videotape, film and audio digitisation service to provide a viable option for organisations to outsource the digitisation of their AV collections. DAMsmart provide a hosted Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution to assist our clients in managing their newly digitised collections. The service gives organisations access to an enterprise level DAM system without the need for large-scale investment in technology. DAMsmart represent a number of audiovisual digitisation hardware manufactures including SAMMA for video digitisation, MWA for archive specific film scanners and Rimage for optical media replication hardware.

DAMsmart is an advocate of open standards and can provide digital files in non-proprietary formats as well as proprietary formats.

www.damsmart.com.au

About Prime:
PRIME Media Group Limited is an Australian public listed company. It operates in the media industry within Australia and New Zealand.

PRIME Media commenced as a “free-to-air” television broadcaster before recently diversifying its operations in radio broadcasting, and digital new media.

www.primemedia.com.au

The Rockefeller Archive Center, in cooperation with the Association of Moving Image Archivists, has established The AMIA/Rockefeller Visiting Archivist Fellowship – a unique opportunity to encourage professional exchange and enhance professional development. Designed to provide both financial assistance and first-hand experience, the AMIA/Rockefeller Visiting Archivist Fellowship is awarded each year to a professional archivist from the developing world interested in improving their skills and knowledge through a program at the Rockefeller Archive Center and attendance at the AMIA Annual Conference.

The Visiting Archivist receives a $2,500 stipend to cover the cost of housing, food and local transportation, reasonable round-trip travel expenses from his/her place of residence to New York and to/from the AMIA Conference, up to $3,500, and complementary registration to the 2010 AMIA Annual Conference.

AMIA/Rockefeller Visiting Archivist Fellowship Recipients
2009, Naomi Karimu, National Film and Television Archive, Ghana
2009, Luke Francis Kiwanuka, Makerere University Library
2007, Peter Ugar Ogar, National Film and Censors Board (Nigeria)
2006, Ishumael Zinyengere, National Archives of Zimbabwe

Deadline for submission is 30 June 2011. Application form can be downloaded here or from http://www.amianet.org/events/rockefeller.php.

Download (PDF, 83KB)

The James A. Lindner Prize is awarded jointly by the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA), the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA), referred to below as “the Associations”.

The Prize is awarded to an individual, group of individuals or an organization for research, which by its originality, breadth and scope, is having or may have a major impact on the technology of preservation of moving images and recorded sound.

The Prize is intended to recognize and reward outstanding contributions to research in the field of the technology of preservation of moving images and recorded sound. The research or achievement for which the award is made, must be:

• Available for publication or dissemination so that others may benefit from it
• An original contribution to the sum total of professional knowledge in the field
• Technically relevant to the needs of AV archives or other organizations that have custody of the materials
• Technology based; may belong to any aspect of audiovisual technology in its broadest sense.

The Prize will not be biased by media type and is envisaged to incorporate the preservation of moving images and recorded sound and any other sensory based technology in its widest possible definition for the widest possible application.

As a technology prize, it is not intended to be awarded for contributions in other areas, such as content or artistic achievement.

Applicants/Nominees for the Prize may be individuals, groups of individuals, organizations or corporations. Preference will be given to those who have not previously received the award.

The Prize is a certificate and a citation, accompanied by a cash amount determined by the Associations. It is based on merit and selected by a joint Prize Committee appointed by the Associations.

The cash award for the Prize is provided through a generous grant by James A. Lindner.

Application form is found here http://www.iasa-web.org/james-lindner-prize.

Deadline for applications is 1 of July 2011.

Recipients will be notified mid-August.

The Prize will be awarded at the IASA Annual Conference to be held 3 – 8 September 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany.

The inaugural recipients of the James A. Lindner Prize are the team behind the Sound Archive Project, based in the Electro-Mechanical Research Group in the School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK. The individuals receiving the award are Professor J.W. McBride (Group Leader and Main Investigator), Professor M. Hill (Co-investigator), Dr. P. Boltryk (Research Staff), Mr. A. Nasce, (Research Student) and Miss Z. Zhao (Research Student).

“Audiovisual Archive Management”
National Archives of Malaysia
6-10 June 2011

Travel Assistance

SEAPAVAA is offering travel assistance on first priority to its members to subsidize travel expenses for their attendance to Conferences and official meetings – Executive Council and General Assembly Meetings. Please see attached form.

MECHANICS:

1. The travel grant is open for all SEAPAVAA members of good standing as of the date of application. Other intended beneficiaries may likewise be extended of this assistance depending on what their institutions will benefit from their attendance.
2. Priorities for the assistance would be:
   • Members coming from developing countries and those whose attendance is considered as vital or will have a very big benefit for their association;
   • Those delivering a paper for the Conference;
   • First time applicants – but former grantees are also welcome to apply.
3. The travel assistance covers only airfare; economy class is the only fare rate that can be reimbursed. Cost-sharing arrangements are strongly encouraged.
4. Requirements include:
   • the fully completed application form;
   • billing statements or receipts for actual airfare and relevant expenses for reimbursement or where assistance is being asked;
   • a letter of intent from the applicant specifying why you need the assistance and what benefit you and your institution will get from your attendance.
5. Grant recipients are expected to arrange their own travel, accommodation and reservations at their own expense and will be reimbursed at the event upon presentation of the relevant documents and receipts to the SEAPAVAA Treasurer.
6. Application forms should be submitted on or before May 26, 2011 to the SEAPAVAA Secretary-General, Bee Thiam Tan at bthiam@gmail.com, copy furnished the SEAPAVAA Secretariat at infoseapavaa@gmail.com.

The SEAPAVAA Conference in Kuala Lumpur will consist of a two-day symposium on the 6-7 June 2011. The conference is hosted by the National Archives of Malaysia. In conjunction with the CCAAA meeting, the symposium will cover the following topics:

1. The Role of Audiovisual Archives within the Archive, Library and Museum Community
2. The Joint Management Symposium: A continuing forum for cultivating leadership in Audiovisual Archiving
3. International cooperation: Outcomes and Future Development
4. Fast Changing Technology(ies) and AV Archiving: management strategies. What are the best practices on the efficient ways of approaching this issue?
5. National legislation for AV archives and legal deposit
6. AV Archive codes of ethics: what is the state of play?
7. Training courses in AV archiving: present status and future prospects
8. Advocacy, politics and lobbying

SEAPAVAA would like to ask for contributions from our members on any of the topics mentioned above. Please contact Bee Thiam (bthiam@gmail.com) and the SEAPAVAA secretariat (infoseapavaa@gmail.com) with any proposals for papers and names of speakers that your organisation would like to make to this symposium.

With the theme of “Archive Management,” the 15th SEAPAVAA Conference seeks to address the concerns and meet the challenges that face archives today in light of rapid developments in technology, the heightened need for access of information, and the maintenance and preservation of archives all over. The conference includes a symposium, roundtable discussions, a one-day workshop, archival gem screenings, institutional visits, the General Assembly, and a retreat- excursion. Alongside the conference is a parallel event, the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) meeting hosted by SEAPAVAA.

The 15th SEAPAVAA Conference and General Assembly promises the definitive warmth and charm the Association is known for. Moreover, the beauty and hospitality of the host country, Malaysia, is sure to take your breath away. Expand your network and meet key individuals and institutions in the field as you take in invaluable practical information and solutions that will benefit your profession and organization.

Online registration for foreign participants is available here; registrations forms are also available at the website. For local participants, kindly wait for further announcements from the local organizing committee. Visit the website and/or contact the Secretariat for more information.

Download PDF announcement.

The Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA) will be organising two conferences in 2011: the 15th SEAPAVAA Conference and General Assembly (6-10 June) in Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia and the 1st SEAPAVAA Pacific Conference and Workshop (June 27 – July 1) in Noumea – New Caledonia.

15TH SEAPAVAA Conference and General Assembly
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) | 6-10 June 2011 | National Archives of Malaysia

With the theme of “Archive Management,” the 15th SEAPAVAA Conference in Kuala Lumpur seeks to address the concerns and meet the challenges that face archives today in light of rapid developments in technology, the heightened need for access of information, and the maintenance and preservation of archives all over. The conference includes a symposium, roundtable discussions, a one-day workshop, archival gem screenings, institutional visits, the General Assembly, and a retreat-excursion. Alongside the conference is a parallel event, the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) meeting hosted by SEAPAVAA. Download registration form here. Or you may register online.

1ST SEAPAVAA Pacific Conference and Workshop
Noumea (New Caledonia) | June 27 – July 1 | Tjibaou Cultural Centre and the Bernheim Library

The 1st SEAPAVAA Pacific Conference and Workshop in Noumea marks a milestone and affirms SEAPAVAA’s commitment to the development of audiovisual archives in the Pacific region. The conference theme is “The Challenge of Creating and Maintaining an Audio-visual Archive in a Fast-Changing Technological World”. We invite archiving community to join us in Noumea for this momentous event as we work with our colleagues in the Pacific region to identify training needs, transfer knowledge and build capacity. The conference will feature two days of workshops, a symposium, roundtable discussions, archival gem screenings, institutional visits, and a retreat-excursion. Download registration form here.

The SEAPAVAA Conferences promises the definitive warmth and charm the Association is known for. Moreover, the beauty and hospitality of the host countries, Malaysia and New Caledonia, are sure to take your breath away. Expand your network and meet key individuals and institutions in the field as you take in invaluable practical information and solutions that will benefit your profession and organization.

To find out more information and to register:

Contact persons:
Tan Bee Thiam (Secretary-General, SEAPAVAA)
Gina Tumlos (Administrative Coordinator, SEAPAVAA)
Website: www.seapavaa.org
Email: infoseapavaa@gmail.com
Conference information: Download here

About SEAPAVAA
SEAPAVAA, founded in 1996, is an association of organizations and individuals involved in, or interested in the development of audiovisual archiving in a particular geographic region – the countries of Southeast Asia (the ten member nations of ASEAN), Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), and the Pacific Islands (Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia). It particularly aims to promote audiovisual archiving and to preserve and provide access to the region’s rich audiovisual heritage. For more information, please visit www.seapavaa.org.