The third annual No Time to Wait conference shall take place October 25-26, 2018 at the British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank sited on the River Thames in London.

This is FREE two-day symposium focused on open media, open standards, and digital audiovisual preservation hosted by British Film Institute and MediaArea.net.

The event will feature presentations and discussion on topics such as:

• active open media standardization projects
• seeking consensus in audiovisual preservation strategy
• examination of open media use in film and video digitization
• validation and conformance checking of audiovisual formats
• integration of open source tools into archival workflow
• examples of cross-community collaboration and skill-sharing
• developments in open media
• and more

The conference welcomes registrations as a remote participant. Follow @nttwconf for news and updates about No Time to Wait.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

23^RD SEAPAVAA CONFERENCE
25^TH – 30^TH  JUNE 2019
NOUMEA, NEW CALEDONIA

“MEMORY, HISTORY, AND ARCHIVES”

The relationship between memory and history is a complex one. Memory is continuously shaped and reshaped by the fickleness of remembering and forgetting. History is a partial representation of the past framed by the limited lenses of the present. French historian Pierre Nora posits that, “memory and history, far from being synonymous, appear now to be in fundamental opposition.”[1] This tension manifests in the archive as lieux de memoire where the politics and processes of memory formation and historical narratives assert their fluidity. Archives enable as much as they question what is told, recollected, and ignored. In the same manner that the existence of the archive takes form through the fragments of memories and the framings of histories. Memory, history, and archives therefore are not absolute nor fixed. They are incomplete, perpetually in a state of becoming.

These dynamics open the archive to possibilities and immense responsibilities. What is the role of archives in forming collective memories and national narratives? Can archives be critical of such homogenous assertions? How can archives account for multiple memories while authenticating historical claims of the past? In what way can archives bridge the personal and the communal when it comes to remembering and forgetting? How should archivists handle memories and narratives of trauma while enabling healing and reconciliation? What is the role of the archives in the pursuit of transitional justice?

SEAPAVAA brings these discussions to the Pacific Islands where oral tradition underpins collective memories, identity formations, and historical narratives. As Chief Reklai Raphael Ngirmang once uttered to archivists in the Pacific,

“Our archives do not have written documents and books. Our culture and historical records are contained in oral histories and legends, which are stored in the collective memories of the people of Melekeok and which have been passed from generations to generations over the centuries.”[2]

How do we then conceive of the archive, theoretically and pragmatically, taking into consideration the seeming dialectic between our oral traditions and our documentary heritage? Are archival concepts and practices emanating from the written culture of the West appropriate for preserving the nuances of our oral cultures? How do we utilize audiovisual technologies and by extension our audiovisual archives in bridging the intangible and the tangible? What are the measures we need to employ to shape inclusive archives that reflect the cultures of our people? Given all of these, how can our indigeneity inform our archival thought and practice?

The 23^rd SEAPAVAA Conference seeks to address these issues by gathering different voices during its two-day Symposium. We invite archivists, librarians, historians, anthropologists, cultural workers, academics, scholars, and others actively engaged with the theme of the conference to submit proposals. Topics of interest revolve around three key words – memory, history, and archives – with particular focus on the audiovisual and the context of the region. Topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Archives as source of collective and individual memories
• Preservation and management of collective and individual memories
• Preservation of digital-born memories
• Politics of Memory
• Oral history and archives
• Metadata and archiving of oral tradition
• Access to archived oral tradition
• Protection of heritage through oral histories
• Role of national archives in governance and accountability
• Role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in archives
• Role of audiovisual and digital archives to community development, identity, and heritage
• Challenges in addressing and managing damaged or lost documentary heritage and archives
• Preservation and management of audiovisual materials
• Indigenous memory and the archives

TIMELINES TO NOTE:

1. Submit proposals in English via e-mail as a MS Word file to Michaela Navato [secretariat@seapavaa.net] by 11^th January 2019.
2. The proposals should include:
   • Title of proposal
   • Abstract, maximum of 250 words
   • Name and Institution (where applicable) of proponent(s)
3. The SEAPAVAA Executive Council will review all submitted proposals and will send notifications to accepted proponents by 4^th February 2019
4. Accepted proponents must confirm their ability to attend the conference and present by 4^th March 2019
5. The travel expenses, accommodation and subsistence of attending the 23^rd SEAPAVAA Conference are the full responsibility of the Presenter(s) of accepted proposals. All attendees, including Presenter(s), are required to register and pay the full conference registration fee.

You may contact Ms. Navato [secretariat@seapavaa.net] for any queries.

_________________________________________________________________________

The 23^rd SEAPAVAA Conference and General Assembly are co-hosted by the Bibliothèque Bernheim and the Tjibaou Cultural Center-ADCK.

The event promises the definitive warmth and hospitality that SEAPAVAA is known for. For more information regarding the Conference including the programme, workshops, registrations, and hotel accommodations, visit http://seapavaaconference.com

——-

[1] Nora, Pierre. Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire (1989)

[2] Chief Reklai Raphael Ngirmang. Address at the 9th Biennial Conference of PARBICA, Palau (2001)

Download (PDF, 88KB)

Download (PDF, 94KB)

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in collaboration with AVA_Net organises its fourth Winter School for Audiovisual Archiving from 15 to 18 January 2019. Hereby we inform you that the registration has been opened. You can register here. 

The Winter School is a unique training in Hilversum, The Netherlands, on preserving digital audiovisual collections. The Winter School offers audiovisual collection holders and archivists a useful mix of lectures, hands-on workshops and interactive sessions with renown experts to set up or further improve the digital preservation management of their audiovisual collections. Participants will work on case studies with peers from the archiving domain.

Winter School extended

At the request of earlier Winter School participants, we extended this year’s edition with an extra day. On this day, participants are introduced to various applications that support the sustainable storage process of audiovisual material. The day consists of extra hands-on components that bridge between digital sustainability models and daily work.

Programme 

We are currently finalising the four-day programme. Guest speakers will be announced on the Winter School website. To get an impression of the content of the training, you can find our blog on last year’s Winter School edition here.

Registration for the Winter School is possible until Friday, November 16th. 

Please feel free to contact us if you need any further information. 

Korean Film Archive (KOFA) is a member of FIAF and SEAPAVAA, and an affiliate of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in South Korea. It has been a decade since KOFA began digitizing their film collection; and since 2016, they are running a preservation center with the latest 4K digitization equipment along with a highly capable staff. And now, they are reaching out to their fellow film archives in Asia to introduce their Asia Film Digitization Project.

The Asia Film Digitization project aims to provide an opportunity for one of film archive to have two(2) titles from its collection that are of significant historical and cultural importance digitized through their facilities, with the shipping and digitization expenses to be paid for by KOFA. Along with the digitization, they invite two members of the selected archive to visit KOFA to participate in a jointly-conceived workshop and a tour of their preservation center, which will also be funded by KOFA.

KOFA hopes that this facilitate the digital preservation of these titles along with allowing audiences of South Korea and beyond to (re)discover these important works. Most importantly, they hope that it will provide a platform through which we can exchange knowledge and ideas with one of their fellow film archives in Asia.

Please note the below for detailed process of application:

Notes for applicants

1. Please submit attached application form in English via e-mail (hkjung@koreafilm.or.kr) as a MS
word or PDF file by Nov 20th 2018.
2. All application will be reviewed by KOFA and the final results will be notified to individual
applicant via e-mail by Dec 14th 2018.
3. You can visit our website for more info on KOFA (https://eng.koreafilm.or.kr/main).

Timeline (*subject to change)

Digitization is scheduled to be finished within the year 2019.

Terms and Conditions

1. KOFA will pay for all expenses for the digitization (including shipping of the film materials and
invitation of two members of the selected archive to KOFA, excluding copyright fees and
negotiation fees with the copyright holder).
2. Copyright issues regarding digitization must be cleared before KOFA begins the digitization.
3. Digitization of the film does not include repairs or restoration.
4. A copy of the digitization result will be preserved at KOFA and be used within its premises for
non-profit purposes with content of the copyright holder.
5. KOFA will not be responsible for damage of the film materials while in transit.
6. The selected archive and KOFA will sign an agreement with more specific terms regarding the
project (handling of the film materials, responsibilities and rights of the digitization result, etc)
before KOFA begins the digitization.

Download (DOCX, 44KB)

Download (DOCX, 14KB)

Background

In May 2018, SEAPAVAA conducted a Training Needs Survey of its membership to assess how the profession has grown and help shape the association’s training programme for its members in the coming years. This survey was an update of the 2013 Training Needs Survey.

Based on the 2018 survey returns, the Executive Council (2017-2020) has developed 10 topics to guide SEAPAVAA’s future training programme.

May we invite the SEAPAVAA membership to indicate which topics on the list are of priority to meet their training needs. Please answer all the questions listed, even if the questions are not important to your organisation.

You may answer either the PDF version or the Google Form version of the survey. The PDF version will be posted on the SEAPAVAA corporate website (www.seapavaa.net). The information received from this survey will remain anonymous and no organisation will be able to be identified.

Submission Deadline: on or before 30 September 2018

If you opt for the PDF version of the survey, please email the completed PDF document to the SEAPAVAA Secretariat at secretariat@seapavaa.net, with the subject header “Follow-up on the May 2018 SEAPAVAA Training Needs Survey – Completed Form”.

Download (PDF, 95KB)

The steadily increasing sounds and images have permeated every sphere of our contemporary lives. Advances in technology have ensured that every individual can create as well as curate digital sound and image content. Big digitization projects of dedicated national repositories and commercial broadcasters have helped to increase our access to moving images and sounds of the past. Still, in reality they represent just a fraction of the valuable content, which remains locked in obsolete carriers in different types of cultural institutions all across the world. As audio and visual material grows at an exponential rate, the resources available to collection institutions remain fixed. Unless urgent action is taken, most sound and image heritage from the last century will disappear.

In response to at-risk sound and image collections, ICCROM introduced its Sound and Image Collections Conservation (SOIMA) programme in 2007. With its aim of building capacity for preservation and creative use of sound and image heritage, the SOIMA programme educates professionals on the importance of sound and image preservation in the rapidly expanding digital universe.

For many reasons, challenges remain in assessing mixed sound and image collections in order to identify at risk content and carriers, and to prioritize records for digitization. As part of SOIMA’s efforts to revitalise training and create self-help materials, we have designed a simple survey to understand better why collection assessment continues to be challenging, and what can be done to overcome this challenge.

This survey is anonymous and takes less than five minutes. Your feedback is important for us!

The deadline is 10 July 2018.

https://tinyurl.com/y8u2wwpz

Take the survey now!