Susanne haydon

Preserving our film heritage

A presentation by Susanne HaydonFilm Specialist and Strategist

Part 1: Describing the Landscape

Questions for the fortune teller

• Will audio-visual archives exist in 100 years?• Will archives still hold ‘physical’ collections in 200

years?• Will there be a need to collect and preserve in our

future world?• Are ‘physical’ archives coming to an end?

The 'Archive' of the future

What are we really talking about?

• We are talking about fundamental shifts in thinking • What does this really mean?• How is cognition changing to build capacity?• How will organisations stay ahead of the curve?• What are our priorities for digital preservation?

Traditional SystemTraditional System

Transformed FutureTransformed Future

•Objectivity

•Process

•Truth

•Facts

•Archivists

•Control

•Limits

•Academy

•Parochial management

•Subjectivity/reflexivity

•Intelligence

•Questions not answers

•Stories and interpretation

•Curators

•Freedom

•Limitless

•Community/participatory

•Professional leadership

Technology

rules

Process

over

conten

t

Access notpreservation

Let’s describe what’s going on

• Physical collections are being ‘put on hold’• All efforts are going to ‘digitising collections’ there is• Already there is a decrease in analogue format

usage, leading to a decrease in the availability of analogue stock. What happens when we can’t buy 35mm film stock any more?

• This is our collective future reality

Analogue usage/stock disappearing

Analogue materials: a rare commodity

Digitisation is now- driven by access at all costs

Digital film collection: comes with keys

The organisational response is BIG

• Project funding is making possible the establishment of comprehensive digital

preservation systems including migration programs

• Digital infrastructure is being separated from IT• Staff skills sets are changing and disappearing

New methods of material collection

• Direct feed and off-air digital harvesting and injest of material including websites, radio and TV

• Emerging digital content forms are going into collections ready for use, eg ‘mash ups’

• Digital images and marketing media will soon be ableto be downloaded for movies

• ‘Crowd Sourcing’ allows public to improve our information

National Broadband Network will fundamentally change the landscape

How users are accessing material• There is an increasing expectation by users to access

cultural archives via the web and ‘apps’• The rapid publishing of data will continue to build• Social media is becoming increasingly sophisticated• Emerging technologies such as smartphone

applications will get ‘smarter’ and better

Users make their own remixes through Creative Commons

• The move towards Creative Commons – share, remix and reuse legally

• The rise of ‘mash-ups’• Users saying “Give it to us and let us do it”

Central issue is rights management

• Well researched and precedent-setting rights management policies are crucial

• Further copyright legislation reform and a growth in the number of intellectual property lawyers

We noticed:•An increasing expectation by users to access cultural archives via the web•The rapid publishing of data•Social Media’s role in promoting cultural institutions•Emerging technologies such as smartphone applications, augmented reality and semantic web

Part 2: Learning from others

Let’s learn from others what works

• What represents ‘best practice’? • Who is leading the way?• What are they doing and how?• Can we do it alone or do we need partnerships?• How do we balance preservation and access?• How do we think in the long not the short term?• How do we ‘hedge’ our bets?

Smithsonian Institute, Washington

London Science Museum

Bridgeman Art LibrarySuccessful partnership with a university to identify orphan works

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Bundesarchiv, Germany

Part 3: The future story

Good story for audio-visual archives

• In the next 100 years, we will still be looking for, finding and caring for the majority of the works of the last century

• There is a re-birthing of the film and sound culture of 20th C so it is secure and easily useable - wordwide

Bad story for audio-visual archives

• The ‘Archive’ has promoted a major program; published a commemorative book; pitched a number of media productions and in so doing failed to attract any attention from mainstream media for either promotion or partnering

• Our investment in what was produced cannot be balanced with projected revenues

• Government is disappointed – after all that fundingnot enough has been done

Current pressures on a/v archives

• Imbalance in terms of the recognised purpose of the ‘Archive’ between collecting, preserving and making the material accessible

• Technology makes things go faster but how do we ensure that our ‘commitment to care’ is not swayed by our ‘commitment to give’

Trends that we should hedge against

• Assumptions about limiting preservation, eg we don’t need to fully preserve film if we can telecine it

• Lessening and limiting intellectual engagement about the collection

• Assumption of ‘access’ at all costs

The real danger that we face now

• Archival values not being seen to be aligned but rather in competition with access

HOW WE SUSTAIN OUR CORE VALUESHOW WE SUSTAIN OUR CORE VALUES

HOW WE ADAPT TO CHANGEHOW WE ADAPT TO CHANGE

+++ ---

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CRITICAL UNCERTAINTIES

Sustaining our core valuesSustaining our core values

+++

+++ ---

---A

dapting to changeA

dapting to change

Adapted well to change and core values sustained

Adapted well to change but core values are gone

Core values still there but did not adapt well to change

Has not adapted to change and core values gone

Blue skiesBlue skies Stormy weatherStormy weather

Long hot summerLong hot summer

Climate changeClimate change

Understand how the ‘Archive’ operates

Understand thechanging environment

Identify the elements that will enable the ‘Archive’ to adapt to change

while sustaining core values

Where to now

“So much to do! Digital information is forever – or the next five years, whichever comes first….”

A presentation by Susanne HaydonFilm Specialist and Strategist