Media Archival Studies

This anthology critically evaluates archives and archival processes that collect, order, and preserve elements of television as historically, culturally, socially, politically, and economically significant material.

Written in clear language with lively examples, the book outlines fundamental archival principles and practices, introduces core concepts, and explains best practices to ensure that documentary materials are cared for as effectively as possible. This revised edition contains expanded discussion of the impact of digital technologies on archival materials and archival practice and an examination of the changing role of the archivist in the digital age, as archival professionals find that they need to be directly engaged with the creators of records in order to help ensure the preservation of valuable archives, for the present and for posterity.

This groundbreaking text demystifies archival and recordkeeping theory and its role in modern day practice. The book's great strength is in articulating some of the core principles and issues that shape the discipline and the impact and relevance they have for the 21st century professional. Using an accessible approach, it outlines and explores key literature and concepts and the role they can play in practice.

Published under UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme, this third edition of Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principle provides the rationale and theoretical basis of audiovisual archiving and has been updated to reflect the contemporary realities faced by practitioners in the field.

Film archives are fast spreading around the world, and with them issues surrounding archival digitisation, artistic appropriation, and academic reinterpretation of film material that demand scholarly attention. This book not only throws light on unexplored issues related to film archives but also introduces unconventional approaches and alternative sources for scholarly research and a vast range of artistic possibilities.

In this work, first published in 1956, one of the nation's leading archivists outlines tested and proved plans and procedures for the adequate management of public records in all areas of federal, state, and local governments.

Preservation of and access to moving image and sound records is best advanced by reformatting them to digital formats and engaging in digital preservation of those assets.

Processing the Past explores the dramatic changes taking place in historical understanding and archival management, and hence the relations between historians and archivists. Written by an archivist and a historian, it shows how these changes have been brought on by new historical thinking, new conceptions of archives, changing notions of historical authority, modifications in archival practices, and new information technologies.

Global in scope, Research in the Archival Multiverse compiles critical and reflective essays across a wide range of emerging research areas and interests in archival studies with the aim of providing current and future archival academics with a text addressing possible methods and theoretical frameworks that have been and might be used in archival scholarship.

Revolutions in Communication offers a new approach to media history, presenting an encyclopedic look at the way technological change has linked social and ideological communities. Using key figures in history to benchmark the chronology of technical innovation, Kovarik's exhaustive scholarship narrates the story of revolutions in printing, electronic communication and digital information, while drawing parallels between the past and present.

The art and science of audiovisual preservation and access has evolved at breakneck speed in the digital age. The Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) is organized by the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations and brings experts from around the world to learn of technologies and developments in the technical issues affecting the long-term survival and accessibility of audiovisual collections. This collection of essays is derived from presentations made at the 2016 JTS held in Singapore and presents an overview of the latest audiovisual preservation methods and techniques, archival best practices in media storage, as well as analog-to-digital conversion challenges and their solutions.

Operating between film theory, media philosophy, archival practice, and audiovisual research, Jiri Anger focuses on the relationship between figuration and materiality in early films, experimental found footage cinema, and video essays.

This book offers an up-to-date survey of the present state of affairs in Audiovisual Translation, providing a thought-provoking account of some of the most representative areas currently being researched in this field across the globe. The book discusses theoretical issues and provides useful and practical insights into professional practices. The contributors to the collection cover a wide array of topics from subtitling, dubbing, and voiceover, to media accessibility practices like sign language, subtitling for the deaf and the hard of hearing, and audio description for the blind and visually impaired.

With contributions from leading recording engineers, researchers, and industry experts, Immersive Sound includes an in-depth description of the physics and psychoacoustics of spatial audio as well as practical applications. Knowledge of the development, theory, and practice of spatial and multi-channel sound is essential to those advancing the research and applications in the rapidly evolving fields of 3D sound recording, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, film sound, music production, and post-production.

With contributions from leading scholars across several disciplines, Living Stereo re-tells the history of twentieth-century aural and musical culture through the lens of stereophonic sound.

Music Preservation and Archiving Today moves beyond the how-to and assembles the work currently being done to preserve music and "scenes" via essays, case studies, and overviews of work by academic archives as well as community driven preservation projects.

The National Recording Preservation Plan has been devised to provide a blueprint to "implement a comprehensive national sound recording preservation program," as mandated in the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000. Technological, institutional, and legal impediments to broadened access create daunting challenges for the national preservation effort. This plan identifies the audio field's most important preservation and access problems and offers recommendations for surmounting them.

David L. Morton examines the process of invention, innovation, and diffusion of communications technology, using the history of sound recording as the focus. Off the Record demonstrates how the history of both the hardware and the ways people used it is essential for understanding why any particular technology became a fixture in everyday life or faded into obscurity.

Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording.

This publication presents the results of research and development carried out by the Sound Directions project with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the U.S. Each chapter in this document is divided into two major parts: a preservation overview that summarizes key concepts for collection managers and curators, followed by a section intended for audio engineers, digital librarians, and other technical staff that presents recommended technical practices while summarizing our findings and experience.

In July 2003, many of the key stakeholders in audiovisual preservation met at the University of Texas at Austin to share their experiences and discuss the challenges ahead, specifically in the area of preserving sound recordings. In this publication, ARL presents the symposium papers and these recommendations for future action.

The authors have produced a study outlining the web of interlocking issues that now threaten the long-term survival of the sound recording history. This study tells everyone that major areas of America's recorded sound heritage have already been destroyed or remain inaccessible to the public. It suggests that the lack of conformity between federal and state laws may adversely affect the long-term survival of pre-1972-era sound recordings in particular.

This report offers recommendations to help ensure the physical and intellectual well-being of born-digital materials transferred from donors to archival repositories. The report surveys the primary issues and concerns related to born-digital acquisitions and is intended for a broad audience with varying levels of interest and expertise, including donors, dealers, and repository staff.

Content and media asset management systems are core back office applications of the modern day broadcaster, yet there is little information available on the control and management of these systems and how content can be delivered over a variety of different channels: television, iTV, internet, webcasting, mobile phones and wireless PDAs. This book explains the potential for applying asset management systems to content creation models for distribution over a variety of outlets and the benefits gained from increased efficiency and lowering of costs.

Archives and special collections departments have a long history of preserving and providing long-term access to organizational records, rare books, and other unique primary sources including manuscripts, photographs, recordings, and artifacts in various formats. The careful curatorial attention to such records has also ensured that such records remain available to researchers and the public as sources of knowledge, memory, and identity. Digital curation presents an important framework for the continued preservation of digitized and born-digital collections, given the ephemeral and device-dependent nature of digital content. With the emergence of analog and digital media formats in close succession (compared to earlier paper- and film-based formats) came new standards, technologies, methods, documentation, and workflows to ensure safe storage and access to content and associated metadata.

The Digital Dilemma, published in 2007, raised important concerns about the longevity of digital motion picture materials created by the major Hollywood studios, as well as other valuable digital data managed by large commercial, scientific and government organizations.

In its landmark report, The Digital Dilemma, the Academy’s Science and Technology Council examined ways in which key players in the movie business and other major industries currently store and access important digital data. The goal was to better understand what problems these industries face today and what, if anything, is being done to avoid full-fledged data access disasters down the road.

Film archives are fast spreading around the world, and with them issues surrounding archival digitisation, artistic appropriation, and academic reinterpretation of film material that demand scholarly attention. This book not only throws light on unexplored issues related to film archives but also introduces unconventional approaches and alternative sources for scholarly research and a vast range of artistic possibilities.

Covering digital video, film and even DSLR still cameras with video capabilities, two award winning filmmakers and teachers address all aspects of filmmaking.

Film is in a state of rapid change: the transition from analog to digital is profoundly affecting not just filmmaking and film distribution but a number of other facets of the industry, including the ways in which films are archived. In From Grain to Pixel--the first volume in the new Framing Filmseries from Amsterdam University Press--Giovanna Fossati brings together scholars and archivists to discuss their theories on digitization and to propose new possibilities for future archives.

The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) has placed online the full text of its handbook for use by museums, libraries, and archives in preparing to digitize collections. The handbook covers topics such as considerations for project management, technical and copyright issues, vendor relations, selecting materials for scanning, and guidelines from case studies.

Digital preservation has become culturally, as well as economically, indispensable. The preserving of business processes is an emerging challenge for each company, regardless of industry sector and size. This book focuses on the legal aspects of digital preservation and offers legal guidance in that area. This important book illustrates the implications of preservation actions on intellectual property rights and data protection.

This ground-breaking edited collection explores the challenges of preserving complex digital objects such as simulations, visualisations, digital art and video games. This book will cover topics such as the legal and technical challenges of preservation, curation and authority, and digital archaeology. Written by international experts from a broad background of library, collecting institutions, information and computer science, and digital preservation backgrounds, this collection showcases the state of the art of the discipline and brings together stakeholder perspectives from across the preservation community.

The anthology is organized into sections that explore remix studies and digital humanities in relation to topics such as archives, artificial intelligence, cinema, epistemology, gaming, generative art, hacking, pedagogy, sound, and VR, among other subjects of study.

In the first section of the book, Owens synthesizes work on the history of preservation in a range of areas (archives, manuscripts, recorded sound, etc.) and sets that history in dialogue with work in new media studies, platform studies, and media archeology. In later chapters, Owens builds from this theoretical framework and maps out a more deliberate and intentional approach to digital preservation. A basic introduction to the issues and practices of digital preservation, the book is anchored in an understanding of the traditions of preservation and the nature of digital objects and media. Based on extensive reading, research, and writing on digital preservation, Owens's work will prove an invaluable reference for archivists, librarians, and museum professionals, as well as scholars and researchers in the digital humanities.

Visualizing Film History is an accessible introduction to archive-based digital scholarship in film and media studies and beyond. With a combined focus on the history of film historiography, archiving, and recent digital scholarship--covering a period from the "first wave" of film archiving in the early 1900s to recent data art--this book proposes ways to work critically with digitized archives and research methods.