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Building a Framework for Preservation and Access Decision Making for Audio-Visual Collections
Audio-visual collections are pervasive in libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasting stations and many other organizations ubiquitous to university campuses. "Audio-visual collection” is a broad term and in this context implies recorded sound and moving image collections in both analog and digital formats including: motion picture films, videos, digital video recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, acetate discs, cassette tapes, digital sound recordings, and many other less commonly found formats. These collections present many challenges for those who manage them.
In response to this problem, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has developed an Audio-visual Self-Assessment Program (AvSAP) to provide guidance to these individuals in their preservation planning and access to their audio-visual collection materials. Our goal is to create a program that can be utilized by a broad range of institutions and cultural resource managers to assess the preservation and access needs of a wide variety of audio-visual collection materials, thus enhancing their availability to researchers, students, and the public.
The three-year project, costing an estimated $421,321 ($249,983 requested from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)) involves three primary components: (1) the development of an Audio-visual Self-Assessment Program (AvSAP) for the preservation and access to these endangered artifacts, which can be used by other institutions holding similar collections; (2) a test assessment on a subset of audio-visual materials in UIUC’s various cultural repositories and at least one small local museum or historical society, to prove the application of the AvSAP to a variety of collection types; and (3) the application of the recommendations reached through the use of the framework, to guide re-housing and the prioritization of future reformatting projects. The lead participant is the University Library, with the collaboration of the Spurlock Museum, WILL-AM/FM, WILL-TV, the Department of Dance, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and the Illinois Heritage Association. Through the collaboration of these varied campus units and community organizations, the resulting program will be both flexible and robust enough to be widely adapted in the larger community of institutions holding audio-visual collections. Once completed, the on-line availability of the AvSAP will be disseminated through six professional conferences, journal and newsletter publications, professional listservs, and workshops throughout the state of Illinois through both the Illinois Heritage Association and the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI).
Visit the Press Release. Visit the Institute of Museum and Library Services Website.