preservation services: spring06: bcampbell 1 preservation services for av media material: an inquiry...

Preservation Services: Spring06: Bcampbell

Preservation Services for AV media material:

An inquiry into current and future

models.

NYU MIAP Thesis PresentationSpring 2006Brad Campbell

Introduction

I. AV Media Material (Production and) Preservation Landscape

Landscape made up of Sectors

Ways of thinking about the relations:

What is the function of the institution?How do institutions consider/define preservation?

How is the institution considered in the production/preservation circuit?

How does the institution consider its content in the production/preservation circuit?

The FOR PROFIT DOMAIN

Hollywood Studio system

Independent Producers

Television Networks

The FOR PROFIT DOMAIN

Distributors

Stock Footage Houses

Film Festivals

Corporations

NON PROFIT DOMAIN

Libraries

Museums

Archives/Special Collections

NON PROFIT DOMAIN

Historic Societies

Academic Institutions (Research)

Academic/Non-academic Preservation Training Programs

NON PROFIT DOMAIN

Professional Organizations

Media (Advocacy/Literacy) organizations

Standards Organizations

NON PROFIT DOMAIN

Technical Services(Labs and Vendors)

Funding Organizations

US Government

Federal, State, and Local Agencies

II. Challenges and Factors

1. Preservation is a Production Process

It takes more timeComparable to original production process

Multiple timelines and schedules:Home and or partner Institution’s timelines,

Grant timelinesWindows or timelines for publicity

AndThe timeline of degradation of materials

themselves

1. Preservation is a Production ProcessIt creates more stuff

Comparable to original production processmultiple componentsphysical items:

Camera original production elements (or best surviving elements),

existing prints/iterations of the title in question,

preservation generated elements/iterationsintellectual items:

paper records from the original production process

interim inventories or databases to manage

Preservation reports, catalog entries

1. Preservation is a Production Process

It creates more stuffIt takes more time

CostlyTime Consuming

Resource Consuming

Do institutions fully understand this?Can they integrate this process, do they want

2. There is a growing volume ofAV media material

a. As AV preservationists our traditional jobs of

Assessment(physical condition)

(intrinsic, evidential, historic value)

will be complicated by assessingfor the marketplace, and new format and

distribution arrangements

2. There is a growing volume ofAV media material, and the rate of creation is

only increasing

b. the development of new format and delivery technology influences how the

public and even some stewards of content think about or treat content

The reality of diffusion vs. whizbang technopilia

AV preservationists face unknowns with legacy technology and with future technologies,

how strike a balance?

3. The difficulty in valuing AV Media Material

Value is variable

Depends on multiple factors including use/exhange

Varies across sectors and different markets

3. The difficulty in valuing AV Media Material

Sam Kula:

“fair-market value”

Research, historical, cultural values

Comparable market value

Minimum or replacement value

4. Issues facing the emerging AV preservationist

a. Identifying and understanding:

our role in the marketplace

our ability to invent and implement new models to match the (present and future)

needs of the preservation community

b. Establishing robust and rewarding circuits of continuing education for ourselves

Real world experience vs.

perpetual re-training seminars

Types, modes, places of learningQuality of learning experiences

c. Honing our ability to transfer knowledge by sharing or teaching

Within an organization:

Department Department

Or across sectors:

Vendor Home organization

Professional/Standards Org. Home organization

III. Current Options: Surveys, Assessments, Services

1. Defining Needs based on characteristics of content for Collections (AV or non-AV

material)

First Order Needs: Based on the physical material of the object

Second Order Needs: Based on how the material is perceived

What is its cultural, historic, institutional currency?

1. Defining Needs based on characteristics of content for Collections (AV or non-AV

material)First Order Needs: General Needs

issues of the composition of the physical carrier (photos, books, posters, paintings, sculpture, floppy disks, film, video, audio tape, dvds, compact discs, etc.)

issues of intellectual arrangement (examples include shelf-lists, inventories, databases, catalogs, etc)

issues of physical arrangement (examples include item level housing and collection level storage)

issues of technologically reformatting, which in turn are effected by issues of original composition (examples include digitization of books and photos; transferring film to video or dvd; or film or video to digital files)

issues of intellectual representation or documentation of the reformatted manifestation and the steps of process in the reformatting (examples of this include metadata, preservation reports, etc)

1. Defining Needs of Collections

First Order Needs: Specific

Specific Needs for AV materialStem from their specific characteristics

As they are different from non-AV material

• physical composition

• machine dependent

2. Defining Services for Collections

Needs dictate services

What services are currently available to best address the needs of AV media material?

Are there agreed on “services” for AV material?

(addressing both 1st & 2nd order needs)

Are there pre-existing tools or instruments for assessing or evaluating AV material

given their unique characteristics?

Needs dictate servicesIs there an agreement on what the services

are?Are there pre-existing tools or instruments

for evaluating AV material?

Services which address First Order Needs:Restoration of carrier media, reformatting, housing,

storage, intellectual representation, metadata generation and management, databases,

Services which address Second Order Needs:Copyright clearance/IP protection/Licensing, content

redistribution, collection acquisition or de-accessioning

a. Entities from the Library & Museum sectors:

RAP (Regional Alliance for Preservation) the umbrella org for AMIGOS, SOLINET, CCAHA,

AIC, ARL,

.. . . .ETC . . . .

b. Independent Entities (from multiple sectors)

Heritage

Winthrop

IV. Need for New Models

Value of Preservationists

Transparency, willingness to exchange information about the community, within the community

Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 08:39:08 -0400Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>Sender: Archives & Archivists <[log in to unmask]>From: <[log in to unmask]>Subject: Re: Consultant FeeContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

>I think that you should expect to pay a consultant between $250 and>$500 per day plus expenses (transportation, meals, and housing if an>overnight stay is required) depending in part upon the complexity ofwhat you>expect...I'm curious about this. Many of you will pay an attorney this much foran hour or two of work. While there are a million attorneys out there.Qualified consultants in the fields of archives and special collectionsare indeed rare. Why are their services so undervalued? Could it bethat some type of anachronistic economics are at work? Indeed, this iswhat skilled and sophisticated consultants charged ten or twenty yearsago. In my specialties of appraisal, preservation, and securityconsultants routinely charge $ 500.00-$ 1000.00 per day.Any comments?

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 12:08:19 -0400Reply-To: Archives & Archivists <[log in to unmask]>Sender: Archives & Archivists <[log in to unmask]>From: <[log in to unmask]>Subject: Consultant Fee

Probably better than checking with NHPRC would be to check with your stateHistorical Records Advisory Board. They would probably be able to give you someidea of the range that is charged in your state.

Archival consulting is no different than any other self-employed work in thisregard. It depends on where you are and who your anticipated clientele is andwhat the traffic will bear. A local restaurant in northern Maine would notcheck New York City restaurant prices in order to decide how much to charge;neither should an archivist who wants to consult with local historical societiesin Maine check NYC or Washington DC prices for a realistic daily fee.

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:04:25 -0400Reply-To: Archives & Archivists <[log in to unmask]>Sender: Archives & Archivists <[log in to unmask]>From: <[log in to unmask]>Subject: Re: Consultant FeeIn-Reply-To: <003801bf09b2$7ba060c0$040a32d1@Ppje>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

A good way to determine hourly/daily consulting fees for archivists mightbe to ask NHPRC what rate they are willing to support. It has beenconsiderably higher than $35.00 per hour.

I fear that consulting archivists may be underestimating the value oftheir services. It might be useful to compare what one might charge tofees charged by others in one or more categories; e.g., managementconsulting, records management consulting. In the records managementconsulting I and some associates do, the charge is $100 per hour plusexpenses. The main point is that this is still modest compared to fees inother, nearby disciplines.

Cultural History at RiskIMAP Report 2000

Heritage Foundationadvocating for small to mid sized

archives to self promote and capitalize on their collections

Mellon FundedIntelligent Television

“Marketing Culture in the Digital Age”

Rockefeller funded study onFunding for producing new media

V. A proposal

Agency

[ad. med.L. agentia = facultas agendi, n. of state f. agent-em pr. pple. of ag-re to do, act.]

1. The condition of being in action; operation. The faculty of an agent or of acting; active working or operation; action, activity.

2. The means or mode of acting; instrumentality. Working as a means to an end; instrumentality, intermediation.

3. Action or instrumentality embodied or personified as concrete existence.

4. A business or service authorized to act for others: an employment agency. An establishment for the purpose of doing business for another, usually at a distance.

V. A proposal

Agency A proto-mission statement:

a multi-service entity of AV preservationists (independent, or related to

organizations) coming together to enhance their practice and experience, while helping to advice content holders on how to best preserve (physically and

intellectually) and expose their content. Develop new preservation

administration strategies for use in communicating between sectors. In addition the agency would further

research possible, new collaborative inter- or extra- community arrangements while strengthening those which already

exist.

V. A proposal

Some goals & thoughts to start with:

Independency/Autonomy orAlliance/Compromise

(who pays is who says how things go)

Sized right(balance of agents/services to jobs)

yetScalable

(able to expand and contract with outside forces)

V. A proposal

Steps to construction or Research and Development phase

(ongoing R&D while “on the job”)

1. Content and 2. Form

1. a.What do we want for ourselves?

b. How will agency operate internally?c. How will agency operate externally?

V. A proposal

(ongoing R&D while “on the job”)

1.Content and 2. Form

1. a. Further conceptualization,

discussion and definition of services matching needs

b. Further research into how relations are currently operating and

functioning in this landscape, what works, what doesn’t and why

V. A proposal

(ongoing)

1.Content and 2.Form

2. Research and Create

business/legal model(s) to best match content (agency’s services) to be delivered, and how

we agree it should best be delivered.

VI. Answers to critics

Accreditation

Vetting of consultants

Quality Control of service

Years of Experience/Value of Service

Independence vs. Combined Efforts

VII. Questions for Further Pursuit

Hone our methodology and our Meta-assessment skills

A survey of current AV media material surveys?

Further discussion of organizational structure

Further discussion of valuation

preservation services: spring06: bcampbell 1 preservation services for av media material: an inquiry...

av media material production

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bcampbellpreservation

partner institutions

productionpreservation

surviving elements

managepreservation reports

paper records

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