Wednesday, October 15, 2014

REPORT FROM BAAC CONFERENCE IN RIGA 2014


















  

The new National Library of Latvia situated in Riga was the venue for the annual conference of BAAC.  Delegates from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Canada, Norway, Finland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark , Poland, France,Italy and Malta came to the beautiful, old city of Riga, to exchange information and the learn about the work of different audiovisual archives. Education in archival issues or up-dating in the latest news about the work of national archives, television archives, music collections, sound collections and projects related to the archives. The programme was ambitious. “ SAFE AND REUSABLE: IDEALS VERSUS REAL LIFE”
. The content of the programme was a challenge for the presenters and the delegates -thrilling challenge to all of us.
The goal of the presenters was to participate in fulfilling the intention of the programme.
Aldis Putelis, dr. Nijole Bliudziuviene, Helle Bech Madsen, Marika Koha, Gerli  Rebane, Heiki Mannik, Tedd Urnes, Ginta Zalcmane, Sven Lapa, Juris Lubejs, Klaus AJ Riederer, Nicole Jacquemin, Maksims Misura, Marco Rendina, Janis Ziedins, Richard Ranft, Maria Drabcyk, Kamlia Lewandowska, Eva-Marie Oesterlen, Jole Stimbiryte, Erkki Nurmi and Adris Kesteris contributed to make the conference a splendid arrangement for all of us who are searching for new information and education in the field development of audiovisual archives and facts about how the preserve original materials like films, sound recordings, music collections,  old videotapes, books and written documents.
The conference was official opened on September 18 by the President of BAAC, Zane Grosa, and the Head of the National Library of Latvia, Andris Vilks

. The conference was supported by the Norwegian Embassy, The Canadian Embassy, Ministry of culture of republic of Latvia and Front Porch Digital, France.
Conference partners were: Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1940 – 1991, The National archive of Latvia and Archives of Latvian Folklore.
SESSION 1
The first speaker of Session 1 was Aldis Putelis
. He works for Archives of Latvian Folklore, Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia. Recordings of old folk music from Latvia and issues in connection with preservation of folk-melodies were subjects for his presentation. Documents in its right or just a means of documentation, was the title of his paper. Preservation of the old cylinders was an important task for the archive. Modern technology has made it possible to playback the old cylinders which have been copied to a new format.
Issues of formation, preservation and access of the essential part of the National Archival Fund of published documents were dealt with by Dr. Nijole Bliudziuviene.

We have moved from archival matters of Latvia to issues of published documents in Lithuania. Dr. Nijole Bliudziuviene is Director of Centre of Bibliography and Book Science at the National Library of Lithuania.
From Lithuania we moved to Denmark. Helle Bech Madsen from Danish Broadcasting Corporation(DR) informed us about the development of digitalisation of DR. Digitised content of the collections must not remain in the archive. Journalists and programme makers in the house must get easy access to the audiovisual collections. An important questioned asked by Hell Bech Madsen was how  can the archive stimulate the use of the content?

The last presenter of Session 1 was left to Marika Koha from Estonia. She reported about the work with Estonian audio cassettes and digital archive Diger in the National Library of Estonia (NLE). About 2100 commercially published audio cassettes related to Estonia are stored in NLE. The digitalisation of the cassettes was launched at the beginning of 2009. From 2013 sound files of digitized audio cassettes are put into Digar, the new digital archive.
Archival issues from Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark and Estonia were presented at the first session.
SESSION 2
The first presenter of Session 2 came from Estonia too. Digital projects at Estonian Film Archives was the main subject for the paper presented by Gerli Rebane, consultant from Estonian Film Archives.
Digitalisation projects at ETA were presented. Access to old films is important for the users of the film collections. Foreign documentaries and feature films make use of the old films. Future plans for ETA: Nation-wide digitalisation project is to be undertaken to digitalise all national audiovisual heritage of Estonia.
Estonian Public Broadcasting has dealt with complicated issues connected to the digitalisation of the audiovisual collections of the broadcasting. Heiki Mannik talked about theoretical and practical problems with the introduction of the digitalisation policy of the company. A self-critical approach to the work was the content of his report.

The last presenter of Session 2 was Tedd Urnes from Norway (TAAM).  Safeguarding, protection of analogue originals of audiovisual archives, libraries and private collections in time of war, natural disasters and political conflicts were issues dealt with in his paper. A report of the official approach of International archival associations to political conflicts where libraries are damaged by the fighting forces was presented. Protection of cultural heritage of any nation during an armed conflict was also dealt with in his paper.

Session 3
The programme of the last session 3 of the first day of the conference on September 17 was to highlight issues of importance to national libraries of Latvia and Estonia.
The search for the lost Latvia was dealt with by Ginta Zalcmane from The National Library of Latvia.
The goal of the National Library of Latvia is to get access to digital copies of ancient drawing, postcards, photos from the 19th century till nowadays. The description of the objects is important . The project: “ In Search of Lost Latvia” is a defined as a historical-cultural project which is implemented by the National digital library “ Letonica”. The content description of the objects have to be made by the users of the project in close cooperation with the National Library of Latvia. The aim of the project “ In Search of Latvia” is to make a bridge between past and present . The main task of the library specialists is to maintain a link among the digital collection and the user. The keyword for the work is: Education. The new portal also makes it possible to do cross-border research of the history of the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The research of the history of Germany, Poland and Russia is also a goal for the project.

National Archives of Estonia was the subject for the next presenter made by Sven Lepa who is also interested in making access of historical images possible for a larger audience. In 2008 the image hosting site “ Flickr “ started its cooperation with the Library of Congress,USA, to bring historical images to users.  The National Archive of Estonia became a member of “ The Commons “ in 2013. This means that the library has contact with about 80 participating institutions worldwide.  Sven Lepa presented a report of the experience with “ The Commons” and the cooperation with different international institutions worldwide.

The last presentation of Session 3- the session for National Libraries – was left to Juris Lubejs who is working as an audio engineer at the National Library of Latvia.
He presented a report of his studies of the Latvian record company, “ Bellaccord “. The aim of the presentation is to highlight some aspects of the importance and success of the maker of the company, the Latvian businessman Herberts Rudzitis. A brief history of the prewar work to set up a record industry is Latvia was also presented. The work with the preservation of the Bellaccord records in Latvia was also included in the presentation.
OPENING RECEPTION –SMALL GUILD (MAZA GILDE), RIGA
An opening reception for all the delegates was set up at “ Small Guild (Maza Gilde)” in Riga in the evening. Communication between the delegates is important for any conference including this one. The arrangement was nice with entertainment from a local song group. One of the singers was the active member of BAAC, Aldis Putelis . Splendid performance!
SESSION 4
On September 18 the second day of the conference Klaus A J Riederer from Finland opened the Session 4 .
“ Seeing is believing: How to make OCR work in practice “ was the title of his paper. His main issue was how to deal with old card catalogues. What to do with the content of the cards?  How to scan the index cards into databases? The content of the card was controlled before the scanning began.
Dr.(tech) Klaus A J Riederer informed about his experience working for The Finnish Broadcasting Company ( Yleisradio,YLE). Optical character recognition (OCR) was demonstrated in action.

Information about how to transport , store and protect the content of the collections, was the main issue of the paper presented by Nicole Jacquemin. The Archive exchange F ormat (AXF) is a cloud- transport of file assets providing stream-based exchange, in-pathload/file validation. AXF is the key tool to several cloud-based services available today proving its significance outside of archive applications. Nicole Jacquemin is a representative for the company, Front Porch Digital, France.

Finland and France – then we return to information from Latvia.
Latvia State Archive of Audiovisual documents, Electronic documents department presented a paper written and presented by Maksims Misura.
What to do with old tapes which is fading ? Audio tapes can be lost because ferromagnetic layer has started to separate from the tape substrate. The paper dealt with the issue of how the archive may save national documentary heritage by copying the information to the new digital media. The digitalisation process from the audio tapes to electronic documents was described by Maksims Misura.
The last speaker of Session 4 came from Italy. Marco Rendina presented a paper dealing with the Prest4U project.
It is difficult for the great majority of media owners to gain access to advanced audiovisual preservation technologies. Presto4U will focus research efforts onto useful technological solutions, raise awareness and improve the adoption of audiovisual preservation research results.
The resulting knowledge, tools and services produced by the project will be maintained by PrestoCentre, the European Competence Centre for audiovisual preservation.
Information given from Finland, France, Latvia and Italy – the result of Session 4
SESSION 5
Janis Ziedins opened Session 5 by presenting a paper aiming at finding a solution for online access of audio visual material. What about making it possible to watch movies in any public library free of charge? Culture Information Systems Centre in cooperation with other cultural institutions has built Latvian movies portal (www.filmas.Lv) where users can get access to movies.

Richard Ranft is the Head of Sound & Vision at the British Library. He is making a statement about the aim of his paper: “ ... Many of Europe’s leading cultural heritage institutions have large, high-quality audio collections which are in great demand be researchers and the general public, but online access to them is constrained by copyright and fragmented among many different platforms...”.
The problem will be solved because the European Sound project is aiming at bringing together for the first time major European audio archives and web innovators to solve the problem. Publishers, the record industry, right holders and libraries will be approached to improve the access to out-of- commerce and geo –locked audio content.
The last contribution on Session 5 was done by Maria Drabczyk, Kamila Lewandowska and Eve-Marie Oesterien.
Poland and United Kingdom working together with a common aim: a pan-European AV heritage project.
The title of the paper is: Going EUscreen XL: On the joys and challenges of participating in a pan-European heritage project.
The focus of the presentation was on the practical challenges and benefits of making audiovisual content and metadata searchable, findable, and accessible for future re-use.
The presenters came from: National Audiovisual Institute of Poland and British Universities Film & Video Council.

SESSION 6
The final session of the conference, Session 6, was opened by a presentation of Jole Stimbiryte.
She was aiming at making a report about her experience in the field of searching for access to audiovisual material in Lithuanian Central State Archive. The question asked was: Does the user always get what he wants? Is every audiovisual material accessible for the user at any time?
What about material that is protected by copyright regulations?

The next speaker came from Finland: Erkki Nurmi from University of Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy Library.
He was reporting about his study tour to libraries in London. He focused on the study of research for music in libraries. The title of his paper was: librarian in Erasmus exchange: E- resources in academic music libraries.

The last presentation of Session 6 was left to Andris Kesteris from Canada.
He wanted to show a documentary which he had worked with for about three years. The film title was: “ Outside the Shere “. Marcus Kolga and Andris Kesteris produced the 47- minute film in collaboration with the Independent Producers Initiative program of OMI-TV in Toronto, Canada.
The film relies on archival and new footage coming from various institutional and community sources. The content of the film is the history of the Baltic Communities in Canada and their role in a post-Second World War environment. The main question posed in the film is about the future of the Baltic diaspora and the survival of the three Baltic States themselves.






















Tedd Urnes
Teddview Audiovisual Archival Management (TAAM)
October 15, 2014.

































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