DIGITALIZATION OF AUDIOVISUAL COLLECTIONS: ISSUES IMPORTANT TO MANAGE THE CHANGE TO A NEW TECHNOLOGY.

Paper presented at II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ARCHIVOS DIGITALES:" Conectando los saberes de las bibliotecas, archivos, museos y galerias para la preservacion digital"(Programa UNAM DGAPA PAPIIT -IN022016)

Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Morelia 8, 9 y 10 de noviembre de 2017.

Tutoriales.Lunes 6 de noviembre 2017.Lugar: Aula interactiva.

INTRODUCTION

The report presented is only a fictional report. Let us face some facts. The task for a new head of a local audiovisual collection is to set up a plan for a total digitalization of the collection of the archive. The new head of the archive is a young man. He has finished his technical education from an important Mexican university. He has no experience in working in a library, or an archive or taking part in television and radio productions. Making movies are also an unknown subject for the young man who is eager in making a professional career in the new field of media work. The management of the company has decided to invest  new technology in the company. The board of the company has given the director permission to make preparations for the new change but a budget has to be presented the board before any actions takes place. The cost of the introduction of the new technology must be accepted by the board. The title of the report is: “ Digitalization of audiovisual collections ,production and transmission “.

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE OLD LIBRARIAN NEED TO TALK TOGETHER

The young man need to be supported by a consultant in the field of archiving. He has called me to assist him in setting up a preliminary plan and budget for the work. I have worked in the business since 1970. I think I can give him some realistic advices to avoid some difficulties.

THE PRELIMINARY PLAN

The working group

First of all we have to get as much information as possible about the archives which we are going the work with. THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE which we have to study is a local television and radio company situated in the city of Morelia in Mexico. The company is an old one. The transmission of television and radio programmes of the company have taken place from 1970 to 2017.

THE MEMBERS OF THE WORKING GROUP

We set up a working group consisting of people who have worked for the company for many years in different departments of the company. The aim of the working group is to collect as much facts about the archive as possible. On the agenda for the working group is: What types of videotapes are stored in archive. Does the archive keep films - and what kinds of films are kept? What is the correct number the videotapes kept? What about the quality of the videotapes? We need to evaluate the technical standard of the videotapes. Does the archive store tapes and films after transmission only? – or does the archive keep films and tapes for viewing only? What has been the main task for the archive since 1970? What about reusing of radio and television programmes for the local people? What about an access policy of the archive? Who has the right to make use of the archive – only the staff of the company or any citizen of the city of Morelia or any citizen of Mexico? The standard of the staff of the archive must be evaluated. What kind of education has been required to get a job: Degree in librarianship, education for universities or colleges, or any person who knows  some of television and radio productions, are qualified for working in the archive? Is the archive regarded by the management of the company as a place to put employed who the management does not know what to do with?

For the new head of the audiovisual archive it is important to know all about catalogization routines and detailed description of how to make a good registration of the programmes. It is not a surprise that some archives have worked with card catalogues all the time. All registrations of the content of the programmes have been done by using typewriters. The budget for the archive so far must be studied.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDIES: THE PRESENT SITUATION AND THE FUTURE PLANNING

THE FICTIONAL  ARCHIVE  which is the object for the report, has not been changed for many years. The main reason for the lack of up-dating of the standard of the archive was the lack of interest for archiving of the programmes by the management of the company. Besides the management was of the opinion that the programmes transmitted had no life after transmission.

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE has taken care of those programmes forwarded the archives after a selection of which programme had a right to kept for eternity.

Let us take a look at the selected programmes and technical materials:

-Videotape: 2000, 2 inch tapes kept after transmission as an original tape of the programme. No copies kept.

-Videotapes: 5000, 1 inch tapes kept after transmission. No copies kept.

-Films: 2000 film programmes kept. Standard: 16 mm. Sound and film are kept in separate boxes. No copies made.

- Photos: 500 photos kept. No copies kept.

- Sound reels: 2000 radio programmes kept. No copies kept.

- Viewing tapes. VHS. 1000 copies kept.

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE and documents of the programmes were stored. A program report  made of every programme transmitted from 1970 has been kept in the archive.

The required standard of the storage of videotapes, films and sound recordings is: No changes in temperature and humidity of the rooms where the materials are stored. 

Recommendations for storage of video tapes: Temperature: 16 C +/- 2, (50-60 F) and relative humidity: 30% -40%.

Recommendations for storage of films used daily: Temperature: 21 C ( 70F) and relative humidity: 25% - 60%. Recommended standard for colour master material: -5 C (23F) and relative humidity: 15%- 30%.

In general lower temperature of storage of films will slow the fading process of the film.

ACCESS POLICY OF THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE was set up to assist those who were making new radio and television programmes. The main object for the production was the inhabitants of the state of Michoacan in central Mexico. The city of Morelia was the market for the programmes only. An exception was the daily news transmitted in both the radio and the television making the people of the state of Michoacan aware of international issues and conflicts.

Access to the collections was made by contacting the librarians working for the company. A list of wanted shots or transmitted programmes was handed to the reference librarian. The producer took a personal contact with the reference librarian about the wanted materials and the plan for the production. Old films and tapes were brought up from the storage room for viewing. In some cases the films had to be viewed by using a cutting table. Copies of the selected shots were made at the department for editing and copying of excerpts of programmes.

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE was organized like many other television and radio archives set up in companies worldwide.

The research work was done by the librarians only because the old card catalogue was still in use. Gradually all information written on the cards were copied to a computer were a so-called “ free text system “ was introduced. The librarian could search on the text of the cards where any word could be a target for the research.

The result of the work done by the reference librarian depended on how much facts and information written on the cards. If the content of the report of the programmes was limited to some persons only, you could only find the persons registered.

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE did not care about the need for information given to the majority of the Mexican population. No. The people of the state of Michoacan was the main object for the information stored in the archive.

SELECTION POLICY OF  CONTENT OF AUDIOVISUAL  ARCHIVES

The management of THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE had decided that not every programme transmitted should be kept in the archives. The policy of selection of programmes was taken from the official policy of public libraries where the librarians made a book selection of the collections and about what kind of books should be bought for the library. Because copies were made of every book published, the library did not need to buy every published book. Television and radio archives made one copy of the transmitted programme only. The traditional selection policy introduced from libraries to television and radio companies resulted in wiping of too many good programmes.

DIGITALIZATION OF THE COLLECTIONS: DECISION MADE BY THE MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY

The report of the work done daily must be evaluated by the working group. The group must know all about the archive. Then the group must get information about the new possibilities introduced by the policy of digitalization. The old aims, tasks, equipments, staff education, access policy and selection policy must be changed because the new up-dating technology created a long list of new possibilities. It does not make sense changing the work of the archive without taking advance of the new possibilities of digitalization.

MORELIA AND THE STATE OF MICHOACAN ARE PUT ON THE INTERNATIONAL MAP.

THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE is not a local information center anymore. The whole world might get an interest in getting information about what is going on in the state of Michoacan. You do not have any more local secrets.

 NEW WAY OF WORKING AFTER  INTRODUCTION OF DIGITALIZATION OF  AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES.

SELECTION POLICY ABOLISHED

“ … I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it…”. Quotation: The French philosopher Francois Voltaire (1694-1778).

Official statements made by any citizen of any country must be based on correct archival facts stored in libraries, state archives, national archives and television and radio archives. Digitalization is a new technology only perfect made for the modern democratic society.

The working group of THE FICTIONAL ARCHIVE had made a profound investigation about the present way of working with archival footage. The group suggested keeping a copy of every transmitted radio and television programme transmitted to the population of Michoacan.No more wiping of tapes was the main content of the decision made. It was a need for more programmes to be reused as programmes and a need for making an active use of excerpts from transmitted programmes.

NO CENSORSHIP- NO MORE WIPING OF INFORMATION

The working group decided to evaluate the work of the archive with reference to the democratic traditions of the State of Michoacan: Free exchange of official information for the inhabitants of the state, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. If there is no free exchange of official information for the inhabitants of the state, the selected content of the archives must be evaluated as a limited source available. Academic studies are depending on access to information stored in audiovisual archives. If the government of the state wanted to select the information forwarded the archives, the value of the content of the archives is reduced for academic studies.

 When the total transport of the collections consisting of videotapes, films and sound recordings to files, the need for the old materials was not a demand any more. The work was time consuming and expensive because every videotape and film had to be evaluated from a technical point of view by professional technicians.

THE FUTURE OF THE ORIGINALS-THE LEGAL DEPOSIT OF ORIGINALS FROM AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES

On the agenda on most of the international conferences the issue of the future of the old collections is an important issue. The experts differ about what to do with the original tapes and films. From a technical point of view the decision to wipe and destroy the original films and videotapes made sense for persons who have worked with technical facilities only. The content of the materials is preserved and kept on files forwarded to the National Library for being kept without any wiping dates. There is another problem too connected to the old material: Lack of technical equipment required for further coping of the content and viewing of the tapes. Two inch videotape recorders are not easy to buy anymore.

EVERY OLD FILM IS UNIQUE ND ORIGINAL

“ …Broadcasting archive: These contain primarily an inventory of selected radio and television programmes and commercial recordings… as a source for broadcasting and production purposes…collections may also include “ raw “ material ( not transmitted material) , such as interviews and sound effects…” The source: Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles by Ray Edmonson, Paris, 2004.

After the introduction of the Legal Deposit Law the policy of selection of transmitted programmes was not an official policy for the broadcasting companies anymore because copies had to be forwarded the national archive annually.

My recommendation as a consultant for the young and new Head of the archive is to keep the old materials as long as possible because the original videotapes and films have a technical value as originals. The sound and the pictures are often made better when you transport the content to the files. The original sound will be improved to keep up with the required standard for new productions.

After having completed the transport from tapes to files, the next decision is to make the National Library understand the importance of keeping original materials of all kinds for future studies. Nobody is asking questions about destroying the original official documents or books published when the Spanish found a settlement in 1541 with the name of Valladolid. Written papers and documents published after the Mexican War of Independence are not an object for destruction even if few make use of the original documents.

In 1991, the City of Morelia was declared a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE for its well-preserved colonial buildings and layout of the historic center. Preservation of old transmitted materials stored in audiovisual archives in Morelia must be treated in the same way as the old colonial buildings and books. The visual history of Morelia is also important for next generation to know – not only buildings.

LIBRARIANS AND THE FUTURE: IS THE INTRODUCTION OF DIGITALIZATION THE END OF THE OLD TRADITIONAL LIBRARIANS?

“ … Librarians are just like search engines, except they smile and talk to me and they don’t give me paid for advertising when they are trying to help. And they have actual hearts…”

The British novelist and writer: Matt Haig. February 9, 2013.

Librarians who have been educated to work in public libraries, university libraries and private book collections have been worried about the future work. The main question received from librarians educated from a traditional library school is: What is the new requirement for librarians who want to work in audiovisual archives? Do we have a job at all after the introduction of digitalization of the collections?

My personal experience working as the head of television archive for 30 years dealing with recruitments of the staff of  archive contenting old films, old and new sound recordings, television and radio programmes stored on different types of tapes and different films, is that a radical change of demands of the staff is not necessary. The main reason is that any traditional educated librarians are not trained to deal with the materials stored in audiovisual archives. The audiovisual archives do not store many shelves of books. The librarians had to get the new education on the spot working in the archive by adopting new technology changes more or less annually.

THE STANDARD EQUIPEMENT OF THE STAFF OF AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES

Those librarians who are addict working with books and papers only –I am addiction to books myself –should not ask for work in archives where tapes and films and sound recordings are the main working tools. It is important that you are interested in learning about the new materials. The librarians must show a positive approach to new technical equipments which are a must for the work in the archives. The time when the management decided to put any uneducated employed in the archives is out of date. The new media librarians must learn to deal with old viewing cassettes, viewing tables and dealing with new files. Anyway I recommend employment of persons with Degree in Librarianship and persons with an academic education. When the management has made a final decision to digitalize the total audiovisual collections, the consequence of the decision is that the standard of the staff must be updated too. Training programmes for the members of the staff  dealing with new files and new equipments are necessary. Above all: Part time employment of the staff is not recommended policy because annually the staff has to attend new technical training.

MEDIA LIBRARIANS –WHAT TO DO AFTER DIGITALIZATION?

Video tapes with transmission standard, video tapes used for viewing programmes only, 16 mm films and sound recordings, old viewing tables, are history after the total digitalization of the collections. Sorry, but that is the true and brutal working situations. The content is stored on files.

When tapes were the only original source for documentation of the content of the programmes, the media librarians had to view every transmitted programme for descriptions of the content. It was important to get as much facts about the content of the programme due to the demand of quick access to different scenes and shots to be used in a new television programmes. The work was time consuming for the librarians who had not taken part in making of the programme. New technology means that the work described is history after the digitalization of the materials. How to make the description of the content of the programmes when the librarians were told to stop the work?

METADATA: A NEW TECHNICAL WORD ONLY?

The metadata of every document is decided by the producers of the programmes at an early stage of the work. Metadata is only the same facts you find on the first page of every book where titles, copyright owners, pages, publishing dates, subtitles, name of the writer and a list of photos used. The producers who also have made the programmes, are the best qualified persons to make a detailed description of the content of the programmes. During the work all information connected to the programmes will be moved to archival system controlled by the staff of the audiovisual archive. After the transmission of the programmes, all facts connected to the products are transported automatically to the archive where future research work will be done by the librarians. Besides the media librarian who is working close to new productions can up-date missing facts. It is also important to make it possible for people who know the content of the programme to up-date the facts presented. Names spelled wrong or missing information about the names of cars or planes or guns or sites used in the programmes can be up-dated by people.

Journalists working for a radio station or a television corporation can do the research work from home or from the office because all documents are accessible for the producers or the journalists. My experience is that many journalists want the media librarians to do the research work for him.

MASS PRODUCTIONS OF RADIO AND TELEVISION PROGRAMMES AND STORAGE POLICY OF THE PRODUCTS

“… Archives are not free to publicly exhibit or exploit material in their collections without the agreement of the relevant copyright holders…”.Quotation from: Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles by Ray Edmondson. Paris. 2004. Page 59.

THE LEGAL DEPOST LAW

“…The purpose of the act is to ensure that documents containing generally available information are deposited in national collections, so that these records of cultural and social life may be preserved and made available as source material for purposes of research and documentation…”

The source: Act relating to the legal deposit of generally available documents.No.32 of June 1989.With regulations. The Norwegian Library of Norway, June 1997.

Those countries who have introduced a national legal deposit law of all transmitted and published documents including all radio programmes and television programmes, are facing a catalogue problem. How to deal with the high number of documents forwarded the national archive?

LARGE SCALE VIDEO MIGRATION

The nation archives have to store all original formats including: 2 inch tapes, 1 inch tapes, U-matic tapes, VHS cassettes, S-VHS cassettes, Betacam SP tapes and any other formats used by television companies,and different original film formats too. How to manage the digitalization of hundreds of thousands of hours of audiovisual material per year? Video content can only be played on specific equipments. The lifetime of the original videotapes is an unsure matter. We do not know for how many years the tapes will last? We only know that it is important to transfer the content of the tapes to new tapes after having tested the quality of the tapes. The videos are under threat not only due to the physical and chemical instability of the media, but also because the playing equipments are not available in the marked any more.

It is not my intention to advocate for a certain company or a system to handle the issues mentioned. But systems are available on the market already. I recommend studies of the work done by Library of Congress in USA and the done by Scandinavian national archives.

In the field of preserving audiovisual archives, different companies can do the work of digitalization of more than 500,000 hours of audiovisual archives. Transferring the video content to a medium with better reliability and life span is a task for national archives and also for different television archives.

The main challenge with reference to the material transferred is the final decision of how much detailed facts about the content of the programmes should be transferred?

What about the description of the content of the picture? Media librarians have viewed the programmes making a detailed description including: Correct names of the persons involved in the programme, the content of the conversations, the sites where the programme was made, correct spelling of names and sites, different shots and scenes, all technical information necessary to know, about the weather, the seasons, copy the climate and special comments made by the persons involved and above all: The title of the songs and artists involved.

Definitions of the materials deposited:

-Medium: A means of storing information,

-document: One or more identical copies of a medium by which information is stored for subsequent reading, listening, showing or transmission,

-publisher: Any person who at his own expense produces or arranges for production of a document in order to make it available to public,

-Producer: Any person who produces copies of a document for a publisher,

-Importer: Any person who at his own expense brings into the country a document published abroad in order to make it available to public in the country,

A document is made available to the public when copies of the document are offered for sale, hire or loan , or when  the document is distributed in other ways outside the private domain,

-Information contained in the document is made available outside the private domain by means of presentation, showing, broadcasting, on-line transmission, and the like.

-So far the demands of the legal deposit of a country.

CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS OF PROGRAMMES STORED –AN UNNECESSARY BUSINESS?

The question was asked at the EUSCREEN XL Conference in Rome, Italy, October 30-31, 2014. I attended the conference. The question was asked by a British businessman, Roger Felber. He has been in the business, as CEO of media, manufacturing and financial service companies for nearly 40 years. His group had purchased BRITISH PATHE newsreels. Roger Felber wanted to make money selling archival footage selected from the films bought. He did not make it selling stock footage because the collections bought had too few information about the films cataloged. Experts who knew about the content of the films had to be hired to view all the films making a detailed content description of the programmes. The work was time consuming but necessary for future research work. So far, the hard and expensive experience made by a businessman and not by the management of the archive or the librarians. Roger Felber  took part in an opening panel discussion on October 30, 2014, in Rome, Italy.

THE FINAL MEETING BETWEEN THE YOUNG HEAD OF THE ARCHIVE AND THE OLD CONSULTANT OF AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVE- THE FINAL DECISION HAS TO BE TAKEN

The young librarian is worried. He has got a lot of information about how to make preparations for a change in technology and strategy for his collections. Therefore new questions are asked by him concerning the advantages of digitalization and above all: The disadvantages of digitalization of the collections. Why is it so important to go for digitalization of films, tapes, documents and papers?

Some of the advantages of digitalization: The main keywords about the advantages of digitalization are: Copying, automation, auto-cheching, searching, access, speed of copying, quality, space requirement and future migrations of the collections.

The source: Memory of the world. General guidelines to safeguard documentary heritage. UNESCO, 1995.

COPYING : No loss of quality by making new copies of digital information. The same storage format or another digital format is used.

AUTOMATION: The documents are represented by a string of binary numbers making it possible to automate the process of copying. No need for human checking of the fidelity of the copies.

AUTO-CHECKING AND REPAIRING: If errors are detected in a digital carrier it is possible making corrected copies of the material without human intervention.

SEARCHING: Both loc al and remote catalogues can be searched by the user. The making of a web of links from the documents accessed by the user to associate documents in the same collection. Full text searches can be made too. Similar searching is devised for both sound recordings and image documents.

ACCESS:  The use of large scale robotic stores will enable the digitized collections to be accessible for 24 hours a day without the minimum of staffing.

SPEED OF COPYING: It will be possible to transfer data at a very high speed.

QUALITY: It is easy to generate a lower quality copy from the higher quality copy when the work is required.

SPACE REQUIREMENTS: The result of storage of digitized information on carrier is a reduction in self space required. No more climatic control of the space required for the original materials like tapes, films, sound recordings and papers. It is possible to make a reduction in running costs of the archival climatic control.

FUTURE MIGRATION OF THE COLLECTIONS: Collections copied to a digital carrier can take advantage of the possibilities for automated transfer inherent in a digital format in case of future migrations.

The young librarian found the arguments acceptable for the time being. But he is still worried. What about hidden, secret and forgotten disadvantages that few consultants want to talk about? What about the costs for the new technology? He has had budget problems already asking for more staff members to deal with the increasing numbers of documents forwarded the archive.

Silence is the best description of the reaction from the old librarian. Talking about costs is no good talk at all. Anyway the disadvantages of the investments in new technology had to be clarified before further work done.

SOME OF THE MAIN DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITALISATION

CAPITAL COSTS: To buy new equipment is expensive. Skilled operators of the new equipment are a must if the best results are to be achieved.

STORAGE REQUIMENTS: The capital cost to build a climatically stable environment for the carriers is a necessary cost. This means an increase in the energy consumption of the storage area of the collections.

RUNNING COSTS: The new digitised collections may require frequent copying resulting in labour, energy and new carrier costs.

PREPARATION COSTS: The preparation works for the digitalization includes the ordering and indexing of the original material and the entry of the textual references into the data base by specialist staff. The work can be an expensive process. The manpower for the work is expensive.

 What about the original documents after having finished the work? The question is asked by the young librarian who is not satisfied with the report presented by the old librarian.

The answer is: Take care of the original materials. The funding companies of the material must accept that digitalization is a method of granting more people access to the information without increasing the danger of damage to the original document and to avoid high restoration costs of the original material. The transfer of large numbers of documents will aid preservation by reducing the pressure on the original documents.

CONCULSION

The young librarian is not the only person within an audiovisual archive or a broadcasting company to make the final decision about digitalization of the collections. The management of the company must agree on a new strategy of the archive while setting up a budget for the work. Patience, and more patience might be the correct key word for the future work- an expensive business. The public demand for more access to information given to the people already will increase in countries where the political life is dominated by freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of information and democratic systems.

The traditional library or archive where the viewing of the collections stored and the cataloguing of the content of the programmes had to be done within the archives only, is history.

The original films, sound recordings, written documents, photos, television- and radio programmes are no more objects for research work. This means that the original materials can avoid being damaged. The users of the archives can view the content of the collections independent of the location of the archives.

It is not possible to advocate for more access to published information without a political agreement made by the government of the country or the state. Access means also making use of films, tapes and documents. Damage of original books, movies, television and radio programmes might be the result of the new policy of access. The introduction of digitalization is a tool and method to avoid the damage of original material and above all: Keep up the high standard of information for people within a democratic society.

The introduction of legal deposit law of all published documents is a tool for future academic studies and for access to information to people. No censorship of transmitted television and radio programmes and published books and papers. Wiping of transmitted television and radio programmes is forbidden by law. An active cooperation with media universities and with historians is a must if the cultural heritage of any country and of the State of Michoacan shall be preserved to be reused year by year.

Tedd Urnes

Teddview Audiovisual Archival Management (TAAM)

Teddnord@getmail.no

October 28, 2017

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