As we (OK, me) get older we start to think about the stuff we accumulate. Personally, I have 4 large totes (those plastic boxes with the two-part lid) filled with my life’s work. It goes back more than 20 years to television programs I shot in grad school. I’ve always kept them in the house, in a closet, much to the chagrin of my wife since they chew up a lot of space.
So what do I do with my media archive? Well, it sits in the boxes in the closet. I purchased a DV camera with AV pass through with the intention of transferring my stuff to DV or archiving to it to DVD. But that hasn’t happened.
I came across a great resource on media preservation and an organization that conducts workshops.
Two organizations have partnered to produce workshops on media preservation.
Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP) is a nonprofit service, education, and advocacy organization committed to the preservation of non-commercial electronic media. They conduct workshops on media preservation. And they have some basic information in the form of handouts from their Introduction to Media Preservation workshop.
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) has a very complete section on their website about media preservation. (from their website) Founded in 1971, EAI is a nonprofit organization that distributes and preserves a major collection of new and historical video artworks. For 35 years, EAI has fostered the creation, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of video art and, more recently, digital art projects. EAI is committed
to providing audiences with access to media art.
I realize that everything is new, everything is digital, but there is an awful lot of history back in the analog archives stored in our basements, storerooms, (heaven forbid) storage units and, in my case, a valuable clothes closet. Once that material is gone how will we know where we’ve been or what mistakes we made that aren’t worth making again?
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Tags: media, formats, videotape, preserve, preservation, VHS, U-matic, 3/4 inch, Betacam, quad, Type-B, Betamax, one inch, 1, 2, two inch
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