Cross Media Preservation Planning

Audio-visual media have recorded the 20th century in way no other era has been recorded. Film, audio and video have enabled significant people and events to be witnessed by millions of people. The problem of preserving this amount of information in the original analogue formats has been monumental and despite the best efforts only a fraction of the original recordings made survive worldwide. The skills required to adequately preserve and make accessible the remaining records have been honed for only the past two decades. And now the world has moved into the digital realm. This has engendered a new set of problems and demanded audio-visual archivists acquire a new set of skills while still requiring the original skills to manage the legacy collections. The costs required to digitise a legacy collection are largely beyond reach of all but the best resourced archive, and yet this is required if a collection is to be preserved and accessible. Consequently hard financial decisions about the way a collection is to be managed into the future need to be made by those responsible. Risk management is a crucial part of the decision making process. Digital collection preservation requires more than the creation of digital surrogates. It is a continuum starting with ensuring the original file is intact, the development of strategies for managing the changing environment of files types and hardware evolution, and minimising the potential for loss by negligence or malicious attack. The prioritization of collection digitization needs to take all of these factors into consideration in order to balance a collection's preservation needs with its potential for access and exploitation. Issues such as technical obsolescence, succession planning and risk analysis need to be considered along with the organization's strategic business needs such as revenue potential and key stakeholders. This presentation will outline how the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia developed a strategy for the prioritization of all collection items in a consolidated manner that recognized efficiencies and synergies, developed new workflows, harnessed the potential of new technologies, addressed at risk priorities and provided for long term planning.