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Invite colleaguesIncreasing diffusion: Rediscovering the Smithsonian’s media collections through the Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative
Abstract
The Smithsonian Institution has collected, produced and exhibited audiovisual media for well over a century. This paper discusses how, during the last decade, the institution’s concerted efforts at inventorying and cataloguing the hundreds of thousands of analogue media objects in its collections have led to the development of the centralised Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative (AVMPI). As a pan-institutional service initiative, the AVMPI’s project team, media digitisation and conservation laboratories, and best practice workflows are advancing collections care and digital access activities across the Smithsonian’s 22 museums and research centres. Software such as Airtable and a new accessibility-friendly streaming video platform built by the Smithsonian are integral to these efforts.
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Author's Biography
Felicia Boretzky received her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh with a specialisation in archives, preservation and records management. With over a decade of media preservation experience, Felicia has worked for nonprofit organisations like the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music & Recorded Sound and in the private sector, at the MediaPreserve. Her work has focused on the physical care and condition of mixed-media collections, understanding the importance of storage and handling for lifelong preservation. She is passionate that by extending the longevity of these materials we can provide a greater opportunity for access and discoverability of unseen and/or unheard history through digitisation. She has served on the Pennsylvania Cultural Response Team and currently is part of the leadership of the Audio and Moving Image Section for the Society of American Archivists.
Walter Forsberg has over two decades of experience working in media conservation across North America and is a 2021–2024 Fulbright Specialist in Library Science. His co-edited anthology about Mexican microcinemas, ‘Cine-Espacios’, was published by Canyon Cinema in 2023, and he recently served as an Archival Producer for the National Film Board of Canada’s forthcoming docu-series, ‘Mulroney’. He founded the Media Conservation and Digitization department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington and has taught as adjunct faculty at New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation graduate programme, UCLA’s Rare Book School, and the International Federation of Film Archives Summer School. Walter co-chairs the Federal Projection Society, an inter-agency collective that stimulates and shares knowledge about motion picture film presentation inside US government facilities.
Siobhan Hagan earned her MA in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has worked in a variety of collecting organisations throughout her career, including the UCLA Library, the National Aquarium and the DC Public Library. Siobhan is the founder of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive, and has been an active member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. She is passionate about the preservation and access of regional audiovisual materials, local television, home movies, and community and personal archiving.
Kayla Henry-Griffin graduated from New York University with an MA in moving image archiving and preservation. Their area of study during graduate school was digital preservation with an emphasis on video game preservation. Kayla’s experience in audiovisual preservation spans across a myriad of opportunities, from working with an acquired archive at New York University’s Special Collections, to assessing a large collection at the Museum of the Moving Image.
Dan Hockstein holds a BA in audio post-production and sound design from Emerson College and a master’s in information science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His experience in audiovisual preservation includes work with vendors and cultural heritage institutions in preservation, digitisation, quality control and programmatic development. His research is focused on preservation of repair knowledge through the information structures that hold it. He co-chairs the Education and Training Committee of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, and is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives.
Alison Reppert Gerber is the Head of Preservation Programs for the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, where she oversees preservation-related activities, including collection need and risk assessment, preventive conservation tasks (such as environmental and pest management), budgeting and procurement, and long-term preservation strategies and initiatives. Since coming to the Archives in 2015, Alison has led a pan-institutional audiovisual survey, an audiovisual preservation readiness assessment for 11 Smithsonian units, and currently directs the Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative. Alison also serves as a member of the Smithsonian’s Preparedness and Response in Collections Emergencies team, focusing on logistic-related needs across the Smithsonian.
Brianna Toth holds an MLIS with a focus on media archival studies from UCLA and a BA in art history from the University of the Pacific. She has also undertaken undergraduate studies in the Visual Cultures Department at Goldsmiths College, London. Her personal research is concerned with the obsolescence of technical expertise related to the maintenance and preservation of analogue video decks. In tandem with this research, she worked as the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)’s Program Manager for Online Education and served as the Co-Chair of the AMIA Continuing Education Advisory Task Force from 2021 to 2023.