Maintaining a Vision: how mandates and strategies are changing with digital content

Neil Beagrie (Charles Beagrie Ltd)

Screening the Future Conference London May 2013

Outline

• My brief - institutional responses to how collection and preservation mandates are realized and stretched by the digital...do existing institutions just 'go digital' but otherwise claim 'business as usual'?

• Talk has AV and long-term focus in two parts:– Changes– Responses

• A personal and time-limited selection!

What is an AV Institution?• PrestoCentre communities of practice

(1) Museums, artists, representatives(2) Music and sound archives(3) Video production and post-production(4) Footage sales libraries(5) Film collections and filmmakers(6) Research and scientific collections(7) Learning and teaching repositories(8) Broadcast(9) Personal collections

• Local, regional, national institutions• Variable levels and type of AV content

Changes

Changing Content - Archives• Records of public enquiries are a

significant part of National Archive accessions –

• Increasingly these are digital and multi-media. Records from MV Derbyshire Public Inquiry include:– A number of virtual reality reconstructions of

the sinking of the ship– More than 200 hours of underwater video

footage– 100,000 still images of the wreck site– Deep Ocean Survey digital records

Changing Content – journals

Changing Scale

Changing Scale

Changing Scale - FragmentationProliferation and sub-division of previous content – TV and satellite channels, academic journals, etc

Democratisation – Microsoft MyLifeBits video capture c.2003

Changing Scale - individualReal time recording – police, military, Google Glass

Responses

Publishing/Media

Education

ArchivesLibraries

Science & Technology

Government Research & policy

MuseumsData Services

Cross-SectoralMembership

Responses – cross-sectoral preservation exchange•Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) membership by sector

Responses – cross-sectoral preservation exchange (2)•DPC Technology Watch Reports

•Peer reviewed•PDF freely available

•Preserving Moving Picture andSound (Richard Wright)

•Published May 2012•6,451 downloads in 1st year

Responses – cross-sectoral preservation exchange (3)

• These developments are happening worldwide:– UK and Ireland – DPC (Digital Preservation Coalition)

– France – PIN (Pérennisation des Informations Numériques)

– USA - NDSA (National Digital Stewardship Alliance)

– Germany - Nestor

– Netherlands - NDCC– In discussion “DPC Pacific”

Responses – Shared Services and Outsourcing

• Role of Data Centres – Jisc, MIMAS and EDINA for UK HE/FE

• Widespread interest in Cloud Services for Preservation

Responses - Mergers• Several recent mergers of National Libraries and National

Archives• Common reasons cited:

– Comparable digital challenges: collection and storage of and provision of access to digital information

– Pooling knowledge, skills and resources– Cost savings

• Mergers in Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, proposed in Ireland

• Shoah Foundation and the University of Southern California (USC) agreement in 2005 - guarantee of the preservation of the archive in perpetuity

Conclusions• What is changing?

– Multi-media permeating boundaries – Greater shared and convergence of interests across

different sectors– Scale and management of digital media

• Some responses?– New alliances and partnerships– Digital preservation exchange across sectors– Some mergers across established boundaries– More shared services and outsourcing

Questions?

neil@beagrie.com

www.beagrie.com