Is Film Archiving a Profession?Author(s): Ray EdmondsonSource: Film History, Vol. 7, No. 3, Film Preservation and Film Scholarship (Autumn, 1995),pp. 245-255Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815091 .Accessed: 15/06/2011 09:00

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Film History, Volume 7, pp. 245-255, 1995. Copyright ? John Libbey & Company ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in Great Britain

Is film archiving a

profession ?

Ray Edmondson As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there He wasn't there again today Oh how I wish he'd go away ...

he profession of film archiving, it seems to me, is a bit like the man who wasn't there, of fond nursery rhyme remembrance. Is it there or not? If so, is it going to stop lurk-

ing in the shadows so we can all see it at last? Or is it, like Alice's Wonderland, really just a state of mind for those who like to call themselves film archivists? Always assuming, of course, that the question matters at all!

Our esteemed editor has asked me to address some remarks on the topic, which means it matters to at least two people - and a good many more, from all indications, as you will see. Of course, it does beg the question - what is a profession? I couldn't answer that in the space of one article, and the uses of the word are so wide as to make it almost meaningless, but for this discussion I could hazard a definition that I think most of us could relate to:

A profession is a field of remunerative work which involves university level training and preparation, has a sense of vocation or long term commitment, involves distinctive skills and expertise, worldview, standards and ethics. It implies continuing development of its defining knowledge base, and of its individ- ual practitioners.

Agreed? Then read on anyway. By this defini- tion, such people as doctors of medicine, lawyers, architects, engineers, scientists, schoolteachers and journalists are professionals. They meet each requirement and they have professional societies which develop the shared standards and know-

ledge base - and whose membership requirements help to define, quite clearly, who is an accredited professional and who is not. They also work to advance the best interests of the profession, and so help to determine its status and credibility in the eyes of governments, other professions and the community generally. These things matter and so they are sought after and sometimes jealously guarded.

By this definition, too, librarians, museologists and archivists - with their related disciplines and subsets - are professionals. This brings us closer to home, for these are what I term the collecting pro- fessions: people who look after and deal with col- lections and databases of knowledge and cultural materials - often, though not always, with cultural and non-commercial motivation. Film archivists and their other audiovisual colleagues hang in here somewhere, and this is where it gets tricky.

Now before I get into the heavy stuff, let me make a couple of diversionary comments: the car- toon and the short subject before the main feature, as it were.

First (dim houselights, WB trademark zooms) there's a range of views about what we mean by film archiving. You knew we had to get to this one! Are we talking about film in the sense of cinema - that is, principally fiction films - or do we include non-fiction as well? Or by film do we mean moving image - and so include television and video or CD-ROM? And in any case, does film archiving stand by itself or does it have a relationship to the

Ray Edmondson1 is Deputy Director of the Na- tional Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Corre- spondence to: NFSA, GPO Box 2002, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. e-mail Ray_Edmond- son@nfsa.gov.au

246 Ray Edmondson

Fig. 1. A production still from the television series The Australian Image. That's the author holding a can of film. The archetyl film archivist, surrounded by racks groaning with precious reels, is now a cliched image. It's been a useful and defining picture, though it suggests little about the breadth and depth of the profession.

archiving of sound, in its various expressions - in- cluding radio and oral history? I can't help wonde- ring what Daffy Duck might have done with that scenario, but it is a serious question. I've never yet encountered - in the literature, in discussion with

colleagues- a succinct and shared definition of the terms film archiving and film archivist. Although they're in everyday use, they really mean different things to different people. And much the same can be said about audiovisual or AV archiving, sound archiving, and television archiving. I've attempted my own definition2 for the sake of discussion.

So let me put my own cards on the table. I see audiovisual archiving as a coherent field with a shared philosophical basis. It is internally diverse and contains several definable areas. Film archi- ving is one of these; in turn, it has its own subsets or specialisms. My reasons for this view will be clearer as you read on.

Secondly, (oe McDoakes main title, dissolve to So You Want to be an Archivist) I want to avoid

the furphy3 of assuming that audiovisual (including film) archiving is automatically an aspect of the archival profession, or archivism, as it presently exists - and therefore not a separate profession at all. I have found this assumption to be readily made, and I guess it's natural since the same word is used for both.

But the fact is that it's a semantic accident. There's no ready-made word, universally under- stood, to describe institutions which preserve mov- ing images and sound recordings - or the people that work therein. Archive is simply one of the words appropriated, from the 1930s on, to do that job, maybe because of its popular meaning as a place where old material is kept. The archival pro- fession, for its own purposes, observes today some very precise definitions of the word archive and its derivatives. They don't necessarily apply within the field of audiovisual archiving. In some countries they specifically don't, for legal reasons.

OK then. (Logo. Drum roll. Dissolve to main

246 Ray Edmondson

247

title I Was a Teenage Film Respooler, or Gone With the Wind). So let's return to the opening question - is film archiving a profession?

Over the years some colleagues have ex- pressed to me surprise, even offence, at this ques- tion - and hence at the implied suggestion that they were not professionals. They would cite such things as their length of experience, their detailed know-

ledge of media history or their technical specializ- ation, their own standing among their colleagues, their passion and commitment to the field, their career achievements, the standards of their archive. None of this I could gainsay, and if simi-

larly challenged, I would probably respond in much the same way. Of course they were profes- sionals!

Yet, if so, it was (by my opening definition) a

profession seemingly lacking in some essentials. You couldn't anywhere find an agreed definition of it. There were no permanent, university level

training courses or accreditation standards for its

practitioners (people learned on the job). There was no code of ethics. They did not seem to have a professional association. Some of its practitioners saw themselves as belonging to one or more of the other collecting professions. It did not seem to be included in the pantheon of professions formally recognized and graded by government civil ser- vice employers. There was no formal base of theory which served to define the profession, its principles and worldview.

Nor was the profession one which you tended to quote on official documents or applications, un- less you wanted to risk being asked to explain re- peatedly what film archivist or sound archivist meant. As one colleague recently remarked to me, it was sudden death at parties. (It has happened to me too. 'And what do you do'? 'I'm a film archi- vist'. Long pause, followed either by [a] remarks about the weather, or [b] the question 'what's that'?, or [c] the observation 'Gee, it must be great to spend all day looking at movies').

Conversely, other marks of a profession were clearly in evidence. The commitment, passion and sense of vocation were obvious and often striking in their evangelistic fervour: these were people who believed deeply in the worth of what they were doing, and were not daunted in that belief by lack of resources or formal recognition. The spe-

cialized skills and knowledge base, and the ac-

companying jargon and concepts, were obvious enough. The field has accumulated and maintains a now sizeable literature which includes both peri- odicals and monographs. There have for some time been 'summer schools' and other devices for at least partially redressing the dearth of formal

training - one consequence of the fact that the num- ber of practitioners are few relative to their 'cousin' collecting professions. International federations of film, sound and television archives are growing and are effective in promoting the interests and

identity of their fields. So far, so good, one might say. Isn't it enough

to just get on with the job? Film archives face huge preservation, cataloguing and access tasks, now that we have the newer problems of vinegar syn- drome added to the old problems of nitrate. Which won't wait! Can't we leave the theorizing until we've got leisure to worry about it? Does it really matter whether anyone wants to recognize it as a

profession or not? We have enough really urgent things to occupy our full attention now!

There's no doubt that such sentiments are widely held across the audiovisual archiving world. Collectively we do have an urgent job, and we're doing it with insufficient resources - some- times hopelessly insufficient. We are used to teach- ing new staff on the job - that's how we learned, of course. Yes, our international forums are institu- tion-oriented bodies rather than traditional 'profes- sional associations' because they've needed to be - in our world we have to function as parts of or- ganizations rather than just as individuals.

So addressing questions of philosophy, theory and professional recognition has not been a priority in our field. Until recent years, it attracted little discussion. The burgeoning professional lit- erature has concentrated on the practical rather than the theoretical - the 'how to' rather than the 'why' - for which there has been an obvious and urgent need. But the theory has nevertheless lurked in the background, surfacing when topics like col- lection building are discussed. (As collections grow, you sooner or later have to ask why you are keeping this or that item).

And it has always been the concern of individ- uals who, in archives perhaps less securely placed than most, have had to constantly argue from first

Is film archiving a profession?

248 Ray Edmondson

Fig. 2. Film archivist II - what a great job, spending all day looking at movies! Another defining image, with a true but misleading implication. Film cataloguing is a professional discipline requiring both training and expert subject knowledge. It differs in important ways from generic book cataloguing, though it requires the same attention to logic, precision and consistency.

principles to defend and advance their work. Even today, as we celebrate the centenary of cinema, the rationale that film is worth preserving to the same extent as other cultural materials is not univer- sally accepted - nor is it observed in practice.

As audiovisual archiving entered the 1990s, these subliminal concerns have found more or- ganized and overt expression. The federation jour- nals and conferences have begun to open up theoretical issues. UNESCO publications5 emanat- ing from AV archivists' think-tanks have stimulated it. An informal, international mail network6 linking people interested in philosophical issues has been established, leading in turn to the writer's prepara- tion, last year, of a first, partial draft of a theoreti- cal base for the profession - A Philosophy of AV Archiving - Draft One7.

Is there a reason for this movement? Certainly the landscape for audiovisual archives of all kinds is less predictable than it once was, as technologi- cal change brings the image and sound media closer together and the division between celluloid and electronic images is, to coin a phrase, more blurred than it used to be. The traditional film

archive and sound archive is being joined by, or sometimes turning into, the multi-media archive. The international federations have begun to review their roles and their futures8. We are becoming more aware of the need to get back to first prin- ciples, and to step back and take a longer strategic view of our future.

But I suspect the main reason is simply that it's an issue whose time has come anyway. Individuals who for many years have felt uneasy about our ill-defined theoretical foundations, or our lack of identity and status, and our inadequate training structures have, one by one, begun to express themselves. If that's the case, I see it as a sign of maturity- a transition, perhaps, from the 'pioneer- ing' phase to the 'established' phase. No, it doesn't mean the world's film archivists are sud- denly going to become philosophers or get hung up about their professional status and recognition. It's a quieter thing that will happen in the back- ground. We all have archives to run and jobs to do and we feel guilty if we spend too much time navel gazing.

So - is film archiving a profession? My view is

248 Ray Edmondson

249

- yes and no! The essential qualities which make audiovisual archiving (of which film archiving is one manifestation) a profession in its own right are

already there, inherent in the field and its practi- tioners. What are still missing are the visible struc- tures and manifestations which are needed to affirm this fact.

(Intermission. Lights dim. Screen masking draws back to accommodate Technicolor, Vista- Vision image of broad, sunlit uplands. Years have

passed. The film respooler, Magenta O'Hara, now an experienced film archivist, looks out wistfully on the morning as the mist dissolves.)

Let's turn now to some of these 'missing links' and consider them.

First, there's the need to map out the territory in a coherent way - a profession needs to be able to define its coverage and its character so that its claims can be made manifest. This means it is then available to be understood - and evaluated - by others. For audiovisual archiving, I believe this means several things:

* Defining key concepts which give shape to the field;

* Discerning its distinctives - its unique view- point or paradigm, its defining principles;

* Codifying its values, assumptions, concepts, jargon and culture.

It means getting this into some written form that helps discussion, and in doing so taking a

descriptive rather than prescriptive approach. This is important. Based on long experience, many of the issues have been spelt out and explored, indi- vidually or incidentally, in numerous talks, articles and manuals over many years. What has not yet happened is the drawing together of these insights into an organized synthesis. The project on which my colleagues and I were engaged last year was an initial attempt to do this.

In the course of it, some key concepts have been developed as a way of anchoring discussion in recognisable territory. These are the draft defini- tions of AV media, AV heritage, AV archive and AV archivist9 and they are footnoted. They are best read in context, of course, but they are also, I hope, reasonably self explanatory: the what and who of the profession, organizationally and indi-

vidually. They are not easy to define - which is

perhaps why it hasn't all been done long ago - but

they must be defined now if the current movement is to have real value.

You'll note that I've used the term AV - not film - because that expresses the foundation assump- tion that the essential reference points are equally valid for film, radio, television and sound recor-

dings. (You might try substituting film for AV in each definition and see if it still rings true for you.)

Moving on from these definitions, one can then explore the 'distinctives' - the values, con-

cepts or assumptions, the way of looking at things, that give the field its unique identity and character. There seems to be a surprising number of them: some unique to AV archiving, some shared with the other 'collecting' professions (such as librarian-

ship, museology and archivism) though with differ- ent emphasis or perspective. Again, I recommend that you read them in context and in toto, but let me here highlight a couple.

One is the basic notion that the skills, con- cepts, methods, systems and ethics of AV archiving (in this case, film archiving) arise from the nature of the AV media, not by automatic analogy from the other collecting professions. Now, that may sound like self-evident common sense. The reality is that an amazing number of AV archives use, and often find themselves confined by, systems transplanted by analogy. This leads to great diversity of ap- proach, and non-standardization, within the AV archiving community.

In fields like collection management, preserva- tion practice, cataloguing and selection, many AV archives have learned by trial and error to adopt what is useful from their cousin professions, give it a different twist where appropriate, or invent some- thing from first principles where necessary. If film is the synthesis of the arts, its archiving is likewise a synthesis of many disciplines - with a large modi- cum of original thinking.

For another, consider the way in which differ- ent sorts of institution approach AV materials with different worldviews. Depending on their policies and ideology, a particular documentary film might be to one an important historical document, to an- other an information resource, to a third a work of art, to a fourth, a piece of entertainment, to a fifth, a record of corporate activity. Each may catalogue

Is film archiving a profession?

250 Ray Edmondson

Fig. 3. Launched in 1980, Australia's The Last Film Search' typified the fervour of archivists to get out and save the vanishing film heritage, and to raise public awareness that 'nitrate won't waif. It proved highly effective on boh scores.

and control it in different ways, highlighting that aspect of the film which is deemed important from their institutional paradigm or worldview.

All of them are right, of course, as far as they go. But the AV archive, uniquely, is in a position to view the hypothetical film in its own right and not as an aspect of something else. It can see the film

primarily as a film which is all of these different

things, and more, at the same time, and organize itself around that fact. The character of the AV media and its products are the first reference point for AV archives: just as, centuries ago, the charac- ter of the printed book, as a phenomenon, gave rise to libraries as we now know them. It's an affir- mation that the AV media have - or should have - the same cultural status as their older cousins.

And the jargon? I have to admit that archive-

speak is not quite as trendy or euphonious as com- puter-speak, but it does abound in acronyms (FIAF, FIAT, SMPTE, IASA, ICA, IAMHIST, TCC, JTS, IFLA, ICOM, NFSA, UCLA, NFTVA ... enough?) and concepts (preservation copy, duping copy, carrier, work, accessioning, cataloguing, filmography, leader, documentation, restoration, reconstruc- tion, pre-cinema ...). Cataloguers, access and ac- quisition officers have to be adept exponents of the extensive terminology of the AV industries. Like- wise, technical jargon - old, new, borrowed and

blue - is second nature and includes much created within AV archives; my own institution is not the only one that needs an in-house dictionary of these alone! I, for one, am used to conversations - espe- cially technical ones - conducted in a bizarre, but very precise, shorthand that would be totally mysti- fying to the casual listener.

Let's now turn briefly to ethics and principles. Ethical behaviour- adherence to prescribed stand- ards of honesty, integrity and professional com- petence- is fundamental to a professional person. Their institutions and professional societies typi- cally have written codes of ethics which are often binding on their members. The codes of the collect- ing professions also deal with personal relation- ships and the proprieties of handling collection material. All of this is, in principle, shared by the world of AV archiving, and some archives have their own codes. The constitutions and rules of the federations contain both implicit and explicit ethi- cal requirements. Yet there is no agreed, universal professional code of ethics in a synthesized form.

This is all the more interesting because, in my experience, AV archivists are typically people of high integrity who are frequently called on to make difficult ethical judgements. They are aware how heavily their credibility rests on the trust of others, and how easily that trust can be damaged. They

250 Ray Edmondson

Is film archiving a pro fession? 251

live with the dangers of conflict-of-interest and com- mercial confidentiality that are characteristic of the AV field. They have to reconcile the shifting whims of an employer or superior authority with the long term needs, as they may perceive it, of the survival of the heritage.

The very nature of the AV media gives rise to peculiar ethical issues. For example, when a film is copied for preservation from a deteriorating base to a new one, the process - however scientific or exact - always involves subjective artistic and tech- nical choices in which the manipulation or loss of some of the image and sonic content are available options. The loss of screen or sound quality is in effect the loss of information - the equivalent of removing vital pages from a book. So it is open to the AV archivist to falsify history - either actively or passively - and one can visualize situations in which archivists may be under pressure to do just that. Even documenting the choices made in the copying process - the equivalent of maintaining a detailed technical audit trail - is an ethical issue.

At the other end of the equation, the presen- ting of old material from archives to new audi- ences, or the reconstruction of 'new' versions of old films from fragmented sources, exemplifies yet an- other spectrum of ethical issues, in which the archi- vist is confronted with a whole raft of possibilities and temptations. Activities in this field are bur- geoning, yet there is no international code of prac- tice to guide it. At least, not yet.

Finally, for the AV archivist there is a highly personal dimension to the ethics of managing ex- ternal relationships, which matters in a field where so much depends on personal negotiation and trust. I can best illustrate this by posing a hypotheti- cal example.

Basil is a passionate film collector. He got hooked on it in childhood, when he used to hang around the projection booth at the local cinema. These days he has a large collection, which fills most of his garage and a back room of his house. He has a full 35 mm plant set up in his garage, which doubles as a pri- vate cinema. He delights in showing gems from his collection to visitors and fellow collec- tors, and his knowledge of film is immense.

I met Basil several years ago through a mutual

friend - also a collector - and though at first he was cautious about being too forthcoming with someone from a government institution, we developed a good relationship. Over the years he donated quite a lot of material to our archive, and lent some of his nitrate gems for copying. He had an uncanny ability for find- ing important material in the most unlikely places, and his contribution to building up our national collection has been quite significant. He's getting on in years, and is now starting to worry about what will happen to his personal collection when he dies. There are no family members who are interested, though many of his fellow collectors certainly are.

As an AV archivist, and one who influences selection/acquisition decisions for my institu- tion, I've been scrupulous about never becom- ing a film collector myself. I've found it difficult, sometimes, to politely refuse when Basil has offered me the odd poster or artefact as a personal gift. Our relationship has been built on the fact that, while we share an inter- est in things filmic, I'm first and foremost a representative of my institution.

Nevertheless I know that Basil, who has a dis- trust of institutions and legalities but relates strongly to people, trusts our archive because he finds in me a kindred spirit. Our relation- ship can't be bureaucratized or formalized: I can't hide behind the letter of the law. Every gift of film, every copying agreement, carries with it a non-specific, and unspoken, expecta- tion that I will henceforth keep a personal eye on the well being of what he's provided. Noth- ing I can say or do will change this. He has put so much of himself into assembling his collec- tion. I have asked him, for the public good, to open up his private world. I earn my living by building a collection: he spends his living doing the same thing.

I feel a moral obligation to Basil. I have a duty to my employer, whom I can seek to influence but cannot control. The two obligations won't always coincide. Yet I can avoid neither.

Many of us know and value the Basils of our world, the people whose private interest and alert-

Is film archiving a profession? 251

252 Ray Edmondson

Fig. 4. Another classic image - the reel of rotting nitrate. Still central to film archives, it is today part of a much more complex message: film and tape decay in a variety of ways, and their copying and restoration can involve a host of photographic and electronic options. And then there's technological change: a decade from now, will the traditional film strip still be central to cinema?

ness has saved so much from destruction, passing their material to institutions like ours who have the preservation resources which they do not have. But we live with the moral and ethical dilemmas of our situation. We will always have to make value judgements in managing such relationships- there can never be a 'rule book' for all situations - and accepting responsibility for making value judge- ments is, in my view, one of the marks of a profes- sional person. All of us - Basil included - would be on surer ground in handling them with a formal code of ethics which clearly set out values and obligations. If AV archivists themselves don't know what their values are, they can't expect anyone else to.

The next major area is that of training. Audiovisual archivists are a diverse lot. Some

have formal training and accreditation in one or more of the collecting professions'?; others in tech- nical or scientific disciplines. Some have none at all. What we all have in common is that we learned AV archiving on the job. There was no other way. There still isn't.

This means that you can't get a formal qualifi-

cation in AV archiving from a university that would have international acceptance"1. Equally, there is no professional society that can 'accredit' you in the field. Until these limitations are overcome, it's difficult to gain recognition as a profession.

The issue is recognized and is being ad- dressed'2. By its nature, it doesn't admit of quick solutions. But until it is, AV archivism faces a kind of chicken-and-egg and situation. The best place to inculcate a code of ethics, the principles and worldview of a professional philosophy is in a for- mal course. But it's hard to establish a course un- less you have a structured professional marketplace to receive its graduates. Nor do civil service structures tend to recognize professions un- less there are formal qualifications on which to base such recognition.

What would formal training give AV archivists that they couldn't get from training in one of the established collecting disciplines? Certainly there would be areas of overlap which could usefully be shared with those disciplines - the craft of catalo- guing, for instance. But there are others which are distinctive and defining.

252 Ray Edmondson

Is film archiving a profession? 253

For example:

* History of the AV media * History of AV archiving * Terminology and concepts * Standards * Institutional structures * Technical expertise

Technical expertise? Yes, of course. We are dealing with media which are technological in na- ture - they can't be perceived without the interpola- tion of a technical device - so all AV archivists need basic technical training, whether or not this will be their future specialization.

As film archivists know from experience, you can learn a great deal on the job which no formal course can ever teach. But the discipline of under- taking a structured course means that ground is covered in an organized and comprehensive way, and theory as well as practice is dealt with. It also means that everyone starts from a common de- nominator - a known knowledge base - which is important for both employer and client expecta- tions.

Finally, let us consider some aspects of the way ahead.

We have grown out of the traditions of libra- rianship, museology and archivism. We draw on all of them, and need to have their recognition, goodwill and support. That means, I believe, dis- cussion, explanation and debate - exposing the sorts of ideas that this paper has already covered to their points of view. Cooperation in formal train- ing is a potential area of mutual support.

But it will take time to establish formal training and pursue debate with the wider world. As profes- sionals we need to do some internal work as well. The discussion process represented by AVAPIN needs to continue and widen. The draft document resulting from the 1994 exercise needs to be the beginning, not the end, of a process. It can provide a focus and starting point for further work, which should begin formally to involve the federations. A philosophy, no matter how elegant, will have little effect unless it has their involvement and support.

A profession needs a professional forum or forums; structures which have the authority and standing to accredit those individuals who practice the profession, to assess and express a view on the

available training courses, to provide a forum for members of the profession in exploring and deal- ing with matters of ethics, expertise and principle. Whether any the present federations or national organizations of audiovisual archivists is in a posi- tion to fill this role is, I think, a matter open to discussion. I am not proposing a solution but ident- ifying a need which I think will need to be met.

And so we look to tomorrow ... There is little point in dressing up a group of

skills or interests as a 'profession' simply for the sake of presentation. The world probably has enough of that sort of thing already.

But there is every reason to recognize reality when the time has come to do so. Alhough we're still a frontier field, the age of the first film and sound archive pioneers is past. We AV archivists of the second or third generation have our own responsibility both to the past and to the future. Everything we and our predecessors have worked for, and all that we hold in trust, will be best pro- tected if surrounded by appropriate values and perceptions of our own devising. We need a more formal and obvious framework than we've had in the past to enable our field to grow properly. We owe it to ourselves to get our values and reference points straight for all to see. We owe it to our suc- cessors to bequeath to them the best grounding and structures that we can. If we don't know that we're professionals, with very clear perceptions of our self-image and our values, we can hardly ex- pect anyone else to know.

(Magenta stands silhouetted against a specta- cular sunset the film can in her hand glinting with fire in the fading light. The music swells as the ca- mera draws back and she declares 'It seems like only yesterday we were calling today tomorrow, and tomorrow is another day. [Pause] ... who wrote this script'?

Iris in. Daffy Duck appears in bottom left hand corner: 'I'd like to tell her - but modesty forbids'. Fade to black. Animated end title reveals 'That's not all, folks ...')

As I was going up the stair I met a profession that wasn't there It wasn't there again today It looks like it won't go away ...

Is film archiving a profession? 253

Ray Edmondson

Notes

1. Ray Edmondson is Deputy Director of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. A graduate in arts and librarianship, he has for 27 years been involved in the development of film and, later, also sound archiving in Australia and beyond. He has written and spoken extensively in this field. He is active in FIAF and IASA, and contributes to the forums of the collecting professions in Australia and overseas. During 1994, with the support of an Australian Public Service Commission Fellowship, he spent a period in Europe writing A philosophy of AudiovisualArchiving - Draft One in concert with distinguished European colleagues. He coordinates the international AudioVisual Archiving Philosophy Interest Network (AVAPIN).

2. Ray Edmondson, A Philosophy of Audiovisual Archiving - Draft One, 1994.

3. A useful Australian expression meaning a diversion or a misleading tale.

4. The journals of IASA, FIAF and ICA have collectively published papers, articles and correspondence. De- bate has been longest and strongest in the IASA Journal.

5. UNESCO, Curriculum Development for the Training of Personnel in Moving Image and Recorded Sound Archives (Paris, 1990) and UNESCO, Legal Ques- tions Facing Audiovisual Archives (Paris, 1991 ).

6. This is AVAPIN (see footnote 1) which the writer coordinates from the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra.

7. This draft provided a focus for discussion on philos- ophy at the 1994 IASA/FIAT conference in Bogen- see and led to Draft Two, 1995. Copies are available from the writer.

8. Currently IASA members are voting on a constitu- tional change which would broaden its focus from a 'sound' to an 'audiovisual' federation. At its 1994 congress, FIAF began reviewing its own future di- rection, a process which will continue at future congresses.

9. The following are edited extracts from A Philosophy of AV Archiving - Draft One which set out some proposed definitions of these concepts. To be fully understood they should be read in context, with their respective footnotes, in that document. This, however, will give the flavour - and show the difficulty - of constructing definitions.

3.2 Definition of AV media

AV media are works comprising images or sounds or both, whose

* recording and/or transmission, and usually whose perception and comprehension, requires the interpolation of a technological device

* content is a reproduction of a visual and/or auditory entity, produced and perceived over a given amount of time

* purpose is the communication of that visual and auditory content, rather than the use of the tech- nology purely to communicate textual or graphic information.

3.2.4 Accepting the likelihood that a sharp de- finition is impossible, this definition is meant to decisively include conventional sound recor- dings, moving images (sound or silent), videos and broadcast programmes, both published and unpublished, in all formats. It is meant to deci- sively exclude text material per se, regardless of the medium used (whether paper, microform, digital formats, graphics or projection slides, etc.). The distinction is conceptual rather than technological, although to a large extent a tech- nological divide exists as well.

3.2.5 Sitting between these two groups, of course, is a spectrum of materials which are less automatically the preoccupation of AV archives and which, depending on your perception, may or may not fully meet the above definition. These materials include video games, multi-media, piano rolls and mechanical music, and the tradi- tional tape-slide 'audiovisual'. They also include still photographs, which many would regard as an AV medium, whether the photographs are collected in theirown right, oras material relating to the AV media.

3.3 Definition of AV heritage

3.3.1 The AV media, as defined above, may be perceived as the core of a larger range of ma- terial and information collected and com- prehended by AV archives and archivists. This larger range is the AV heritage. The following definition is proposed:

The AV heritage includes, but is not limited to, the following:

(a) Recorded sound, radio, film, television, video or other productions comprising moving images and/or recorded sounds, whether or not primar- ily intended for public release.

(b) Objects, materials, works and intangibles relating to the AV media, whether seen from a technical, industrial, cultural, historical or other viewpoint; this shall include material relating to the film, broadcasting and recording industries, such as literature, scripts, stills, posters, advertis-

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ing materials, manuscripts, and artefacts such as technical equipment or costumes.

(c) Concepts such as the perpetuation of obsoles- cent skills and environments associated with the reproduction and presentation of these media.

3.3.2 Clearly, from this definition, the AV herit- age includes both text material and the 'in be- tween' materials mentioned above, among other things, which relate to the AV media.

For example, scripts are part of the heritage because they are scripts of radio or TV pro- grammes or films: not because they are scripts per se.

3.3.3 It follows that most, if not all, archives would define their scope by placing their own perspective on such a definition - for example, from a subject, geographical or other viewpoint.

3.4 Definition of AV archive

3.4.1 There is no succinct definition of an AV archive in general use. The constitutions of FIAT, FIAF and IASA describe many characteristics and expectations of such bodies as members, but provide no such definition for the institutional type itself.

3.4.2 The use of the term 'archive', singular or plural, while common parlance, it itself proble- matic because of its multiple associations. In popular parlance, it has wide and non-specific connotations as a place where 'old' or non-cur- rent materials are kept. Within the profession of archival science, however, it has come to have quite precise professional and legal meanings. When co-opted by the first AV archives it prob- ably had the former association; now it often connotes both, accurately or otherwise. Lacing a unique international label which could readily define then as institutional type, AVarchives have resorted to a range of labels, including phono- theque, cinematheque, videotheque, museum or library. However, since the word 'archive' is historically embedded in the titles of IASA, FIAT and FIAF, the term AV archive seems to be the closest match which can be presently achieved.

3.4.3 The following definition is therefore pro- posed:

An AV archive is an organization or department of an organization which is focused on collecting, managing, preserving and providing access to a collection of AV media and the AV heritage.

3.4.4 The key aspects are (a) that an AV archive is an organization - i.e. not a private individual or collection (b) that collecting/managing/pres-

erving/providing access to AV media is its focus - i.e. not just one incidental activity among many.

3.4.5 The typology of AV archives (see section C) shows that within this definition there are many types and emphases. For example, some AV archives concentrate on individual media - such as film, radio, television, sound recordings - while others cover several media. Again, some cover a wide range of content while others are highly focused or specialized in their subject interest.

3.5 Definition of AV archivist

3.5.1 While terms like 'film archivist', 'sound archivist' and 'AV archivist' are in common use in the field and its literature, there appear to be no agreed definitions of these terms adopted by the Federations, or UNESCO, or indeed attract- ing a consensus among the practitioners. Tradi- tionally, they are subjective and flexible concepts which evidently mean different things to different people: a statement of personal identity or per- ception, rather than a formal qualification.

3.5.2 Further, and unlike the sister fields of libra- rianship, museology and archival science, there is little in the way of formal training, and no internationally accepted formal qualification or accreditation, by which one may be profession- ally recognized as an 'AV archivist'. Recom- mended training standards have been devised but, at this stage, are far from practical im- plementation.

3.5.3 Against this background, the following definition is proposed:

An AV archivist is a person occupied at a profes- sional level with the management of an AV archive, the development or preservation of its collections, or the serving of its clientele.

10. Librarianship, archival science, museology and re- lated fields. University levels courses in these fields are available around the world.

11. There are university courses in media, film and even one in film archiving. I am not aware of anycourses, however, that have yet established themselves as key reference points for the profession.

12. A working party under the sponsorship of UNESCO is pursuing the development of a curriculum and related issues. The federations have training com- missions or working parties also concerned with these matters. The reader is referred to the UNESCO publication Curriculum Development for the Train- ing of Personnel in Moving Image and Recorded Sound Archives (Paris, 1990).

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