researchers. Thirty-five years ago, I stood behind a person trying to gain access to
the research library of the Whitney Museum in New York City (most art
museums have the smaller part of their total collection on display). He was
asked for evidence that he was an academic or a professional artist - and offered
to show them the oil paint under his fingernails. He was sent away to get some
more conventional evidence. Today the Whitney 'is available to visiting scholars,
by appointment only'.4 So now not even professional artists get access, though
the museum has put its collection catalogue online.5
Some form of public access (or at least 'research' access) is standard for
audiovisual collections in public institutions (such as national libraries or
national film institutes), though in general such access still requires a visit to
the physical premises of the institution. As education and heritage are primary
reasons for the existence of these institutions, they are in turn the primary
motivations for access. Access for educational purposes may be limited to
persons registered with educational institutions, often additionally limited to
study at a college or even postgraduate level. It is relatively easy, across Europe, to
access audiovisual material if you are a PhD student. One of the barriers to
access that is easiest to change, legally, is the definition of a properly qualified
researcher with a serious educational purpose. For instance, access to the British
Library Sound Archive requires a British Library reader's card - which 30 years
ago was a badge of distinction. Now the British Library website gives no
restrictions on obtaining a reader's card, beyond having a verifiable address.
As collections were established for heritage purposes, a major form of access was
exhibitions. For film, this means regular screenings which are often the most
visible aspect of the archive (although one of Europe's favourite film institutes,
the Filmmuseum6, is also one of Amsterdam's favourite drinking spots, with its
long balcony overlooking the Vondelpark). Film collections provide viewings,
and all audiovisual collections sell copies of films as well as video and audio
material, provided they can get both the rights and a sufficient market to justify
the expense of producing a commercial product. Broadcasters also make
commercial copies of television and radio programmes. The BBC currently has
about 2000 video and audio recordings for sale. As these recordings are sold to
the public, they are a form of commercial as well as heritage access.
Most publicly-supported audiovisual collections, even those with quite restricted
educational access, will allow access for persons with a commercial reason for
using the archive. This access is for some form of 'commercial research'
- understanding the audiovisual marketplace, knowing what has and has not
been broadcast or otherwise distributed. Some collections charge more for
commercial than for educational research - and some don't. Another main
category of commercial access is where individual items or clips from individual
items are copied and sold to a single purchaser (as distinct from making a
commercial product for general sale). Such 'footage sales' can provide useful
revenue. Of course, for commercial audiovisual collections these sales are often
the major source of income for the collections.7 When such archives cease to
obtain sufficient income from footage sales, they often go out of business and
their contents may be offered to a heritage archive.
The final category is simple unrestricted public access: access that is local, free
and comprehensive (as it has been for roughly a century for books).
Unfortunately, there simply is no unrestricted access to audiovisual material.
While public-sector audio archives are beginning to allow the general public to
access their holdings, access remains restricted in the following ways. There are
only one or a few access points: the physical building that houses the collection
is also the only place where the material can be seen or heard.
While some collections provide free access, others charge anything from a few
Euros for a year's membership, to up to 15 or 20 Euros per hour for video or film
access. Because the original material has to be kept in special storage conditions,
which may be distant from the public-access area, it often has to be booked
weeks in advance. While some public collections do actually allow the public to
have access (subject to the above restrictions), other remain closed to all but
'research' of one sort or another. The reasons for such restrictions are discussed
in the next section, but as some archives find they can relax these restrictions,
the remainder begin to appear exposed as unhelpful, unresponsive,
undemocratic and insupportably precious in their attitudes.
Reasons for restricted access to audiovisual materials
The aspirations for unrestricted access to media archives are based on
comparisons with book libraries. People have grown up with the idea that if you
want a book, you can get it, for free, from your local library. At worst there will
be a wait while it is transferred from another library, or until another borrower
has returned the local lending copy. Unfortunately, media archives differ in two
major ways from a book library. They do not hold books and they are not
libraries. The main differences between books and audiovisual media are
technological and matters of fact, as is discussed next. The differences between
libraries and archives are only partly matters of fact (of law, though law is itself
subject to interpretation) and largely matters of administrative approach and
attitude.
Technological
Anyone who can read, can read a book. Similarly anyone with vision can look at
a painting or other physical museum exhibit. Audiovisual materials differ in that
they require equipment to play the media. Much of this equipment is complex,
and much of the media is fragile. A professional film projector or videotape
player has a cost in the tens of thousands of Euros - and misuse of the
equipment can easily damage the video or film. Audio recordings are a bit
simpler, though tape recordings are just as susceptible to damage as are video
recordings - and many people would be unable to operate an open-reel tape
recorder without instruction. The solution to the issue of fragile media is to
make copies - access copies, the audiovisual equivalent of the lending copies of
the book library. However it is very expensive to make a copy of a film (in the
thousands of Euros), and it costs at least 100 Euros to make a copy of a video on
a professional format. The cost of audiovisual equipment and media (apart from
TOEGANG
4 http://www.whitney.org/research/index.shtml#access
5 http://library.whitney.org/
6 www.filmmuseum.nl/
7 Many of these commercial audiovisual collections are a member of the Federation of Commercial
Audiovisual Libraries International (Focal), which provides the service of a Footage Archive Content
Portal: http://www.focalint.org/
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RICHARD WRIGHT ACCESS TO AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVES
- NEW METHODS
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