Questions of definition, in the digital realm, seem to elicit at least in part the same
sorts of answers they did when archives were dealing mostly with analogue
materials. Commentators assert that "What is suitable for retention and what is not
hasn't radically changed in being digital".57 When asked, staff at EYE and Sound
Vision agree that in terms of the content they are interested in, their outlook is
largely unchanged - even if the range of media they deal with has expanded58
(Sound Vision, for example, has recently begun to collect websites and games).59
Yet at the same time, professionals these days are forced to consider the significance
of their materials also in more technical terms. If a television item, for instance, has
had a life as an online video as well, which file(s) should be retained?
Technical issues are at least as relevant when it comes to Harvey's questions of scope.
Today's archives, indeed, can no longer just select AV content or "data"; they have to
consider also the conditions that need to be in place in order for this content to
remain legible and operational, which requires the maintenance of relevant
metadata. An urgent task for AV archivists in particular is to define the most
"significant" properties of the different types of records they keep: the kind that
need to be preserved when format migration takes place.60 Questions of process - in
Harvey's words: what to decide when - are equally pressing. In light of the volumes
of data that repositories currently take in, the development of mechanisms for their
appraisal and selection, and especially, determinations as to where to fit these
practices into archival workflows, are matters of grave concern.61
In the following pages, I want to develop further some of the abovementioned issues.
In doing so, I consider not only actual, procedural changes - transformations in
terms of how appraisal and selection are done, when, and by whom - but also how
these tasks are perceived by practitioners, and which are their main preoccupations.
I do this on the basis of a number of interviews conducted with staff at EYE and
Sound Vision.62 Both institutions have recently reorganised their workflows in
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order to deal with the influx of digital materials, or are in the process of doing so.
Between July 2007 and December 2014, they participated in the large-scale,
government-funded digitisation project Images for the Future (Beelden voor de
Toekomst) which channelled large numbers of previously analogue items into a
digital preservation cycle.63 At the same time, both have been acquiring also born-
digital items. EYE does this primarily as part of an agreement with the Netherlands
Film Fund (Nederlands Filmfonds, the agency that subsidises Dutch film making
on the government's behalf) which stipulates that master materials for all funded
productions are deposited with the institute once production has wrapped.64
Sound Vision, for this purpose, builds on its long-term cooperation with the
public broadcasters (its main content providers) with whom it now shares a
digital infrastructure that allows for daily ingest of all aired radio and television
programmes.65 Capitalising on its extensive experience with migration of media
assets, it positions itself as an expert in digital preservation, providing services
also to other keepers of AV collections.66
A first pattern that emerges from conversations with practitioners is that while they
perceive the selection of born-digital materials as a particularly important task - if
only because of the long-term financial commitment that keeping those entails -
they are only beginning to consider how to fit it into their acquisition and
preservation workflows. As the ingest of digital films and television programmes
took off, EYE and Sound Vision were confronted with a technical reality that
imposed a number of immediate procedural changes, but that also raised questions
that needed more time and experience to answer.
On the one hand, the acquisition of digital records, due to their inherent fragility
and susceptibility to obsolescence, required action right away. At EYE in particular,
this entailed profound shifts, both procedurally and conceptually. Effectively, a
collaborator states, the historical distinction between "passive" and "active"
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nieuwe trends en ontwikkelingen
57 T. van der Werf and B. Van der Werf, 'The paradox of selection in the digital age', presentation held at the
IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Lyon, 19 August 2014 (quote from p. 14 of the online version,
available from http://library.ifla.org/1042/). Many thanks to Annemieke de Jong for drawing my attention
to this text.
58 A. de Jong, personal interview, 10 May 2016; Roumen, interview. EYE, when it comes to the acquisition of
born-digital materials, maintains its inclusive approach for Dutch productions (masters), but continues to
document Dutch cinema culture also (in this case, acquiring only the compressed files shown in cinemas,
the so-called "Digital Cinema Packages" or DCPs - a choice that inevitably affects their status as archival
objects).
59 De Jong, interview. As these constitute a new area of interest for the institute, selection criteria for them
are still in development. (For example, a pilot project centring on games is currently being carried out;
M. Lauwers, telephone conversation, 1 June 2016).
60 De Jong, interview.
61 Compare Ooghe, 'Selectie voor digitalisering in theorie en praktijk', 18-19.
62 The interviewees are Anne Gant, Head of Film Conservation and Digital Access, and Frank Roumen, Sector
Manager Collections (EYE); Annemieke de Jong, Digital Preservation Officer, and Mieke Lauwers, Senior
Policy Officer (Sound Vision). Gant and De Jong have been contacted on account of their pivotal roles in
implementing digital (preservation) workflows at their respective institutions; Roumen en Lauwers because
they act as liaison between, respectively manager of, the staff involved in the tasks of collection building
and preservation. All interviewees reflect on their own experiences and speak from their own, personal
perspectives. Together, they do not constitute a representative sample of practitioners at their institutions,
but colleagues refer to them as experts on the topics discussed.
63 See for instance T. van Exel et al., Beelden van het verleden: 7 jaar Beelden voor de Toekomst (n.p. 2015) (online
at http://www.beeldenvoordetoekomst.nl/). As Ide and Weisse point out, digitisation also requires appraisal
decisions ('Developing Preservation Appraisal Criteria', 3). In the cases of EYE and Sound Vision, an
important criterion here was the reuse potential of the materials (seeing as the project was meant among
others to enable monetisation of the collections) (A. Gant, personal interview, 3 May 2016; De Jong,
eef masson appraisal and selection in moving image archives: legacy and transformations
interview). Later on, the rate at which digitisation was performed, for Sound Vision in particular, became
increasingly important, and this entailed that the development of factory workflows based on carrier type
took precedence over a careful but also time-consuming selection of materials on the basis of content
(M. Lauwers, personal interview, 10 May 2016). A large portion of the institutions' holdings has not yet
been digitised (for instance, EYE states that around the completion of the Images for the Future project,
about 15% of the collection had been digitised) and while both continue to transfer items, this is now hap
pening at a much lower pace (see EYE, 'Collectieplan', 11; De Jong, Digital Preservation Sound and Vision,
16, or 14 online).
64 Gant, interview. In addition, Roumen adds, the institute also pursues works of makers who do not receive
such funds, but those constitute a small minority of what is ingested (interview).
65 Lauwers, Collection Policy Sound and Vision, 9; De Jong, Digital Preservation Sound and Vision, 15 (or 13
online). The digital infrastructure was in place in 2007.
66 For this reason, Sound Vision is currently in the process of acquiring certification as a Trusted Digital
Repository (TDR); to De Jong's knowledge, it is the first large public (and media) archive to do so (see her
Digital Preservation Sound and Vision, 4, or 6 online; De Jong, interview). Currently, EYE also makes use of
Sound Vision's storage and back-up services, although it is planning to acquire its own digital repository
in the next few years. In those cases where Sound Vision provides storage and preservation services, the
task of selecting material usually remains in the hands of the institutions that deposit them - although the
distribution of responsibilities here is not always clear-cut. (For instance, one of the reviewers for this article
points out that the National Archives have deposited AV materials at Sound Vision for a long time, on the
basis of some sort of a lending agreement. However, this practice is not in line with the 1995 Public Records
Act, which stipulates that all materials should be assessed and selected before being transferred - as opposed
to lent - to a public archive, and subsequently, become part of the preservation cycle there. Moreover, it
also means that AV and other materials originating from the National Archives are administered in different
ways. However, a pilot is currently being carried out that involves reviewing responsibilities and procedures
for appraisal and selection, which might ultimately lead to more coherence in this area.)
