As far as the who of appraisal and selection is concerned, other tendencies emerge
beside the partial automation of tasks, now and in the future. For example,
practitioners also notice a trend towards the dispersal of, very specifically, technical
selection tasks over the various stages of ingest, storage and dissemination of
records.80 This means in practice that in addition to curators (those who set and/or
interpret the criteria for content selection) staff with other specialties are now
involved in decisions as to what to retain and what to dispose of.81 Furthermore,
choices as to how to preserve items - which metadata to add, how to store them,
which formats to migrate them to, etc. - may affect selection decisions that are
taken further down the line.
A related development, due in part to the centrality of the data life-cycle model to
preservation workflows, is the streamlining of documentation practice (as
mentioned, an area of limited attention in AV archives historically). As objects pass
through various systems, a record is created of the "events" they are subject to (for
example: moving, copying or changing their technical features), the "outcomes" of
those events, but also the systems, organisations or people responsible (the so-called
"agents").82 The assumption is that once a first format migration takes place,
retention or disposal actions will be logged in similar ways.83 Whether or not the
resulting records will shed light also on agents' motivations for those actions will
depend among others on the level of automation with which decisions are
implemented.84
Finally, it has been argued that the responsibility for appraisal and selection is
shifting not only within archival institutions, but also in relation to their external
stakeholders. On the one hand, authors claim that the archive process is beginning
to encompass aspects of media production.85 Staff at EYE and Sound Vision
confirm that within their digital workflows, they tend to cooperate more closely
with depositors, instructing them among others on how they should supply their
records. The result of this is that some of the work that used to be performed
internally - for instance, the labelling of objects or the structuring of technical
information - is now done as part of the (post-)production chain.86 However, at the
institutions consulted, the decision as to what to keep or discard in the long run is
kept in-house - even if the conditions for keeping something are sometimes met
elsewhere. On the other hand, authors also note (or more often, foresee or
advocate) a shift of these responsibilities towards so-called "designated
communities" of users.87 Again, the institutions discussed exemplify these
developments only to a certain extent, and in the technical domain primarily. While
EYE and Sound Vision increasingly gear their activities, including also the
selection of content, towards the needs of users, they rarely involve those directly in
the decisions they make (rather, they study their users and draw conclusions for
daily practice).88 However, Sound Vision does point out that in defining the
significant properties of the objects it holds, the perceptions of its designated
communities will definitely be key.89
Conclusions
In a 2014 conference paper, Titia and Bram van der Werf, speaking from the
perspective of heritage professionals, claim that the selection of records is a major
challenge of our time, one "that [keeps] practitioners awake at night".90 For many
years, they argue, memory institutions have focused on digitising historical archives
to make them easily accessible; meanwhile, they have neglected the Herculean task
of appraising and selecting daily accretions of digital records.91 While the authors'
plea for swift action is inspired primarily by environmental concerns (digital
preservation may be technologically complex and expensive, but it also leaves an
increasingly large ecological footprint) the underlying concern is shared by many,
also in moving image archives. However, as my conversations with practitioners
confirm, the challenge has barely been met, although plans as to how to do so are
beginning to be made.
Confronting experiences at EYE and Sound Vision with literature on appraisal
and selection in textual archives suggests that in the digital realm, the practices and
concerns of the different types of institutions are converging. For example, archival
literature also notes that working with electronic records involves shifts in the
timing of certain tasks (for instance: appraisal, of necessity, is done early on) and
makes for increasingly fluid boundaries between traditionally distinct
responsibilities (since appraisal and selection decisions get dispersed over the
archival process, even exceeding the confines of archival institutions).92 Issues that
used to be relevant primarily to AV archives (for instance, the perpetual resource
implications of selection decisions, both technical and financial) are gaining
importance also at institutions previously concerned with paper records.93 Inversely,
moving image archivists, following the lead of colleagues elsewhere, are
nieuwe trends en ontwikkelingen
80 Ibidem.
81 The function of curator, in this case, is specific to EYE; at Sound Vision, content selection is the
responsibility of the Media Managers in the Ingest department (afdeling Instroom).
82 De Jong, Digital Preservation Sound and Vision, 30-31 and 42 (or 32-33, 44 online).
83 Sound Vision's collection policy document states that already, when a file is disposed of, metadata for said
item are retained for documentation purposes (Lauwers, Collection Policy Sound and Vision, 29).
84 De Jong, interview. The interviewee points out that although digital preservation workflows do enforce a
more careful and systematic documentation, the task remains a precarious one, as it continues to involve a
good deal of manpower (if only for the management of processes that are themselves automated).
85 Ide and Weisse, 'Recommended Appraisal Guidelines', passim; Ooghe, 'Selectie voor digitalisering in theorie
en praktijk', 19.
86 Gant, interview; De Jong, interview. See also E. Verbruggen, 'Monitoring Designated Communities: Wat we
willen weten over de gebruikersgroepen van Beeld en Geluid', version 1.0 (unpublished document, 2016) 10
(online at http://publications.beeldengeluid.nl/pub/406). De Jong stresses in her interview that for Sound
Vision, this is important also from its perspective as a service provider: putting certain tasks in the hands
of depositors helps clarify the responsibilities of all parties involved.
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87 E.g. Craig, Archival Appraisal, 96-98; Harvey, 'Appraisal and Selection', 13, 19.
88 Verbruggen, 'Monitoring Designated Communities' attests to this approach.
89 De Jong, interview. Compare Harvey, 'Appraisal and Selection', 19. De Jong sees this as a necessity, if
the long-term preservation of digital assets is to remain affordable.
90 Van der Werf and Van der Werf, 'The paradox of selection in the digital age', 16 (quote) and passim.
91 Ibidem, e.g. 13, 14.
92 See for instance Craig, Archival Appraisal, 75-76, also 10, 32-33 (on the timing of appraisal decisions);
E. Ketelaar, 'The Art of Appraisal', a partial rendering of a presentation held at the 'Archives, Documentation
and the Institutions of Social Memory' conference, Michigan, 31 January 2001 (see 3-4 of the online
version, available from www.uu.nl/wetfilos/wetfil02/programma/files/ketelaar.pdf) and E. Ketelaar,
'Archives in the Digital Age', Archives and Social Studies: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Research 1:0 (2007)
181-182 (on the various topics touched upon).
93 Compare for instance Harvey, 'Appraisal and Selection', 9, 10.
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