professionalising their documentation practice, producing so-called "audit trails"
(thus making themselves accountable towards their depositors).94
Meanwhile, discrepancies are still visible in terms of the criteria for appraisal and
selection that the different types of institutions adhere to. According to Harvey,
there is ample evidence that in this digital age, further sectorial differentiation will
be necessary here.95 With respect to moving image archives, it is to be expected that
in determining their criteria, they will be increasingly inspired by the needs of
(various kinds of) users. For as a Sound Vision interviewee points out, the expense
of an AV archive's core activities requires cost recovery in order to be sustainable.96
Archival theorists sometimes object to a selection practice that is focused too much
on the present or anticipated needs of users (in their case, researchers); AV
archivists, in contrast, more often act in the assumption that it is imperative that
they follow such trends closely and amend their priorities accordingly.97
Appendix: Extract from Sound Vision's Collection Policy, outlining
the categories used for initial appraisal of collection items
Source: M. Lauwers (ed.), Collection Policy Sound and Vision (Hilversum 2013) 25
(document to be retrieved from http://publications.beeldengeluid.nl/pub/386/)
Cultural-historical value
Cultural-historical value and grading categories were developed by the Ministry
of Education, Culture and Research in the 1990's [sic] as part of the Delta Plan for
Cultural Preservation. They have, in general, been used by the heritage sector in
the Netherlands since that time.
There are four categories, A to D.
Categories may be assigned to a subcollection or a percentage of material within a
sub-collection. This allows one to assign an exceptional category to material within
one collection.
The category awarded determines the material's future management level. Thus,
in principle, only material with an A or B value receive [sic] the highest preservation
treatment. Productions and collections assigned a category C receive passive
conservation (analogue) or a lower service level and level of description. The value
assigned is also influenced by its reuse value, one of the selection criteria.
Briefly, the four categories could be described as:
Category A, all the audiovisual productions and collections that fall within
the organization's mission statement and the Dutch cultural landscape that
are considered irreplaceable and indispensible.
Category B is assigned to material considered a part of an institution's core
collection. This includes material with a high entertainment or exhibition
value or a very high, cultural historic, documentary value.
Category C includes audiovisual material that fits within the organization's
selection policy but does not necessarily have an exceptional cultural-historical
value. Digital collections with a C value undergo long-term preservation
processes such as migration but are often made accessible at a lower service
level. This material can be recognized by its level of description.
Finally, category D is assigned to audiovisual productions that offer little or
no additional value to the organization's collection. They fall outside the
collection profile and are therefore considered irrelevant to the institution.
This material is also considered ripe for deaccessioning. It could possibly
have a cultural-historical value for another institution.
nieuwe trends en ontwikkelingen
94 De Jong, interview (in which she claims that Sound Vision has a lot to learn here from the national
archives). In this respect, their practice is approaching more closely what Luciana Duranti, in a well-known
piece from the mid-1990s, considered the core task of archivists: to guard the authenticity and integrity of
the records in their care (Duranti, 'The Concept of Appraisal and Archival Theory', The American Archivist
57:2 (1994) 328-344). Yet at the same time, AV archivists continue to attribute value in a manner that this
piece does not condone (because their practice clashes with some of the basic tenets of archival theory).
95 Harvey, 'Appraisal and Selection', 11.
96 De Jong, interview.
97 Compare for instance Cook, 'We Are What We Keep', 179-180 (where he discusses among others the legacy
of Gerald Ham) with De Jong, interview.
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