for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, henceforth Sound
Vision). Both institutions collect moving images of "national interest", in some
cases along with ancillary (paper) records.7 While Sound Vision focuses on
broadcast materials and non-fiction films, both viewed from the perspective of their
cultural-historical significance, EYE looks after the Netherlands' "cinematographic
heritage", with aesthetic parameters determining the value of its collections.8 EYE
and Sound Vision have recently begun to acquire materials in digital form, and are
in the process of setting up new workflows to accommodate those - workflows that
determine also when, how and by whom decisions on retention and disposal are
made. However, the institutions are also considerably different, both in terms of
what they collect (which content, but also materially speaking) and in terms of their
status as archives and the particular traditions of collection management and
preservation they build on.9
1. Moving Image Appraisal and Selection: A Tradition of 'Covert' Practice
Moving image archives come in many shapes and forms. In the third edition of his
well-known UNESCO paper Audiovisual Archives: Philosophy and Principles (2016),
Ray Edmondson distinguishes between non- and for-profit ones, between
autonomous (specialist, AV) archives and archives that function as divisions of
larger institutions (that also keep other kinds of materials) and between institutions
with different kinds of status (for example working with a government mandate, or
not), users (producers, students, cinephiles, etcetera) or scope (with respect to type
of media collected, geographical remit, and so on). In addition, he allows for
possibilities in between all these sets of extremes.10 Some institutions are legal
deposit beneficiaries; most however are not, and have collections that reflect the
histories of their inception or the particular interests, preferences or tastes of
successive generations of curators.11
The great majority of moving image archives, in any case, do not function as long
term repositories for records that emerged within, and as part of, administrative
processes - as do the sort of archives that archival science has traditionally focused
188
on. As Helen Harrison, compiler of a practical reader on AV archiving, observes,
such institutions "usually deal with material which has been literally 'collected' and
not transferred to the archive in accordance with comprehensive schedules or as a
result of a records management programme".12 Selection therefore centres on what
happens to be available - either because it has been deposited at the initiative of a
donor or benefactor or because it has been actively pursued by the archive. Also, it
tends to be focused on single items rather than (internally more or less coherent)
groups of records.13 For this reason, Harrison chooses to characterise what is
ordinarily done in AV archives as "reappraisal" ("to rationalise the collection"), as
opposed to the sort of appraisal that is applied to entire collections or bodies of
material.14
A second marked difference between moving image and paper archives is that where
appraisal and selection are concerned, the former barely have a tradition of
reflection to refer to.15 Only one publication to date has engaged with the topic in
some depth.16 Kula's 2003 book Appraising Moving Images: Assessing the Archival
and Monetary Value of Film and Video Records is based in large measure on a RAMP
study the author prepared for UNESCO in the early 1980s.17 Dealing, as the title
suggests, with the valuation of moving image collections for both archival and tax
purposes, the work is partly a consideration of the nature of appraisal and selection
as performed in moving image archives and partly an attempt to bring together the
variety of concrete guidelines that have been produced by different institutions and
associations, both across the world and in different areas of specialisation (some of
those also authored by Kula himself). Since the early 2000s, a few articles have been
published that reflect on projects, carried out within specific institutions (often
broadcast archives), to develop collection-specific criteria for either retention and
disposal or selection in preparation for further archival treatment.18 "Of necessity",
Timothy Wisniewski points out, "this literature is highly practical and technical in
its response to specific preservation challenges".19 As a rule, then, it does not provide
much careful consideration of why appraisal and selection are done, and which
issues it raises - whether archival, or more broadly socio-cultural or political.
189
nieuwe trends en ontwikkelingen
7 For references to the collections' national interest or importance, see for instance M. Lauwers (ed.),
Collection Policy Sound and Vision (Hilversum 2013) 4, 22, 25 (online at http://publications.beeldengeluid.
nl/pub/386/), and EYE Filmmuseum, 'Collectieplan 2014-2017' (unpublished document, n.d.) 8, which
considers "de nationale betekenis van de collectie" (online at https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/file/17264/
download).
8 The phrase "cinematografisch erfgoed" is used among others in EYE's most recent collection policy docu
ment ('Collectieplan', 6).
9 Focusing on two large moving image archives, both of which operate on the national level, necessarily
implies that I ignore here the specifics of appraisal and selection in smaller institutions, among others
regional ones (see also next paragraph in the main text). For reasons of space, I cannot consider them here -
but doing so would no doubt force me to refine some of the conclusions I draw.
10 Freely after R. Edmondson, Audiovisual Archives: Philosophy and Principles, 3rd ed. (Paris 2016) 34-39
(online at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002439/243973e.pdf).
11 Edmondson here emphasizes in particular the role of a "founding personality" (see ibidem, 37).
12 H. Harrison, 'Archival appraisal', in: H. Harrison (ed.), Audiovisual Archives: A Practical Reader (Paris 1997),
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/ramp/html/r9704e/r9704e0l.htm#4.1%20archival%20appraisal
(accessed 13 May 2016) [see also http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001096/109612eo.pdf
(accessed 20 March 2018) - ed.].
13 H. Harrison, 'Selection and audiovisual collections', in: ibidem; Kula, Appraising Moving Images, 23-24, 47.
14 Ibidem (my emphasis).
eef masson appraisal and selection in moving image archives: legacy and transformations
15 I do not mean to imply here that archivists generally do refer to archival theory in carrying out their daily
work (for as Eric Ketelaar points out, archival theory, in fact, "is despised and rejected by many practicing
archivists"; see his 'Archivistics Research Saving the Profession', The American Archivist 63:1 (2000) 324).
Rather, I am talking here about the extent to which these practices have been theorised at all.
16 Moving image preservation and description, in contrast, have garnered much more attention (compare
Wisniewski, 'Framers of the Kept', 2) - and they still do.
17 Kula, Appraising Moving Images; S. Kula, The Archival appraisal of moving images: A RAMP study with guidelines
(Paris 1983) 93 (online at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0005/000576/057669e.pdf).
18 Examples are Connors, 'Appraising Public Television Programs' (which proposes an evaluation scheme based
on criteria common in many broadcast archives, but weighed against each other); Ide and Weisse,
'Developing Preservation Appraisal Criteria' (a piece that came about within the same research project at
WGBH broadcast archive that also Connors contributed to and that in part covers the same ground);
N. Marelli, 'Archival appraisal and the preservation of audio-visual records at Concordia University Archives,
Montreal, Canada' (appendix 2), in: B. Craig, Archival Appraisal: Theory and Practice (Munich 2004) 165-186
(a very introductory piece that takes its inspiration from the author's practice in a mixed-media, university
archive); M. Ide and L. Weisse, 'Recommended Appraisal Guidelines for Selecting Born-Digital Master
Programs for Preservation and Deposit with the Library of Congress' (unpublished report, 2006) (a follow-
up for the digital age to the authors' 2003 piece, this time commissioned by the Library of Congress, in
which they make an argument for involving production staff in the provision of metadata in order to
facilitate appraisal further on; online at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/documents/pdpt_
appraisal_guidelines2006.pdf).
19 Wisniewski, 'Framers of the Kept', 3.