In the absence of a specialist body of critical work on AV appraisal, some of these
reports, books and articles seek recourse in archival theory.20 Their authors however
seem to have a somewhat limited take on what the field has to offer. Many for
instance find inspiration in the work of T.R. Schellenberg, dating back to the 1950s
and 60s, or the "pragmatic" approaches of later generations of theorists such as
Maynard J. Brichford or Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young (all of whom consider
also the factor of cost, traditionally key to AV archivists).21 Meanwhile, their
thinking seems hardly affected by post-modern reflection on the role of archives in
the construction of (explicit or tacit) narratives about the world, and of the ways in
which appraisal and selection specifically contribute to the construction of
memories and the representation - and by the same token, silencing - of particular
groups, their activities and ideas.22 Although some authors recognise that archival
appraisal and selection are inevitably "skewed", affected as they are by institutional
as well as personal bias, a lot of this work still prides itself on the objectivity of
trained archivists, assuming, as Wisniewski puts it, that they can function as
"neutral keepers" instead of "intellectually and critically engaged framers".23
In past decades, authors have attributed the absence of reflection on appraisal and
selection in specialist literature on AV archiving to avoidance of such practice in the
field itself, arguing that selection was often the result of "benign neglect".24 While
neglect did of course take place, it would be naive to assume that where it occurred,
it was uninformed by any sort of valuation. In the case of moving image archives, the
lack of a "natural" continuity between record-producing agency and repository
implies that choices are always made - whether by the archive, its donors, or both.
More decisions are made at the time of allocation of the (scarce) means for active
preservation. However, the reality of AV archives is that these choices and decisions
are rarely documented the way archival literature would ideally have it.25 In some
cases, there is not even a written policy to refer to in making them.26 For want of
such documentation, appraisal and selection have traditionally been carried out in
rather covert ways. Considering how often, in the AV archival process, value-laden
decisions are made, this is particularly remarkable.
Reviews of current practice suggest that the parameters for appraisal and selection
vary a great deal across types of institutions, between institutions within the same
(sub)sector, and in some cases even among the staff members of those institutions.
Variation occurs in terms of when those tasks are carried out, by whom, and with
reference to which criteria.
With respect to timing, the sources suggest that over the years, appraisal and
selection have been done at different points in the archival process and as part of
different kinds of procedures - especially in the comparison between film and
broadcast archives. In principle, film archive practitioners agree that some measure
of delay between acquisition - usually without a formal appraisal step - and
selection is beneficial, as the historical distance it entails allows for a better-
informed valuation of the material concerned.27 In practice, such lags do indeed
occur, but in many cases, they are the result of backlog rather than a carefully
considered choice.28 In television archives, in contrast, some form of immediate
action is generally required as unprocessed material cannot be reused.29 Appraisal
therefore is often done early on, although reappraisal and (de)selection may take
place over time.30
In terms of who does the appraisal and selection, the sources are highly unequivocal.
There is some measure of agreement that while the involvement of outside experts is
desirable, the responsibility for decisions ultimately lies with archivists, often
specialists in a given area of a collection.31 The criteria these staff members work
with - whether acknowledged or not, and documented or not - are widely divergent
also. On the one hand, selection practices in moving image archives tend to observe
a few shared principles that are less common in, or even alien to, other kinds of
archives. On the other, criteria also vary amongst such institutions, among others
along the lines of their specific remits.
2. Selection Criteria in Film and Television Archives:
The Cases of EYE and Sound Vision
As types of institutions, EYE and Sound Vision differ in a number of ways, and
these differences inevitably affect the selection criteria they adhere to. EYE, calling
itself a "museum", sits somewhere in between a national film archive - albeit
without the specific government mandate that such memory institutions ordinarily
have - and a classic cinémathèque, in that it invests heavily in curated screenings and
nieuwe trends en ontwikkelingen
20 Several of these authors however remark also that notions advanced by archival theory are in fact of limited
use when it comes to the appraisal of audiovisual records. Examples are Kula, Appraising Moving Images, 34;
Connors, 'Appraising Public Television Programs', 166 (which comments specifically on the usefulness of
ideas from what he calls the 'functionalist school'); Ide and Weisse, 'Recommended Appraisal Guidelines',
4 (which speaks of text-based appraisal criteria).
21 Most of the work mentioned in notes 17 and 18 relies on Schellenberg's ideas at least to some extent; the
WGHB appraisal project Connors, Ide and Weisse contributed to also explicitly credits such authors as
Brichford and Boles and Young (see for instance Ide and Weisse, 'Developing Preservation Appraisal
Criteria', 153). The term "pragmatic" is used among others in H.T. Pinkett, 'American Archival Theory:
The State of the Art', The American Archivist 44:3 (1981) 217-222 (specifically with reference to Brichford's
work).
22 See for instance E. Ketelaar, 'Tacit Narratives: The Meanings of Archives', Archival Science 1:2 (2001)
131-141; T. Cook, 'We Are What We Keep; We Keep What We Are: Archival Appraisal Past, Present and
Future', Journal of the Society of Archivists 32:2 (2011) 173-189.
23 Wisniewski, 'Framers of the Kept', 9. (In this respect, Wisniewski's piece also stands as an exception to the
rule.) For examples of the former, see Kula, Appraising Moving Images, 23, 128 (where the term "skewed" is
used); Edmondson, Audiovisual Archives, 64. In 'Recommended Appraisal Guidelines', Ide and Weisse
suggest that this is true in particular for the production archives of operational broadcasters, while film
and television archives tend to have more extensive written guidelines.
24 See for instance Kula, 'Archival Appraisal of Moving Images'; Marelli, 'Archival appraisal and the
preservation of audio-visual records', 166-167.
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eef masson appraisal and selection in moving image archives: legacy and transformations
25 For instance, B. Craig, Archival Appraisal: Theory and Practice (Munich 2004) 4, 19, 114ff.
26 Kula, Appraising Moving Images, 47, 59; B. Ooghe (with Y.-F. Vandendriessche), 'Selectie voor digitalisering
in theorie en praktijk' (unpublished report, 2009) 21 (online at https://biblio.ugent.be/publicati-
on/764137/file/764153.pdf).
27 See for instance Kula, Appraising Moving Images, 45, 60 (where he quotes from UNESCO's 1981
Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images, adopted after consultation, among
others, with FIAF, the International Federation of Film Archives). With respect to broadcast collections,
FIAT, the International Federation of Television Archives, advises in the 1996 version of its Recommended
Standards and Procedures for Selection and Preservation of Television Programme Material that all actuality
items, in any case, should be retained for at least five years before any selection takes place, once again in
order to allow for sufficient historical perspective (see ibidem, 66).
28 See for instance Harrison, 'Selection and audiovisual collections'.
29 In spite of this, lags do occur in broadcast archives also (see for instance Ide and Weisse, 'Developing
Preservation Appraisal Criteria', 152).
30 The FIAT Recommended Standards advise that selection decisions be (re)considered five years after the first
appraisal, then again after another five years, and then whenever migration is being considered (see Kula,
Appraising Moving Images, 66). Kula however adds that "Very few moving image archivists actively review and
reassess the collection on a regular basis, and fewer still deselect on the basis of current acquisition policy
and selection criteria" (39).
31 Harrison, 'Archival appraisal'; Ooghe, 'Selectie voor digitalisering in theorie en praktijk', 26.
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