Audio-Visual Commission.
Justice, Andrew
The Audio-Visual Commission held two sessions in Montreal, the
first on Monday, 23 July, called Preserving the Sound and featured
presentations by Judy Tsou and John Vallier of the University of
Washington (Ether Today, Gone Tomorrow: Issues in Digital Audio
Archiving), Jean-Pierre Sevigny of Carleton University (The Emile
Berliner Museum: Connecting With Our Sound Heritage), and Molly Ungar
from University of the Fraser Valley (Listening to the Past: Using
Digitized sound Resources to Teach Canadian Cultural History). The
second session on Wednesday, 25 July, focused on digital audio systems,
standards, and archives, with presentations from David Day of Brigham
Young University ('Audio Preservation on a Budget: A Case Study of
In-House Digital Audio Preservation at Brigham Young University'),
Matthew Vest of Davidson College ('Variations after 15 Years:
Developing a Patron-Centered Digitization Plan') and Jared
Wiercinski and Annie Murray from Concordia University ('Looking at
Archival Sound: Enhancing the Listening Experience in Audio
Archives'). Both sessions featured a wide array of perspectives and
approaches to engaging with audio-visual materials and the role of
digitization for preservation and access, as well as some lively
discussion from the audience.
The Working Group on the Creation of a Digital Collections Database
held an open meeting on Wednesday, 25 July, to unveil a potential beta
approach to automating the population of the database by programming
software to adjust to several different metadata formats and harvesting
techniques. An extensive discussion followed, as opportunities and
challenges were exchanged regarding the expansion of the project to
include European countries and beyond. The group is currently in the
process of creating a small membership that represents the next most
logical countries whose metadata practices will be investigated and
eventually included in the project. Anyone interested in participating
can contact Andrew Justice at andrew.justice@unt.edu.
Andrew Justice
Chair
