I have no particular interest in sports. Never have. The closest this pointy-headed, bookie, piano & harpsichord player ever came to participating in an organized sport was playing saxophone in the marching band in high school. Nonetheless, sports is hard to avoid. About 14 years ago, while I was the engineer at The Philadelphia Orchestra...
Like most people, like most companies, the work we do has changed over the years. When we started preserving audio collections in 1990, copying to ¼” analog tape was the standard. Digital was still a new, uncertain thing. Audiovisual and data preservation is now the bulk of what we do. Prior to 1990 most of our work was in recording classical music on location – live concerts and CDs. I worked with The Philadelphia Orchestra for 21 year and have recorded over 4,000 live concerts, half with The Fabulous Philadelphians. Though our preservation business has grown more quickly, we still record a lot of classical music.
This week we’ll be heading to the Association of Moving Image Archivists [www.amianet.org] for their annual conference. Joining me are Biz Gallo, Manager of Audiovisual Preservation, Sarah Mainville, registrar, and Nora Egloff, Data Storage Managers. We have two special things to look forward to at the conference. Biz will be giving her first professional presentation since joining our staff. And at Thursday morning’s plenary I will present the first George Blood LP Women in Audiovisual Archiving and Technology Scholarship.
In many ways, in most ways, AV artifacts are like any others you’ll encounter in libraries, archives, and museums. All the basics of care and handling apply – lower temperature, lower humidity, lower UV, lower dust, proper containers, gentle handling. Though the specifics may vary, the big picture does not.
Looking back on the history of what is now George Blood Audio/Video/Film/Data, our first identity in the archives community, Safe Sound Archive, is in climate controlled storage
Please welcome two new hires, Jenna Fleming and Rafiq Young, who have joined us this month.
Rafiq is our new Shipping Manager. He is a Philly creative who dabbles in everything from painting to experimenting with micro computers. Also enjoys showing his 4 year old the wonders of 80’s animated cartoons!
Jenna Fleming is our new Audiovisual Project Manager. She is interested in the digital humanities and her research experience involves written correspondence in the First World War.
I’ve spent the last few days at the Library of Congress for the Radio Preservation Taskforce conference. The organizing committee, and Josh Shepherd in particular, deserves high praise for the range of topics and voices that were heard. Unlike most conferences where a few people sport long PowerPoint presentations, this one had many short talks. Sessions covered acquisition, preservation, born digital, commercial radio, engagement, and future plans for the RPT. I confess to belonging to a large group of presenters who whined, “How is this supposed to work?” I enjoyed not only the range of topics and voices heard, but the high level of civility and respect. Whether presenter, discussant, or audience member, everyone kept their comments brief and on point, with respectful and thoughtful exchanges. All the sessions were recorded, some of the live-streamed, and will be available from their website.
Here are a few experiences that made the event worthwhile for me...
