Tuesdays, 6-10 PM, room 651, Fall 2005
Instructors: Howard
Besser & Ann Harris
Introduction to Moving Image
Archiving
& Preservation H72.1800
Oct 18 Introduction to Entire Class
see entire
syllabus
Assignments due before class:
- Have final project topic approved
- Read:
- Mann, Sarah Ziebell. "The Evolution of American Moving
Image
Preservation: Defining the Preservation Landscape (1967-1977)", The Moving Image 1:2 (Fall 2001),
pp 1-20
- Magliozzi, Ronald. "Film Archiving as a Profession: An
Interview
with Eileen Bowser", The Moving Image 3:1
(Spring 2003), pp 132-146
- Edmondson, Ray. "You Only Live Once: On Being a
Troublemaking
Professional", The Moving Image 2:1
(Spring 2002), pp 175-183
- International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) Code of Ethics
- Jorge Luis Borges, The
Library of Babel , from Labyrinths (or The Book
of Sand) (see review
)
- Besser, Howard (1997). The
Changing Role of Photographic Collections with the Advent of
Digitization , in Katherine Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired
Museum, Washington: American Association of Museums, pages 115-127.
-
Further Readings:
- "Why Ethics?" in Marie Malaro, Museum Governance:
Mission,
Ethics, Policy, pages 16-21
- "Controlled Collecting: Drafting a Collection
Management
Policy"
in Marie Malaro, Museum Governance: Mission, Ethics, Policy ,
pages 43-49
- O'Toole, James. (1990) "The History of the Archives
Profession."
In Understanding Archives and Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American
Archivists., pp. 27-47
- Douglas, Mary. (1986) "Institutions Cannot Have Minds
of Their
Own." In How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, pp 9-19
- Jane R. Glaser with Artemis A. Zenetou, "Museum
Professional
Positions: Qualifications, Duties, and Responsibilities," Museums:
A Place to Work: Planning Museum Careers (London; New York:
Routledge, 1996), 65-125
- Libbie Rifkin, "Association/Value:
Creative Collaborations in the Library ", RBM: A Journal of
Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2:2
Agenda
- Collection Management
(continued)
- Archival Arrangement--maintaining original order, context,
relationships
- Metadata Standards (Dublin Core, PREMIS)
- Update on Orphans projects
- Discussion of Museum of
Television & Radio tour, Osorio lecture, Unseen Cinema
- Discussion of Final Projects
- Show video from Film Technology
- Why do we collect?
- Extensive
questions to
ponder
- Issues of evidence and authenticity
- Issues of representation
- Who collects what? for whom? and why? How do
collections define their collectors? How have museums influenced
colonialism, nationalism, and taxonomies (categories) of
knowledge? What kinds of interdependence exists between
institutions of collecting and certain methodological goals of art
history and anthropology? How can we learn to read exhibits
critically? What is a ërhetoricí or
ëpoeticsí of display? Why do people keep personal
collections of objects? How do ethnicities and genders appear--or
disappear--in museum contexts? How do museums also function to
support a local community memory and history? How do artists view
museums as social institutions? How can we imagine collecting
practices and museums in the future? How can the history of collecting
be read as an interdisciplinary intellectual practice?
- Why do we need museums? What should they look
like? Why do we collect things? What kinds of museums and
collections might we have in the future? What role might
electronic media play in the rethinking of the museum?
Would changes in museum practice necessitate changes in the
disciplines of art history and anthropology?
- How are moving images and sound part of the larger visual
culture and ways of looking and seeing? How does our understanding of
visual culture impact our role in moving image archiving and
preservation?
- How do reformatting and multiple formats of the same work
change how we look at a work? (e.g., are videos the same as films? Are
digital photographs the same as analog photos?)
- Is there a social context to viewing an object? (is
viewing a video at home the same as viewing a film in a theater? Is
viewing a mural on a screen the same as viewing it in-situ?)
- Who attributes value to a work, and under what
circumstances? How does one deal with the different values that
different communities may have towards any particular set of works?
- Are there ethical considerations in format conversions
(e.g., film colorization, pan-and-scan?)
- How do the mission, goals, history, other activities, etc., of
various repositories affect how moving images and sound are preserved
and accessed?
- What are the roles of different professionals in each type
of institution?
- What type of Professionalism is associated with each type of
role & each institution
- How has the role of collecting institutions changed as more
and more people have started taking photographs of everyday life? How
might changes in popular attitude towards this media effect
expectations on collecting institutions? How will collecting
institutions handle personal archives that no longer are only paper?
And how will this all change even more as the number of home video
cameras and digital editing vastly increases?
- How do politics affect cultural heritage institutions as they
strive to serve new audiences? (the Enola Gay incident?)
For next week:
- Take Tour of Cineric --
Fri Oct 21, 11:00 AM
- Current Events (20 min)
- xxx, NY Times, Oct 17, 2005
- xxx, NY Times, Oct 17, 2005
- For
a DVD Makeover, Cut the Naughty Talk, NY Times, Oct 17, 2005
- Now
Playing on a Tiny Screen, NY Times, Oct 17, 2005
- Russia
Peels the Veils From Antiquity and Gazes, Awed, NY Times,
Oct 16, 2005
- Cool,
a Video iPod. Want to Watch 'Lost'?, NY Times, Oct 16, 2005
- A
Great Man of Movies, Who Never Shot a Frame, Created a Way of Seeing,
NY Times, Oct 12, 2005