AVPreserve Celebrates Archives Week

October 6th-12th marks the 25th annual Archives Week in New York City, a celebration of the richness and diversity of archival collections across the Metropolitan region. The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York is a major supporter of the event and, as usual, has helped organize a number of open houses, lectures, workshops and behind-the-scenes tours of archives throughout the city — all of which are free and open to the public.

AVPreserve is pleased to be a part of the festivities, both as attendees and participants. Kicking things off, Senior Consultant Joshua Ranger will be presenting at the Disaster Preparedness Symposium taking place at the Center for Jewish History on October 7th. Josh will be talking about the importance of metadata and documentation for disaster preparedness and recovery, both in cases of catastrophic loss and loss of institutional knowledge. The presentation will cover several case studies of AVPreserve projects, including the Eyebeam recovery effort after Hurricane Sandy and the inventory of the NJN Public Television collection after the station closed. The panel will also feature talks from Laura McCann and Rachel Searcy (NYU Libraries), Shae A. Trewin (The Image Permanence Institute), and Martin Tzanev (WITNESS).

Later in the week is the NYART Awards Ceremony, honoring the work of archivists and those who support archival programs. AVPreserve President Chris Lacinak has been a part of the group organizing this event, which will present awards to Rhizome (Innovative use of Archives), New York Archives Conference (Outstanding Support of Archives), Peter Wosh (Archival Achievement), and the Brooklyn Historical Society (Educational Use of Archives). Congratulations to all of the winners!

And finally, AVPreserve and METRO will (finally) release the first episode of the archives podcast “More Podcast, Less Process”. This first iteration features Don Mennerich (NYPL) and Mark Matienzo (Yale) discussing digital forensics and other aspects of caring for born digital collections. Look for the official release next week, and go visit your local archive or historical society!