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AVPS Conducting Preservation Workshops Via METRO/DHP

AudioVisual Preservation Solutions will again be conducting preservation and metadata themed workshops as part of the METRO’s Documentary Heritage Program service offerings. The first day-long class will be Processing Audio and Video Collections on Friday, April 20th. The instructors will include AVPS Senior Consultant Joshua Ranger and Consultant Marian Clarke.

Three more workshops will be offered over the spring and summer, including Using Metadata for Audiovisual Collection Management, Managing File-based Collection for Smaller Institutions, and another session on Processing Audio and Video Collections. This year, two of the classes will be held in Westchester County in order to provide better service to the full METRO membership area. Other instructors will include AVPS Senior Consultant Kara Van Malssen and Consultant Peter Oleksik. Dates and locations to be announced soon. And many thanks to METRO and the New York State Archives for subsidizing these offerings.

Don’t Kill The Carrier Part 2 — The Digital Dilemma Is A Resource Problem Not A Format Problem

I hate digital cameras. I especially hate my digital camera, but that’s probably at least in part because my own camera provides me so many more opportunities to swear at it. I damn it when I miss a shot due to shutter delay or the processing time between pictures. I curse up and down when it keeps insisting on the wrong focal point. I make sailors cringe when my memory of the scene that impelled me to take a photo is not matched, ending up yet again as a flat, poorly framed, uncomposed mess.

These things doubly frustrate me because, not so many years ago when I shot on film with a 30 year old SLR, I took great care with my framing, depth of focus, and subject matter. I knew my camera, knew my film, and, aided by a great developer, was very happy with the outcomes. Even failure was an acceptable part of the process; only a small percentage of photos could be expected to turn out close to okay. How, I wonder, can this digital camera be such a piece of infuriating junk?

But then I recall that the thing which drove me to getting an SLR in the first place was a similar frustration with the pictures I was getting with the no-frills point-and-shoot I had for many years. When the only tool you have is a point-and-shoot, everything looks like a snapshot.

So really I have three choices here (unless the real problem is just anger management issues that need resolved): 1) go back to film, 2) shell out for a digital SLR and really learn how to use it, or 3) just accept my crummy camera and deal with it. Two of those options involve an increased outlay of cash and effort, and, well, Game of Thrones just came out on DVD.

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In my experience, most people who have been drawn into the archiving and preservation/conservation fields enjoy many outside creative pursuits, whether related to one’s area of focus (film-making, writing, sewing, etc.) or well outside one’s realm (cooking, dance, macrame, etc.). This makes perfect sense, especially in audiovisual preservation where a traditional route into the field has been transitioning from making to care-taking. However, I also strongly feel that the activities and decision points of archiving/preservation are creative acts themselves, requiring at least as much knowledge and skill as the creation of the works under our care.

This is none too controversial a thought within our bubble, but, for those unfamiliar with what and how we do, it perhaps sounds a bit laughable — the same way that people who have never taught may really believe that those who cannot do teach. In both cases, as well as in other fields like editing, the breadth of stylistic and technical knowledge required to shepherd so many and such varied works/minds through growth and persistence is massive.

In thinking about those who deal with more hands-on conservation work, just consider the number of materials, color processes, formats, format characteristics, presentation methods, chemicals, etc. that must be worked with, not to mention the ability to interpret and properly represent various historic and individual styles. However this work must necessarily be accompanied by a degree of humility or dedication to works and artists, stances that, as a result, can keep us pinned to obscurity or lack of awareness from the outside.

For people who purposefully choose a career that can often entail long hours of solitude in windowless rooms and basements, such obscurity is not necessarily a bad thing — though it can contribute to the difficulties we have with lack of support, the need for constant advocacy around the importance of the work, and, ultimately, the limited resources most organizations deal with.

A lack of resources is one of the true dilemmas of the digital age. Just like the utility and transportation infrastructure of the nation, the infrastructure of institution is in need of serious overhaul in order to address the existing and pending influx of digitized and born-digital materials. Equipment, facilities, servers, policies, utilities, guidelines, metadata generation, know-how… Not just financial resources, but also human resources, knowledge resources, and reservoirs of determination to start projects and get things done.

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Not to say we lack the internal resources (or ability to attain them) needed to manage digital collection, but we have to admit that technological shifts are forcing many of us to retrain our brains in ways that are difficult or discomforting. Especially for those ashamed of the amount of time spent listening to Bob Seeger on classic rock radio (okay — I’m sure that’s just me), a creative spirit rails against the idea of being hedged in by numbers. Not wanting to be just another one. One is the loneliest. Havoc-causing love potions. Revolutions. Numbers suggest a lack of uniqueness, intangibility, and a lack of nuance. And the way we have traditionally spoken about digital files is as numbers: 1s and 0s piling up with no sense of aesthetic order or individuality.

At the same time, numbers are how things get done. How much stuff do you have? How much storage space? How many FTE to process? How many users? How much money?

Administrators and funders demand quantifications that fly in the face of what we consider the special qualities of collections. And files seem to act the same way — they have no care for content, just for processing, movement, and dull persistence of those 1s and 0s.

But this is a bit of a canard. No object expresses emotion or forms a reciprocal relationship with us. Such things are easier to believe with physical, tactile materials that act/react in discernable, predictable ways, but their mere materiality makes the conceits no more true. In truth, our jobs are half about the persistence of objects — whether physical or digital — and half about the dull persistence of advocacy, continually communicating the importance of our work and the need for funding and resources.

In truth, one of the prime resources we have and that we need to access in order to address the “digital dilemma” is ourselves — the creativity and learnedness and curiosity (and persistence) we can and must tap into.

In truth, many colleagues have been working very hard in the area of digital preservation. They have been working hard for many years and have made great strides that we are beginning to see the results of. The Academy’s Digital Dilemma II ends with the declaration that the time for studies and reports is over. Convenient though it is to state and declare the final word, the report is correct. The time for broad overview studies is over — it actually has been over for many years. But I guess it was easy to miss because there was that new season of Buffy coming out on DVD.

— Joshua Ranger

AVPS Moves Office Location

AudioVisual Preservation Solutions has moved offices from 350 7th Avenue, Suite 1603 to 350 7th Avenue, Suite…1605! Though an indistinguishable move in terms of our GPS trackers, the relocation reflects our expanding team and client base. 2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year already with lots of great projects under way, a number of conferences we’ll be presenting at or attending, and a bevy of new services we’re offering around digital preservation, data management, digital asset utilization, and inventory and collection assessment. Of course we wouldn’t be here without all of our great clients we’ve worked with in the past and continue to collaborate with to tackle the challenges of archiving and preservation. We look forward to the continued building of relationships and solutions, so whether you’re in the virtual or real neighborhood, come up and see us some time.

METRO & AVPS Announce NYC/Westchester County Collection Assessment Grants

The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) recently announced the availability of three collection assessment grants to be awarded to institutions in METRO’s New York City and Westchester County service area.

The funding for these grants stems from a collaboration with the Document Heritage Program of the New York State Archives (DHP), a mandated initiative committed to preserving New York’s documentary heritage. Through state-supported funding and education, DHP helps non-profit organizations maintain their archival records. Areas of particular interest include materials documenting education policy, environmental affairs, mental health, the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and population groups and economic change in the 20th and 21st centuries.

To be eligible for the grant, archives must be located within New York City or in Westchester county. This particular grant targets collections or sub-collections containing less than 3,000 items. The items in these collections must be limited to a single media type. These media types include magnetic media (audio and/or videotape), motion picture film, or still photographs.

At the beginning of the project, AVPS will visit the archive to examine the collections and the facilities that house them. During this phase, AVPS consultants will conduct in-person interviews with staff members to understand how the archive operates and where the collections fit within its framework. Current databases, cataloging schemas, and storage practices will be assessed at this time.

Once AVPS completes a full evaluation of the collections, the findings will be compiled into a report. This documentation includes a ranked breakdown of the collection’s contents according to reformatting urgency. In addition to this list, the report recommends storage requirements for physical materials and ideal formats for preservation, mezzanine, and access copies of digitized content. Finally, the report suggests local vendors or required in-house digitization equipment and provides a general reformatting workflow.

By the project’s completion, the archive will have in-hand the full report along with vendor or equipment cost quotes, rehousing and labor cost estimates, and a complete lists of the collection’s formats, durations, and projected sizes after digitization.

If selected, the archive’s staff must accept the conditions and responsibilities associated with the project. They must designate a central point of contact for coordinating and communicating with AVPS. Key staff members must participate in 60 to 90 minute interviews with AVPS consultants or complete questionnaires. After coordinating the site visits, the archive’s staff must provide AVPS consultants access to the collections and share existing collection documentation that is pertinent to the project. Once they receive the final reports, staff should review them and offer constructive feedback.

In addition to these obligations, the archivist and an administrator must agree to talk about the project at a METRO event. The archivist must agree to speak at a conference, on a panel, or at a professional event about the project and its impact on their collections. In addition writing the letter of commitment, an administrator must also consent to be a part of an Administrators Roundtable event. Participants will include other library administrators and archive collection managers from the area. The purpose of the event will be to consider the challenges and solutions associated with preserving media. Ultimately, an account of the discussion will be documented and distributed through a white paper by METRO. In the future, METRO may consult this white paper when developing programming for the library and archive community. AVPS and METRO will schedule and coordinate these local events.

To be considered, fill out the online application form.  An administrator must supplement the application with a letter explicitly outlining how the assessment will help them move forward with their current projects. The archivist must also write a letter committing to speak at a METRO event about the project. Templates for the Administrator’s Letter of Commitment and the Archivist’s Panel Presentation Commitment Letter are located within the online form. Signed copies are these letters are a required portion of the application. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, February 29th, 2012, at 4:00 pm. The selected archives will be contacted by mid to late March, and AVPS will conduct the assessments in April and early May.

Any questions? Send us an e-mail and we’ll be happy to answer them.

AVPS Now Official FEDLINK Vendor

As part of team CACI, AudioVisual Preservation Solutions in now able to offer media preservation services to FEDLINK member institutions. The Federal Library & Information Network (FEDLINK) is a purchasing, training and resource-sharing consortium serving federal libraries and information centers, providing smaller departments and organizations with access to products and services more affordably and efficiently.

Services under the LC/FEDLINK BOA that AVPS is able to offer include:

Collection Assessments and Inventories
Preservation Planning
Facilities Assessment
Training for Archiving and Preservation
Metadata Development
Digitization Planning
Repository Development
DAMS Selection
Digital Preservation Planning
Disaster Preparedness and Recovery
Digital Content Management/Delivery Support Services

Along with our special expertise with audiovisual and digital assets, we are able to provide these services for all media types, including graphics, photography, and paper/text materials. FEDLINK members can contact us through our webform or directly to discuss how we can help with the preservation and collection management needs of all your analog and digital media and documents.

AVPS FEDLINK Lead: Joshua Ranger, Senior Consultant
josh{at}avpreserve.com
212.564.2140/917.475.9630
Service ID: CI
LC/FEDLINK BOA#: LC11G7907
Transfer or Direct Payment Options

Kara Van Malssen Invited To Address Preservation And Archiving Special Interest Group

AVPS Senior Consultant will be speaking in front of the Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) meeting in Austin, Texas this Thursday, January 12th. Kara’s talk, “The Key Ingredient: Technical, Structural and Preservation Metadata for Digital Media Preservation” will be part of the Domain Deep Dive: Media Preservation panel, which will also feature presentation by Ernst Van Velzen (CIO, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision), Jon Dunn (Library Technologies and Digital Libraries, Indiana University), and Kurt Seiffert (Research Storage, Indiana University).

PASIG is an international community of IT professionals “focused on sharing open computing solutions and best practices” in the areas of OAIS architecture, repository technologies, preservation and archiving of data, and the uses of various commercial and community-developed technological solutions. PASIG is not a standards-setting organization, but much of their work revolves around sharing and learning from practical experience in order to find new areas of development and collaboration.

Given the major challenges that face the preservation and management of digital audiovisual materials, we are very pleased to see groups like PASIG take an interest in the issues and devote a panel specifically to media. It is becoming more and more apparent that greater communication and collaboration among the various disciplines that create, manage, and care for digital media is needed in order to address those challenges. We’re proud of Kara and excited to be a part of the conversation.

Does The Discovery Of ‘Lost’ Materials Help Or Harm The Archival Field?

About the only times audiovisual archiving and preservation gets mentioned in the news is when there is a re-release of a newly restored film or album, or when some amazing discovery of a ‘lost’ work is revealed (which is usually tied to the bigger story of its re-release or sale). The auctioning of the early Walt Disney film “Hungry Hobos” and the unveiling of a 1973 David Bowie performance on the BBC are just a couple recent examples. Admittedly, this is probably due at least in part to the fact that lots of archiving work is detail-oriented, quiet, technical, and repetitive at times. These are all just nice ways of saying the work is dull (at least from a news story standpoint). Most people assume that I get to watch/listen to great content all day or ask what things I have unearthed from obscurity. This makes me uncertain about whether the news stories drive their perception or if the news really is just delivering what non-archivists care about. Whatever the case, I typically (over)emphasize to people that I don’t get the opportunity to access the content I work with; it’s all about the physical objects. Boxes and boxes and boxes and shelves and shelves and shelves of objects. And drawers. And pallets. And piles on the floor.

I do have a discovery story, but I don’t really like to refer to it as such. Why? During a summer internship at the NYU Library Preservation Lab, the Tamiment/Wagner Archive received the Communist Party USA papers, a massive collection of paper, memorabilia, film, video, audiotape, and more dating back to the early 20th century. As part of a first pass at ingest, a fellow intern and myself were tapped to go through the films to looks for any major condition problems and get a very high level inventory to help with prioritization. We were excited because there was a lot of 35mm, much of it in old metal shipping containers labeled in Russian. Turns out, though, the CPUSA merely screened or distributed acceptable Soviet films, because reel after reel were prints of Russian history or war epics from the 60s and 70s, sometimes two or three copies of each. It was my first exposure to Orwo filmstock, but I’m not sure if even I am hardcore enough to have gotten really pumped about that.

But there was one particular metal box… There were some others like it, but they hadn’t had anything special in them. But this one stunk real bad-like when we opened it. I tried it first and quickly decided to attack a different box. The other intern tried later, but it was the end of a long, dusty, chemically day…and there was one more non-stinky box left for her. So after I finished what I was working on, I put on the gloves and the mask and said goodbye to my nose hairs and some brain cells. As I started pulling out reels, I noticed that the stench was more complex than a vinegar smell, that what appeared to be rust inside the can was all over the film, and that the solidification and bubbling gunk I could see through the projection reels was not typical behavior of acetate from the 1970s, whether the East Germans had made it or not. Nope, this was nitrate, and luckily most of the reels were heads out with the title cards for the reel visible. Passaic Textile Strike Reel 2. Passaic Textile Strike Reel 4. Passaic Textile Strike Reel 5. And so on.

After the nitrate excitement died down, my colleague began searching for the title online and found that the Library of Congress had a print, but two reels were considered lost, including reel 5. Things moved fast after that. Somebody called a contact at LOC. The head of the department and the Tamiment archivist were called in. We had to find someone with nitrate shipping certification. And soon the films were out the door to LOC. They were pretty seriously decayed, but that’s where all that slow, detailed, technical (dull) work comes in to play to do the restoration work.

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Exciting stuff, but not ‘my’ or ‘a’ discovery. There were a lot of people involved in the overall process, and I was just the one to physically pull the reels out of the box and look at them. Also, the film was not truly lost or discovered. It was sitting there in a box, not caring one way or the other. It couldn’t be lost because no one was missing it. Anyone at anytime could have peeked in the box and wondered what was on those reels.

In fact, it should have been someone else. If an organization or an archive truly cares about the materials they create or collect, if they care about the investments made in creating and storing those materials, if they care about the longevity of their organization and fulfillment of organizational goals then, plain and simple, they should take care of their stuff. #tcys and whatnot.

To be clear, I’m not picking on archives here — this diatribe refers to the whole enterprise. Either you have pride in your work or you don’t, and that institutional attitude or support for it starts at the top. This doesn’t mean that the organization absolutely must care about those assets, but to market them based on quality of the content/materials or the institution’s history/dedication would seem to require a certain degree of commitment to those expressed ideals in order to retain any level of validity.

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And that, my friends, is polemics (I minored in it in college). Do you agree in total? Do you reject it outright? Do you agree in principle but not in practical reality? I’d like to know, but, I feel, save for the derailment, the gauge of my original track is true. ‘Lost’ films are not the result of inevitability (unless you believe that humans will inevitably mess things up), but are lost through our own decisions at action or inaction. The celebration of their discovery turns irresponsible behavior into an applauded activity. This approval, and subsequent social/monetary benefit, promotes hoarding, negligence, and other high risk behaviors enabled by the belief that 1) the ultimate payoff will be great and 2) the material will always be recoverable.

One has to assume that, given human and corporate nature, the potential for benign neglect as a preservation strategy would become the default position in most cases. After one assumes that, one has to ask, has the line between benign and malignant ever been sufficiently delineated so as to ensure that action occurs before it is crossed, and what extra cost is incurred if that line is ignored, despite the potential capability of recovering the content? Perhaps, in this arena, we need to better document our less direct failures and losses in order to counter the distracting jubilation of films grasped from the ravages of decay, to fully delineate the real costs and risks so that we take care of our stuff in the first place or accept the decision not to.

— Joshua Ranger

2011 Archives Year In Review

When the world ends next December, all of our blathering and fretting over the best way to preserve archival materials will prove to have been in vain. In spite of it all, we trundle ahead with our work like the Sisyphean hero. Normally, I imagine the hill decades or centuries long; if asked my opinion about a new movie or album or current event, I say ask me again in 50 years. But, considering the circumstances, the normal timeline needs accelerating. Thus, the 2011 Archives Year in Review.

Most Interesting Acquisition: Library of Congress to receive entire Twitter archive
Though easily mocked by Your Dad (Yes, Twitter is mostly banal content, but so are the journals and letters of the past that are considered important source materials today) this acquisition is important not only because of the snapshot it provides of everyday life and the way that technology affects or is adapted by society, but also because of the technological efforts required to ingest and preserve the collection. As LOC Digital Initiatives Program Manager Bill Lefurgy says in the article, the Library needs to develop guidelines and methodologies for how to accept and manage very large data sets in anticipation of future acquisitions. The Twitter data presents an excellent opportunity to collaborate with private industry on improved means for data transfer and preservation.

Most Appropriate Reaction to the Twitter Acquisition: Tweeted by @AlbertBrooks, “Damn. If I had known this I never would’ve done that one about my ass”

Most Archivally Philosophical Documentary: Knuckle
The argument over the best use of archival material in a documentary is a parlor game, no real answer but a playful way to show off one’s erudition and argue for argument’s sake. Instead I ask the question, when does source material become archival material? Ian Palmer’s Knuckle, a documentary about the tradition of bare-knuckle fighting to settle disputes among families in the Irish Traveller community, was videotaped periodically over 12 years before being crafted into a film. Palmer states that he put the tapes away in boxes and didn’t even know what the content was until reviewing it when production started. What defines an archive? Age? The way it’s stored? Frequency of access? Original intention for the materials? An original creator vs. a re-user of existing material?

Most Egregious Use of Archival Material in a Documentary: Flying Monsters 3D with David Attenborough
The 3D processes used in this film did not exist during the dinosaur age, so I can only assume that they used some crappy post-process conversion on the source footage. Very disappointing.

#waytotakeastand Award for Archives: Association for Recorded Sound Collections Copyright Committee
Many people don’t realize that audio recordings made prior to 1972 fall under state and not federal copyright law. This means that the same length of copyright, public domain applications, and Section 108 protections do not apply to audio recordings unless a state has modified its laws to mirror federal statutes. This is seldom the case, and as a result the access to pre-1923 works and the ability of libraries and archives to take care of such works has been severely limited. Since 2009, ARSC has been rattling cages in the federal government to prompt a change to this odd exemption, and the US Copyright Office will be releasing a report studying the issue in the near future. Way to take a stand!

#yourenothelping Award for Archives: Digital Photo Frames
I know all the HGH we’re taking is giving us enormous heads and wide bodies, but imagine those heads stretched from 4:3 to a 16:9 aspect ratio. We don’t have to worry about preserving digital photography because our great-great-grandchildren will be so freaked out by the monstrosities they see that they will destroy them all anyway. The insidious infiltration of devices like these (and widescreen televisions) present a major need area for media education.

Archive of the Year: That Box of Photos Under My Bed
It’s got some really great stuff in it. I swear I’ll get around to taking care of it in 2012.

Happy New Year!

Don’t Kill The Carrier Part 1 — The Digital Dilemma Is A Communication Problem Not A Format Problem

My first experience with 16mm home projection was during a sleepover at a classmate’s home. I was 7 and at the time in a private school in southern Oregon, which meant my classmate A) either lived in town or in an even smaller town somewhere within a 50 mile radius (it was the latter), and B) that his parents were either overly strict, religious, or anti-authoritarian (it was primarily the latter). For those of you not from the West Coast, this type of anti-authoritarianism tends to manifest on a broad continuum, with the peacelovehippies on one end, the Manson hippies on the other, and bulk represented in the middle by more of a Bakersfield/Five Easy Pieces kind of vibe.

Of course segments of these types mix together in contradictory ways. At my classmate’s house we were forbidden from watching Three’s Company because it was too racy, we went to a natural food store for snacks made from various puffed or toasted grains (after sneaking some Nerds and Bottle Caps on our way from the bus to his home), and we spent the evening watching 16mm educational films because his father worked for a distributor and could get a projector and films for free.

So my associative experience with 16mm film projection? Some combination of awe over moon landings, malnourishment (70s health food was a much different [soy-based] beast than what is available today), and primarily discomfort and slight concerns over my safety in case I made a reference to Loni Anderson or Soap. In my mind, viewing a film film in a non-theatrical venue equates to nervousness, low level fear, and hunger.

What, then, does this mean in terms of the format? Nothing, really. 16mm is not inherently Manson-like (8mm, perhaps), but these are my emotional attachments to the viewing experience. This is nothing against the format or the filmic experience — my next 16mm viewing came 20 some odd years later on a Brooklyn rooftop, discussing the deep magenta tone of a NYPL print of On The Town in between reel changes with my NYU archiving cohorts. There was probably a similar degree of fear and hunger involved, but, overall, a rather different experience than the earlier one.

Between these endpoints, my primary interactions with Cinema were the multiplex, television, home video, and TV/VCR combos rolled into classrooms. My film classes at two universities before NYU utilized projected VHS tapes, either from the library, Blockbuster, or dubbed from TV. Despite my chosen career and the obvious aesthetic qualities of film, my life and the lives of the bulk of people I know have to make me assume that over the past 30 years these types of experiences with movies are more representative of the broader culture than actual film projection.

And it is exactly these points of personal experience and aestheticism where the film-as-film preservation argument runs into the first of many impediments — not due to a question of quality but a question of how we communicate across a broad audience. We can write touching paeans about our personal attachment to film or create masterful homages to certain styles or periods in cinematic history, but in the end we have to consider whether these great enlightenment sermons are converting souls or just creating an emotional buzz for ourselves, whether they push ideas ahead or are more like resigned obituaries looking to reify the past ere it dissipates forever.

We also have to consider that media archiving and preservation extend well beyond motion picture film. Within the past 20-30 years how much content has been created on video as opposed to film? And what of audio? These media types do not have a viable long term format to migrate to outside of the digital realm, and many of them are already born digital. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves if a fundamental rejection of digital preservation and the work needed to establish archival methodologies in favor of film is ultimately detrimental to the preservation needs of non-film materials as well as the presentation needs of existing digital cinema.

The personal narrative can be an effective rhetorical angle, but it is not the entire argument. In order to more successfully advocate for the importance of media archiving and preservation we need to acknowledge that the unreceptive do not typically travel the Damascan road. Within the humanities, critical arguments based on the appreciation of all that is sweetness and light are valid but limited lines of reasoning. Limited because aesthetic arguments tend to be easily dismissed by those not of like mind or similar background as mere opinion or too soft, but also limited because it does not take full advantage of the skills a humanities education provides: analysis, questioning, interpretation, empathy, awareness of audience, historical perspective, and more.

As with all formats, the risks associated with digital media and its material differences from film are real and definable. The way those risks and differences are communicated — both in terms of creating awareness and establishing means of dealing with them — will greatly affect our ability to deal with the challenges and to gather the resources we need to do so.

Next: Don’t Kill the Carrier Part the Second: The Digital Dilemma is a Resource Problem not a Format Problem

— Joshua Ranger

Why I Won’t Be Using The Word Archive Anymore

A segment on a recent episode of Radiolab discussed the work of experimental music composer William Basinski. As one line of exploration in the past, Basinski took classical or Muzak-type recordings, dubbed short sections of them and applied various distortions such as adjusting tape speed, and then made short audiotape recordings from the results. He then housed this tape in continuous loop cassette shells, such as one may find in museum displays. Played out over even just a few minutes, these snippets take on the depth and texture of a longer, more complex composition.

Interesting in itself, the story within this story is actually about how when, several years ago, Basinski was “archiving” these works (his word for what consisted of playing the tapes out to CD until it reached capacity while he made some tea) the oxide on some tapes began to flake off during playback. Instead of stopping the tapes, he let them continue to play until, gradually, all of the binder was gone. The audio captured is a haunting fragmentation and lurching decay of the audio signal which he fashioned into a series of works entitled The Disintegration Loops.

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“Everything and Nothing” from WNYC’s Radiolab

While I have to admit that these works are quite moving, I also have to admit that the way Basinski used the term archiving to describe what he was doing also moved something within me to snap. This seemed to be the point at which some dawning realizations gelled, at which a nagging thought in the back of my head became a lens projecting truth onto the screen of my mind. Archive is a word that should be archived. Archive is a word that is dead.

You see, I believe that words have a weight to them, a density that increases and decreases across time. They become muscular through regular exercising, atrophied through disuse, chipped away at by re-appropriation, or grow slow and heavy with the burden of associations, their definition becoming amorphous and diffuse. In this way words become tools or cudgels or shackles, acting for us or upon us on the metaphysical and perceptual planes as such instruments would on the physical. In my view, archive and the words derived from it have been co-opted and negatively connotated, stripped of definite meaning and weighted with preconceptions.

I often run into the feeling out there from those outside the field that archives are inaccessible holes, deep in the recesses of an institution, the place where one dumps stuff one cannot stomach to discard but cannot really see a future use for…though even in such cases it may be preferable to stash those items away in a desk drawer one seldom opens and is not exactly sure of the contents, just because it’s such a pain to request assets back from the archivist. And the archivists, the guardians of these dungeons, are the Grendels of an institution — uncompromising hoarders of treasures, made grumpy by the joyous, uncaring excesses of man, preferring exile and avoidance of daylight.

But flip the coin, and archives become deep cisterns of knowledge and reusable content where an individual can discover their ancestry, remix a video, or learn about the fascinating history of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive Award. It is also where an organization can develop new content out of old, push a retro or ‘classic’ marketing campaign, feed materials to the Web or social media, or derive a new product from old R&D.

Flip the coin again, however, and an archive is a portal to access digital surrogates — either public à la something like the Internet Archive or private (as in Kenneth Goldsmith’s wrong-headed claims) like one’s personal iTunes library. In this sense archive seems to just be used to refer to a collection of things that exist and are arranged together. These models may have an actual collection policy and preservation-oriented archive behind the scenes, or it may be based off of derivatives embedded or linked from other sources that may disappear at any time, or it may be an asset management and access utility pulling from one’s harddrive.

Flip the coin yet again and archive becomes a verb, some vaguely defined act that has been used to mean moving a file to a different folder on a server, sticking an item on a shelf or in a drawer to be accessed sometime…maybe, digitizing a work and putting it on DVD or online, or, in general, just letting someone else worry about the dang thing. Used in its lay or commercial sense, archiving something has less to do with quality and fidelity to originals than with removing clutter or establishing access via preferred platforms.

One may be impressed at this cornucopia of meaning, or proud at the sheer number of columns ‘archive’ would take up in the Oxford English Dictionary (Would we call that an archive of language?). However, my concern here is that this coin has too many sides, too many opposing facets, and that makes it invalid currency. The weighted or confused definitions mean that the ideas we attempt to communicate around discussing the work and importance of archives are often misinterpreted or unaccepted, their value lost in the exchange rate or enforced duty.

An archive can take on many forms and many roles that are not necessarily compatible or recognizable as the same thing from organization to organization. Similarly so, archiving is a broad collection of actions applied in degrees as a given situation demands or allows. I started off by saying I would not use the word archive anymore, but, really, there is a choice here about whether to cut and run or to dig in and work to better define and communicate the issues. It seems like an insurmountable challenge, but then again, I hear that archives are full of the stories of people making a difference.

— Joshua Ranger

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