 |
 |
From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad Karl Miller wrote: ..................................> > A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our local arts donors who gave > $20M for a performing arts center. I asked him what his thinking was, > other than the obvious of wanting to help the arts. He pointed to the > notion that a building will be there once the money is spent...not like > funding an opera production...production staged...money gone. > > As for my own thoughts, perhaps an endowment to fund an instructional > program in audio preservation and restoration. Also, a foundation that would > award grants...not as we have it now...to fund individual preservation > projects, but to fund startup money to encourage libraries and archives to > develop infrastructure to create their own audio preservation programs. ----- I think that the major problem is that unless money is supplied on a regular basis for maintaining, migrating and also to ensure that _cataloguing_ is migrated, then the one-time effort is entirely worthless. It did not use to be like that, because paper-based materials had survivability as long as they were kept in "human" conditions as we know them in the western world and a few other places. And it was mainly an intellectual effort to interpret them. So, transfer staged ..... money gone! I fear that private funding bodies think the same - they want monuments, not a constant drain. It so much goes against the grain of archivists not to have permanent accessibility to permanent media. And I shudder to think that our cultural heritage hangs in such thin threads: stable power supply, stable manufacturing basis. As Richard Hess has shown us, even private individuals may duplicate the threads, but only as long as somebody manufactures them. > > In short, what are the problems we face and how can we combine our > efforts, avoid duplication of effort, and what would we like to > accomplish? ----- it is a question of making preservation and accessibility fashionable in society, and to develop technical standard procedures that will permit every institution to trust what is done in another institution. If we are truly an audiovisual culture, then it will logically follow that the content must be preserved/made accessible as a public duty. However, we are _not_ an audiovisual culture, we are merely consumers, and as long as we are entertained, we do not make uprisings, and we do not really care at all. Not very long term optimistic, I know, but as long as I am entertained - by listening to my preferred, very early recordings and live music in a suitable mix ......................................... Kind regards, George