Re: [ARSCLIST] Triage, heroic efforts, and economics

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

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