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[ARSCLIST] Bill O'Farrell
William S. "Bill" O'Farrell
August 30, 2008
The following appeared on AMIA-L and is reproduced here without the
knowledge or consent of the author
From: Nancy Marrelli <Nancy.Marrelli [at] concordia__ca>
Date: September 3, 2008 4:21:00 PM EDT
This posting appeared on the Canadian archival listserve and I
thought it would be of interest to AMIA members.
Nancy
Posted on behalf of Rosemary Bergeron and Yvette Hackett
William S. "Bill" O'Farrell, former head of Moving Image and
Audio Conservation at the National Archives of Canada, passed
away in Ottawa, Ontario at age 54 on Saturday, August 30, 2008.
Bill worked at the National Archives from 1975, until his
illness forced him to leave his position in 2002.
Over the years, Bill served as a mentor to many in the film
archive profession in Canada and elsewhere. He will be
remembered for his enthusiasm, imagination, knowledge and sense
of humour.
He began his career in moving images with Crawley Films and the
federal Department of Urban Affairs. In 1975 he joined the
Public Archives of Canada as a film vault technician. He quickly
became responsible for the management of all film preservation
projects at the archives. During Bill's tenure he oversaw
numerous film restoration projects, including 550 reels of
silent-era films excavated from Dawson City, Yukon Territories;
the Flaherty collection of vintage 1896 Edison nitrate; the
complete set of 106 Canadian Army Newsreels; and the oldest
surviving copy of the Canadian feature film Back to God's
Country. Sam Kula, the former director of the National Film,
Television and Sound Archives of the Public Archives of Canada,
acknowledged in his posting to the AMIA listserv on Saturday:
"whatever success we had in building a national collection of
moving images for all Canadians was due greatly to his efforts."
Bill also lectured at conferences and seminars, gave numerous
workshops and wrote on the subject of audio-visual preservation.
Bill was an active member of the Association of Moving Image
Archivists (AMIA). With AMIA he served as a member of the
Executive Board and also chaired its preservation and awards
committees. He served as an advisor to various film archives in
Canada and the United States, including Northeast Historic Film
and the Chicago Film Archives. He was one of the recipients of
the 1997 Film and Video Preservation Honors from the Anthology
Film Archives of New York, in recognition of his dedication and
efforts in the field of film and video preservation.
His loss will be felt in audio-visual archives around the world.
Rosemary Bergeron and Yvette Hackett
Library and Archives Canada/Bibliotheque et archives Canada
Jim Lindner
Media Matters LLC.
SAMMA Systems Inc.
450 West 31st Street - 4th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10001
212-268-5528
Fax: 646-349-4475
Mobile: 917-945-2662
Jim Lindner
Email: jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Media Matters LLC.
SAMMA Systems Inc.
450 West 31st Street 4th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10001
eFax (646) 349-4475
Mobile: (917) 945-2662
Office: (212) 268-5528
www.media-matters.net
Media Matters LLC. is a technical consultancy specializing in archival
audio and video material. We provide advice and analysis, to media
archives that apply the beneficial advances in technology to
collection management.
www.sammasystems.com
SAMMA Systems provides tools and products that implement and optimize
the advances in modern technology with established media preservation
and access practices.
into a pitbull ring wearing bacon grease,