A death

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<-a t->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


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:14
                 Distributed: Sunday, September 7, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-22-14-001
                                  ***