Beginning of the end of MARC?

Link to LC studies on the state of play of MARC structure

"Record Report Recommendations the Library of Congress
Should Pursue Over the Next Four Years: Report to the
Associate Librarian for Library Services, OTR Report
Implementation Working Group"

and

"Library of Congress Study of the North American MARC
Records Marketplace, R2 Consulting LLC (www.r2consulting.org),
Ruth Fischer, Rick Lugg (October 2009)"

link here

EU agrees

EU adopts statement on copyright and the digital economy.

11 page pdf available here (COM(2009) 532 final)

Archive Forum Conference in London, January 2010. Click here for details.

Says "save £100". Wow, it costs more than a £100 to register. No wonder it doesn't mention that it's suitable for archivists.

Jobs - Europeana

Three very interesting (and well paid) jobs at Europeana.

A third of European cinemas to close?

The European Commission today launched a public consultation
of professionals from the EU's audiovisual industry on how to
best seize the opportunities and address the challenges of the
'digital revolution' in the EU film sector. Digital cinema
can make distribution of films cheaper and more flexible, enabling
more European films to travel. 'Going digital' however requires high
investments. One third of European cinemas could be threatened with
closure due to the high cost of digital equipment – unless new business
models and viable public support schemes are developed now.
Feedback from cinema and audiovisual professionals as well as
national film agencies and other interested parties during the 2 month
consultation opened by the Commission today will feed into a
Communication early next year setting out the Commission's policy
on digital cinema.
The questionnaire available in English, French and German:
 English version here

Info via EFG, (thanks)

BFI National Film Centre

BFI National Film Centre gets the green light
 
DCMS pledges £45 million capital spend
 
* Everyone in Britain to benefit from new centre for film
* Visionary new digital hub you can plug into from home
 
The BFI announces today that it is proceeding with its
plan to build a visionary new film centre on London's South
Bank. The decision to move forward comes as the Culture
Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, announced a £45 million capital
investment from Government in the project.
 
The BFI¹s ambition is to create a world-leading centre for
the study, enjoyment and celebration of film and television.
The money pledged from Government follows an earlier
investment promise of £5 million in the project from the
London Mayor through the LDA. It secures the next phase of
the project which is to design and planning, and will go
towards helping fund the construction of the new centre
which is to be developed on the site of Hungerford car park.
 
Amanda Nevill, director of the BFI, said:
 
"This is hugely exciting news for film culture in Britain, for
the whole of the British film industry and a positive turning
point in the history of the BFI. Film is one of the greatest art
forms of today and universally popular. It is also a British
success story - London and the UK are at the centre of
the global film industry.
 
We will be creating something that doesn't exist anywhere
else in the world, precisely because we can. It will build on
the BFI's 75 year legacy, bringing together the greatest
collections of film on earth with all the excitement and
stimulation of emerging cinema into the most creative and
inclusive programmes. It will be a digital hub, working with
partners across the UK to share and exchange those
programmes. We are a step closer in our ambition to inspire
and excite audiences everywhere in a new digital
Britain."
 
John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council which
funds the BFI, said:
 
"This is a key milestone on the road towards the UK Film
Council and the BFI's shared objective of transforming the
cultural film offering to UK citizens in the digital age.
Not only will film now have a fitting home on the best arts
campus in the world, but the development will use digital to
open up the archive and all the other film treasures that the
BFI holds for the benefit of everyone in the UK."

IPR toolkits

The Strategic Content Alliance has brought together the references for its IPR toolkits, here.

These include information

for archivists and librarians & digitisation project leaders

for Human Resources staff

for Senior Managers

European orphan works

Orphan works - Public Hearing organized by the European Commission
26 October 2009, Brussels

The European Commission will convene a public hearing on orphan works. The aim of this hearing is to gather further evidence on orphan works and how their digitisation and dissemination can best be managed in full respect of copyright rules. This hearing will be a follow-up to the Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy (COM(2008) 466/3).

The hearing is scheduled to take place on October 26, 2009, at the Albert Borschette Centre, 36 rue Froissart, 1049 Brussels, from 9.30 to 17.00.

The hearing will be organised in three panels and chaired by the European Commission. Each panel will comprise six panellists. Each panellist will present a short statement. After the statements, a substantive debate with the audience is foreseen.

PANEL 1: Orphan works – Challenges and opportunities
PANEL 2: How to best recognise “orphan status”
PANEL 3: Should orphan works be subject to a licence or remuneration?
Attached: Provisional AGENDA

Practical arrangements
Registrations for the hearing should reach the following address: markt-d1 [at] ec.europa.eu

The maximum number of participants is limited to 80. Therefore, registrations will be accepted in the order in which they are received, although priority will be given to those with a direct interest in the subject. Should the number of registrations exceed the number of available places, the organisers reserve the right to limit the attendance to one person per organisation.

More information here.

Pioneers of the BBC sound archives

Interesting background on the BBC sound archives, including some sound samples. On the BBC Internet Blog

New film festival - Wales

The Denbigh film festival opens at the totally refurbished Theatr Twm o'r Nant on Friday morning. The festival makes very heavy use of films from the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales.

The festival is supported by the Film Agency for Wales.

The festival is organised by the Denbigh FIlm Club.

What's new in digital preservation?

Latest news via the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC).

"What's New is a summary of selected recent activity in the field of digital preservation. The latest issue has been compiled by Najla Semple and reviewed by PADI, The National Library of Australia for the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). Items are compiled from the Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Gateway and the digital-preservation and padiforum-l mailing lists, although additional or related items of interest may also be included.

Issue 21 features news from a range of organisations and initiatives, including the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), Digital Curation Centre (DCC), JISC (UK), The British Library (BL), PLANETS (Preservation and Long-term Access through Networked Services), The Library of Congress and the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIPP), The National Archives (TNA, UK), Nestor (Network of Expertise in Long-term Storage of Digital Information Resources) and the Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation."

Latest film heritage news from EU

A few new posts on the EU audiovisual policies site.

CASPAR digital music preservation

Videos relating to digital preservation of music (note, these videos are on the front page, and will possibly be replaced with other videos in time).

Film Preservation in the U.S.

National Film Preservation Foundation Report to the U.S. Congress (EoY 2008) - pdf file.

News from Planets

NEW VERSIONS of the Planets brochure
and product specification are available
to download now from the Planets website.
The new brochure and product specification
introduce and describe Planets suite of
technology and updateprevious versions
released during the first year of the project.

Tools and services for digital preservation here (somewhere).

Sound Internships at the BL

Sound archiving internships 2009-2010

The British Library is pleased to announce four additional sound archiving internships for 2009-2010.

The internships are aimed at those wanting to develop a comprehensive understanding of technical skills and are open to individuals who wish to improve their practical skills and who work in an institution that has the responsibility for the archiving of audiovisual materials. Successful candidates will be selected in part on the basis of their ability to demonstrate the benefits of the internship to their professional development.

The internships will take place at the British Library’s flagship site in central London. Each internship runs for a period of ten weeks; two internships will start in January 2010 and two will start in April 2010.

Interns will not receive any remuneration such as a living allowance or bursary so are required to meet their own living, accommodation and personal travel expenses. Interns are also responsible for making their own travel arrangements.

The internships combine training along with project work. A series of training modules will be offered on working with different audio carriers, and will include an introduction to the basics of audio theory, archiving standards and protocols and documentation. The project work is based upon existing audio collections held in the British Library. Please note that each intern will be supervised by a British Library archivist throughout their internship and work will be monitored on a regular basis.

Jonathan Draper, archivist at the Norfolk Record Office who completed his sound archiving internship in 2009, said: “The internship has given me the wonderful opportunity to have the time to focus on best practice in sound archiving. The experience has given me courage in my convictions and confirmed that a lot of what I am doing is right, whilst suggesting areas of improvement.”

All the details here.

Take a break

Tatws will be unusually quiet for a couple of weeks, as he takes a break from gleaning snippets of archives related news.