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preservation > images
For Students:
Fall 2014 - Tuesdays 6-10pm, 721 Broadway, Rm 674

Introduction to Moving Image Archiving and Preservation H72.1800

Syllabus 3.0
(also see Fall 2005 or  Fall 2006  or Fall 2007 or Fall 2008 or Fall 2009  or Fall 2010  or Fall 2013 syllabus)

(make sure you are viewing the latest version of the syllabus, which is always at
http://miap.hosting.nyu.edu/program/14fall/intro-syllabus14.shtml )

Instructor: Howard Besser         Office Hours: Tu 4:15-5:45 PM, 665 Broadway, rm 612, and by appointment
Course Description:  This graduate-level course introduces and contextualizes aspects of the archiving and preservation of film, video, and new media.  We will consider the moving image and sound recording media as material objects, as technologies with histories.  We will contextualize them within culture, politics, industries, and economics. Topics include: conservation and preservation principles, organization and access, restoration, collecting, curatorship, and programming, legal issues and copyright, and emerging issues in digital media.    

Designed for students entering the profession of moving image archiving, the course examines the history of archiving and preservation and the development of the field�s theories, practices, and professional identities.  We will consider the tasks and areas of specialization practiced by moving image professionals and how these are changing and multiplying in the digital era.   

Required readings:  There is no single book, or even set of books, for this multiperspectival, interdisciplinary field and course.  The book that should start out the course is out of print:

 � Penelope Houston, Keepers of the Frame:  The Film Archives (BFI, 1994)  [one at Bobst Library, TR886.3 H68]  (& a PDF file of part of the book will be online at the NYU Classes site)

          The other readings will be essays and documents handed out in class or (most often) made available in digital form (available through links on the course website or PDF files on the NYU Classes site; and electronic library documents via Bobst Library portals).  The U.S. national plans for television/video and film preservation are on-line, as are NFPF publications.  We will also read articles from the AMIA journal, The Moving Image.  Many back issues are available to you in HTML and PDF formats via Project Muse (see Bobst Library databases).   Your heaviest period for readings and other assignments will be the month of October, so it would be in your best interest to read ahead.

            Note:  Some readings (ie those in the "Restricted" directory on Howard's website) may only be available if you have authenticated through the NYU domain.  If you are using another ISP, you must either run a proxy server or be on campus to access these documents.  Please make sure you keep copies for yourself when any electronic versions are required reading.  Keep them handy for marking, reviewing.

       �NYU Classes� � This online resource will host some of the course documents. Access NYU Classes with a valid NYU Net ID and password through the NYU Classes list at NYUHome (https://home.nyu.edu).   Click on the �Academics� tab, then click on the course link in the list provided.  If the class link does not appear in your list, try clicking the "Update Classes Information" link at the bottom of the channel.  Help is at ITS Client Services (212) 998-3333, or through the NYU Classes Help page.  Most of the readings that are not available on the open Web are available in the "Documents and Readings" section of our NYU Classes site.  Note:  The list of required readings is always on your syllabus.  The syllabus should be your guide to what you need to do, and sometimes the links on the syllabus are to the latest versions of readings (where the NYU Classes site contains older versions).  There are many readings on the NYU Classes site that are only recommended (not necessarily required).

Objectives:  After completing the course you should be able to  �

  • understand professional protocols of moving image archivists;
  • define the key concepts in moving images preservation, conservation, restoration, access, research, education, and use;
  • participate in debates about moving image preservation and archiving;
  • discuss ways in which practices of archiving affect the writing of history and the production of media;
  • assess the curatorial needs of collections, materials, and institutions;
  • articulate access policies and procedures;
  • demonstrate familiarity with key copyright issues;
  • describe principles and philosophies of audio-visual archiving, including ethical concerns, collection issues,
  • demonstrate knowledge of different types of institutions relevant to professional archivists, including private, public, governmental, commercial, local, regional and national archives, as well as museums, libraries, digital repositories, galleries, broadcasters, cinematheques, laboratories, schools, and others. 

Requirements:  Course grades [A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D, F] will be determined by performance in the following areas. MIAP students must earn a grade a B or better to advance. 

Attendance and Participation (25%)  Attend all meetings of the course.  Participate actively in all discussions. 
Participation will also measured by your completion of short assignments given occasionally (such as a report on Committee meetings from the AMIA Conference).  These required short assignments will be announced throughout the semester.  Most will consist of a brief written response (ca. 500-words), sometimes due a week after its assignment.  All assignments and readings will be listed on the syllabus on the date due, so be sure to scan ahead on the syllabus.
You must also monitor the electronic discussion supervised by the Association for Moving Image Archivists (AMIA-L).  

Group Research report (25%)  Research and write a report on a single piece of under-researched film or video.  You and one to three other classmates will be provided an access copy of an original item about which little is known.  Studying the film�s content, historical context, archival and material conditions, your group will compose a written report assessing the piece�s significance and, depending on the work and where it comes from, you might also recommend a preservation and presentation plan.  Your group will also have to present this as an oral class presentation on Oct 22.

Proposal  (10%)  A proposal for your final project, including preliminary research bibliography and a prospectus.  Due via email by Oct 11.  (3-4 pages). 

Individual Final project  (40%)  A substantive, in-depth, individual research project.  Integrate archival research with one or more set of moving image materials (or related materials, such as audio, photographic or paper documents), or develop an essay and documentation on an archival project stemming from issues in the course.  This project will have a written component (due Dec 10), plus you will be graded on your class presentation of your project during the final class session.
            The topic of your final project must be approved before submitting a formal proposal.  You will receive an additional list of possible projects, but you may also propose a project of your own invention.  Look at the MIAP web site to see projects that students have done previously.  The best projects tend to work with available primary materials. 
            Some general options to consider include:

  • Research and write a plan for a film or video that needs preservation and/or restoration.  This might include a combination of the following:  locate existing elements and prints, identify differences between extant copies, do interviews and historical research about the production and post-production, create a budget for restoration.
  • Examine the various ways that are recommended for how people should create citations to digital media. In the same way that scholars cite something on a particular page of a book, scholars should also be able to cite a particular place in a digital media object. Write a paper that examines both the style guide recommendations (APA, MLA, Chicago Manual of Style) and how a variety of streaming media sites link to a particular timecode within a work. The results in your paper will hopefully serve as a starting point for a project to standardize the way that these works are cited.
  • Write an essay comparing two archival institutions of differing types (e.g., a public library and a state archive or historical society).  Analyze how institutional differences affect moving image archival practice (acquisition, cataloging, access, preservation).
  • Plan an exhibition series for historic moving image material. Select the works to show, check print and date availability, write program notes, plan a publicity campaign, coordinate with tie-in activities or events, ...
  • Do intensive research on an elderly media artist.  Develop a set of questions getting to the heart of what they have done and how they did it.  Perform and record an oral history with them (minimum of 2 hours, but could be in multiple sittings).  Edit and index the oral history, and put it online.
  • Your project might also lead to a thesis project if it�s expandable.  Or your final Intro course project might also grown out of the first research report you do with a classmate.
  • list of other possibilities from previous years
---------------

Sept 2 Introduction to Entire Class (week 1)

Topics covered:
  • What is this class about?  (non-MIAP students should pay more attention to both the "Professional Organizations" reading next week, and should read notes on academic programs; MIAP students will get more details on these in Internship class and in Orientation)
  • How to read the syllabus; discussion of assignments
  • Possible date changes
  • Films/Videos/DVD clips on the act of moving image preservation, as well as how preserved material is reused and represented in different ways
    • -42 2013 (DVD)
    • -Nobody's Business 1996 (VHS)
    • -Arms of Strangers-Kindertransport 2000 (DVD)
    • -JFK 1991 (DVD)
    • -Zelig 1983 (DVD)
    • -Capturing the Friedmans 2003 (DVD)
    • -Out Foxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism 2004 (DVD)
    • -Lost Horizon 1937 (DVD)
    • -Metropolis 1927 (DVD)
    • -Big Sleep 1946 (DVD)
    • -Pompidou Center videos

    • -Drone's eye view of earthquake damage, CNN, Aug 25, 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2xEWOHSW4U)

    • - After Police Abuses Caught on Video, a New Guide Teaches How to Best Archive and Distribute Footage,  DemocracyNow! Aug 28, 2014,  (http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/28/after_police_abuses_caught_on_video )

    • -Tribulation 99 1992 (video)
    • Jib-Jab's Time for Campaignin'  (2008)
  • Who has taken on the responsibility for moving image and sound preservation?
  • What are the issues involved in making visual materials persist over time? How do we decide which materials should persist over time?
  • What are some of the organizations that hold moving image and sound material? (Film Studios, TV stations, large public film & television archives, media preservation depts. w/i larger collecting institutions, small non-profits preserving their own media, ...)
  • What are some of the Professional Organizations that Moving Image Archivists belong to? And at what conferences can one learn about professional issues? (AMIA, FIAF, FIAT, AIC, AAM, MCN, SMPTE, ALA, Orphans, SCMS)
  • What are basic functions? (identification, selection [of both "content" and equipment], appraisal, ...)
  • What are the various professional practices that moving image archiving and preservation professionals draw from? (cataloging, reference, exhibition, fundraising, budgeting, management, ...)
  • What are the various roles or tasks we are responsible for?
  • What are the structures like of film and other moving image works?
  • lecture notes 
  • News

Sept 9 Modes and Artifacts of Moving Image Production: Video, Audio, and New Media; Issues of Risk Assessment with all forms of Moving Image Works (week 2)

Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
  • Who makes/has made new media? What artifacts exist as a result of the production? What gets saved and is lost?
  • Knowing more about film/video/sound/new media artifacts, what does that tell you about risks to the materials? What about their needs for description and care?
  • New Media

Sept 16 Modes & Artifacts of Moving Image Production: General Discussion & Film, Basic Distribution Issues (week 3)

Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
  • What artifacts exist as a result of the production? What gets saved and what gets lost? Knowing production process can aid identification. Detective work and how ancillary materials are both cultural artifacts and clues. Sources for gauges & types of moving image material.
  • Begin discussion of identification of different formats and gages of video and film, as well as when they evolved.  Who makes/has made moving image and sound material? Different eras, modes of production have different artifacts. Role of manufacturers and information industries.
  • Materiality and Deterioration of Film/Video 
  • News Articles
    • Discussing Online �Right to Be Forgotten,� Google Takes European Privacy Tour to Spain, NY Times, Sep 10, 2014
    • Haskell Wexler video interview, James Foley, Four Days in Chicago, August 22, 2014

Sept 23   Collections Management: Issues and Approaches; Issues around Access (week 4)

Assignments due before class:
  • Select 1 title from the filmography in The Field Guide to Sponsored Films that is also available at the Internet Archive (archive.org).  Briefly, compare the data/metadata found in the Field Guide for that title to the information about that title found at archive.org.  View the moving image version of the title you find there. 
    www.archive.org/details/movies.  Note any significant or surprising differences between the Field Guide entry and the movie itself. 
  • Read:
    • �Preservation without access is pointless.� Statement by The Committee For Film Preservation and Public Access before The National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, Los Angeles, California, February 12, 1993 [on NYU Classes]
    • Besser, Howard. �Future Trends in Library Video & Film Collections� in Video Collection Management & Development. Gary Handman, ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.

      http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Papers/Restricted/handman.html [Accessed 19 Aug 2013]


    • Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development launched, August 18, 2014, International Federation of Library Associations and read the Declaration itself 
    • Loe, Nancy E. "Avoiding the Golden Fleece: Licensing Agreements for Archives," The American Archivist 67:1 (Spring/Summer 2004): 58�77.
    • Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: an introduction. Read Chapters 1-3 (pages 3-88). [also on NYU Classes as chapters 1-3]
    • This week is Banned Book Week.  Look over ALA's website (http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek), and particularly the list of Banned & Challenged Classics (http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics)  The theme this year is "Celebrating the Freedom to Read."
    • Laura Miller.  The trouble with Google Books: How rampant errors threaten the scholarly mission of the vast digital library, Salon, Sept 9, 2010 (be sure to hit the "continue reading" button)
    • JISC (UK).  Metadata and Digital Images 
    • Position Paper On Conservation & Preservation In Collecting Institutions
    • Whitson, Helene and Gerry Yeager, "Arrangement and Description" in Steven Davidson and Gregory Lukow, The Administration of Television Newsfilm and Videotape Collections: A Curatorial Manual, Los Angeles: American Film Institute (1997), p. 127 - 148.
    • Annette Melville, ed., "Film Handling", The Film Preservation Guide, San Francisco: The Film Preservation Foundation, 2004, pp 19-33.
    • Newborg, Gerald G., "A Case Study: Newsfilm Preservation Project at The State Historical Society of North Dakota" in Steven Davidson and Gregory Lukow, The Administration of Television Newsfilm and Videotape Collections: A Curatorial Manual, Los Angeles: American Film Institute (1997), p. 59 - 68.
  • Further Readings
Topics covered:
  • Discussion of Final Projects
  • Appraisal, selection, description, sorting, organizing
  • Risk Management discussion
  • What is the impact of appraisal and selection (or the lack thereof) on what gets preserved?
  • What are practices for tracking information about moving images?
  • What are other typical tasks in collection management of archival collections?
  • How might they differ for moving image/sound materials and other materials such as paper or photographs?
  • Reference and Access Issues
    • Types of access to collections: physical, digital, intellectual
    • Institutional types of repositories and access policies
    • Relationship between preservation and access
    • History and ethics of access
    • Access policies and services
      • Types of repositories and their access protocols
      • History of film archives� access philosophies
      • Access conditions in donor agreements
      • Establishing policies and fee structures
    • Kinds of reference services
    • The researcher interview process
  • News Articles & topical events

Sept 30  Collecting in Context: Theoretical Underpinnings (week 5)

Assignments due before class:
  • Proposal for Final Project  due via email Oct 11
  • Read:
    • Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland. Enduring Paradigm, New Opportunities: The Value of the Archival Perspective in the Digital Environment , Council on Library & Information Resources, pub89, pp 1-16 [document pages 1-16, not Acrobat pages 1-16]
    • Belk, Russell W. "A Brief History of Collecting," in Collecting in Consumer Society. New York: Routledge, 1995, pages 22-64
    • Benjamin, Walter. "Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting." Illuminations. Ed. and intro. by Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969, pp 59-67
    • Pearce, Susan M. "Collecting Processes," in On Collecting: An Investigation into collecting in the European tradition . New York: Routledge, 1995, pages 3-35
    • Jean Baudrillard�s "The System of Collecting." In John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds., Cultures of Collecting, pp. 7-24. London: Reaktion, 1994, translated by Roger Cardinal.
    • Further Readings
      • Pierre Bourdieu, "Editor's Introduction: Pierre Bourdieu on Art Literature and Culture" in The field of cultural production: essays on art and literature, Cambridge: Polity, 1993
      • Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (Oxford University Press, 2001)
      • Buckland, Michael. (1997) What is a Document?", Journal of the American Society for Information Science 48 (9), pp. 804-809
      • Harrison, Helen P. (ed.). Audiovisual Archives. A practical reader for the AV Archivists. 1997
      • Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Illuminations. Ed. and intro. by Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969, pp 217-251
      • John Berger. Ways of Seeing , New York: Viking, 1972
      • Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett "Objects of Ethnography" in Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine (eds.) Exhibiting Cultures:  The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington: Smithsonian Press, 1991, pp 386-443
      • Pearce, Susan M. "Collecting in Time" in On Collecting: An Investigation into collecting in the European tradition. New York: Routledge, 1995 pages 235-254
      • Drucker, Johanna. "The Codex and Its Variations." The Century of Artists' Books. New York: Granary Books, 1997. 121-59
Topics covered:
  • Discussion of Final Projects
  • Release yesterday of IASA TC05 (NYU Classes)
  • Collection Management (continued)
    • Continuation of  Metadata Talk and Metadata Issues
    • Archival Arrangement--maintaining original order, context, relationships
    • Metadata Standards (EAD, Dublin Core, MARC)
  • Appraisal, selection, description, sorting, organizing
  • Risk Management discussion
  • Why do we collect?
  • Extensive questions to ponder
    • Issues of evidence and authenticity
    • Issues of representation
    • Who collects what? for whom? and why?  How do collections define their collectors?  How have museums influenced colonialism, nationalism, and taxonomies (categories) of knowledge?  What kinds of interdependence exists between institutions of collecting and certain methodological goals of art history and anthropology?  How can we learn to read exhibits critically?  What is a �rhetoric� or �poetics� of display?  Why do people keep personal collections of objects?  How do ethnicities and genders appear--or disappear--in museum contexts?  How do museums also function to support a local community memory and history?  How do artists view museums as social institutions?  How can we imagine collecting practices and museums in the future? How can the history of collecting be read as an interdisciplinary intellectual practice?
    • Why do we need museums?  What should  they look like? Why do we collect things? What kinds of museums and collections  might we have in the future?  What role might electronic media play in the  rethinking of the museum?  Would changes in museum practice necessitate changes  in the disciplines of art history and anthropology?
    • How are moving images and sound part of the larger visual culture and ways of looking and seeing? How does our understanding of visual culture impact our role in moving image archiving and preservation?
    • How do reformatting and multiple formats of the same work change how we look at a work? (e.g., are videos the same as films? Are digital photographs the same as analog photos?)
    • Is there a social context to viewing an object? (is viewing a video at home the same as viewing a film in a theater? Is viewing a mural on a screen the same as viewing it in-situ?)
    • Who attributes value to a work, and under what circumstances? How does one deal with the different values that different communities may have towards any particular set of works?
    • Are there ethical considerations in format conversions (e.g., film colorization, pan-and-scan?)

Oct 7  Film Artifact & Preservation Issues; Moving Image Reference and Access Issues (week 6)

Assignments due before class
  • Read:
    • Access & Reference Issues:
      • �Media Research Resources.� Compiled by Nancy Goldman at Pacific Film Archive, with some additions by Linda Tadic.  [on NYU Classes]
      • Prelinger, Rick. �Archives and Access in the 21st Century,� in Cinema Journal 46:3, Spring 2007 pages 114 � 118. [on NYU Classes]
      • Bottomore, Stephen. "A Critical View of Some Major Libraries: The Perspective of an Early Cinema Historian," The Moving Image 4:2 (Fall 2004): 87�110. [on NYU Classes]
      • Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: an introduction. Chapters 4-5:  Organization of Information and Search Strategies; Electronic Resources for Reference (p. 95-159). [also on NYU Classes as chapters 4-5]
      • Handman, Gary.  �License to Look: evolving models for video acquisition and access�, Library Trends, vol. 58, no. 3, Winter 2010 [on NYU Classes
      • Moving Image Archive at Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/movies [Accessed Sept. 2, 2013]
    • Gracy, Karen. "Documenting the Process of Film Preservation", The Moving Image 3:1 (Spring 2003), pp 1-41
    • Read, Paul and Mark-Paul Meyer. "Introduction to the Restoration of Motion Picture Film" and "Menschen am Sonntag--a Reconstruction and Documentation Case Study", Restoration of Motion Picture Film, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000, pp 1-5 and pp 231-241
    • Gartenberg, Jon, "The Fragile Emulsion", The Moving Image 2:2 (Fall 2002), pp 142-152
    • Frye, Brian. "The Accidental Preservationist: An Interview with Bill Brand", Film History 15:2 (2003), p 214 [reprinted in MIAP's co-publication -- Andrew Lampert (ed)  Results you can't refuse: celebrating 30 years of BB Optics, New York: Anthology Film Archive, 2006  http://miap.hosting.nyu.edu/research/bboptics/ ]
  • Recommended
Topics covered:
  • Knowing more about film artifacts, what does that tell you about risks to the material? What about its needs for description and care?
  • What are some of the major issues with film preservation?
  • Access & Reference Issues:
    • Areas of research conducted in moving image, audio, and digital media
    • Online and print resources for research--Types of resources (biographical, film indexes, union catalogs, almanacs, periodical indexes, trades, dictionaries, encyclopedias, review compilations)
    • Online sources
      • Electronic search and search strategies
      • Electronic information systems and search protocols
      • Issues in Internet access: keyword vs fielded search; the deep Web
      • Online catalogs
    • Access to digital moving images
      • Digitization projects
      • Born digital
      • Web access vs traditional access
  • Show video from Film Technology; DVDs from ColorLab and LaboCine
  • Upcoming assignment: Watch at least one of Alan Berliner's films--on reserve in Cinema Studies Study Center (or get it on NetFlix or some other on-demand service)
  • Assignment for AMIA conference
    • All students going to AMIA conference must attend an AMIA Task Force or Committee meeting and give a presentation on this to class
  • News Articles & topical events

Oct 14  Personal Archiving, Community Archiving; The Curating Process  (week 7)---"Optional" Class

Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
  • Curating Process
  • Repurposing, DVDs--look at Lost Horizon
  • Obtaining moving image materials:
    • How does one find moving image collections? (Moving Image Gateway Project)
    • What are sources for clips? Universal, Movieclips.com, Warner, Getty.   For ancillary materials?
  • What are issues for historical research and reconstruction?
  • How are moving images and sound part of the larger visual culture and ways of looking and seeing? How does our understanding of visual culture impact our role in moving image archiving and preservation?
  • Student reports from AMIA Conference
  • Note: Saturday Oct 18 is Home Movie Day at Gun Hill Brewing Company in the Bronx

Oct 21  Video & Audio Preservation Issues (week 8)
Assignments due before class
Topics covered:
  • Continued student reports from AMIA Conference
  • Reports from Home Movie Day
  • Howard's report from AMIA
  • Research Report presentations
    • From a prevous year:  Aaark! Something About Communication  (part 1)   (part 2)
  • Discussion of World Audiovisual Heritage Day
  • This is Open Access Week 
  • Sound
  • Tape Cleaning
  • "Playback" DVD
  • What are some of the major issues with video and sound preservation?
  • What are typical approaches to caring for and preserving video and sound?
  • What is the effect of digital formats and digitization on media preservation?
  • Knowing more about video/sound artifacts, what does that tell you about risks to the material? What about its needs for description and care?
  • News articles
    • 2014

Oct 28 New Media & Digital Preservation Issues, Digital Public Television Preservation; Digital vs Analog Cinema (week 9)

Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
  • recap of WAVHD
  • Catch-up from previous weeks (Metadata, risk management, authenticity, ethics, Personal Archiving & Community Archiving, film artifacts and risks)
  • Introduction to both NYU/Public Television preservation project and Video At Risk
  • Preserving Digital Public Television, and the American Archive
    Knowing more about digital media artifacts, what does that tell you about risks to the material? What about its needs for description and care?
  • What are some of the major issues with new media preservation?
  • What are the major issues facing moving image and sound archivists in the "digital age"?
  • What are some of the practicalities that preservationists must address?
  • What theories and predictions are being advanced?
  • Does this evidential value change when materials are reformatted?What are the advantages and disadvantages of keeping different versions of materials?
  • What is different between the preservation needs of material that is "born digital" and that which has been digitized?
  • Is it possible to preserve digital materials unchanged?
  • What are the strengths and limitations of the various proposed methods of digital preservation for different uses of cultural materials?
  • As the digital world moves toward multiple uses and viewing works from different angles, how does this affect notions of context and its preservation?
  • How do digital objects challenge traditional archival notions of evidence?  Can ways be found to authenticate digital works, and track provenance and versioning?
  • Documentaries, Actuality Footage, media art, installation art, performance art
  • Documentation, treatment
  • Note: On Nov 4 we will meet at 6:10 in Alan Berliner's Tribecca studio.  Make sure that you show up there rather than in our regular classroom.  And take a look at his website  beforehand to get an idea of the kinds of films he makes.
  • News Articles

Nov 4   Film Artifact & Preservation Issues; A/V as Research Data  (week 10)

  • Assignments due before class
    • Meet at 6:10PM on street in front of Alan Berliner's Tribecca studio (13 Vestry St, enter off of Hudson St just south of Canal)
    • Watch at least one of Alan's films--on reserve in Cinema Studies Study Center (or get it on NetFlix or some other on-demand service)
    • Look over www.alanberliner.com,
      including bio, resume, etc.
    • read Philip Lopate�s �American Family Life Wittily Revealed,� New York Times, Jan. 12, 1997
Topics covered:

Nov 11  Perspectives on Collecting, Preservation, & Conservation (week 11)

Assignments due before class
Topics covered:
  • Catch-up from previous weeks
  • Ethics
    • What are the basic guiding principles of conservation/preservation coming from different professions and/or communities? How were they shaped?
    • How have they been utilized and/or affected by moving image and recorded sound materials, through such factors as multiple copies, "born digital" formats, and changing definitions of appropriate archival mediums?
    • What are some of the issues that the archive, conservation, library and independent preservation communities are addressing with regard to moving image and sound preservation?
    • What are the role(s) of a moving image specialist in relation to other professionals caring for moving images and sound collections?
    • Ray Edmundson, in Audiovisual archiving: Philosophy and Principles, proposes that moving image archiving is evolving as a synthesis of other archiving and preservation practices. What are the pros and cons of such an approach? What would be aspects of this synthesis from various professions?
    • What are ethical considerations are fundamental to our work as moving image archiving and preservation specialists?
  • Where do "de facto" archives - those organizations with important materials but untrained as preservationists - fit?
  • What is the role of producers in preservation practice?
  • Different NYU projects:
    • Merce Cunningham project
    • NYU IMLS project to improve 21st Century job situation for Moving Image Professionals within Libraries
    • NYU Mellon Video at Risk project to research uniqueness and need for preservation within circulating library moving image collections
    • NYU Mellon Project to archive websites including streaming media content
  • issue of opportunistic collection development
  • from group history projects: This field isn't old enough to have a large established literature.  Most projects need to go through iterative, and change direction based upon how much info may be available
  • Panofsky, Shatford/Layne--pre-iconographic/Iconographic/Iconological (see JISC's Approaches to Describing Images)
  • Repurposing, DVDs--look at Lost Horizon
  • News

Nov 18  Collecting Institutions: History & Culture of Museums, Archives, Libraries, & Other Repositories  (week 12)

Assignments due before class:
  • Read:
    • Mann, Sarah Ziebell. "The Evolution of American Moving Image Preservation: Defining the Preservation Landscape (1967-1977)", The Moving Image 1:2 (Fall 2001), pp 1-20
    • Magliozzi, Ronald. "Film Archiving as a Profession: An Interview with Eileen Bowser", The Moving Image 3:1 (Spring 2003), pp 132-146
    • Edmondson, Ray. "You Only Live Once: On Being a Troublemaking Professional", The Moving Image 2:1 (Spring 2002), pp 175-183
    • Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel ,  from Labyrinths (or The Book of Sand) (see review  )
    • Besser, Howard (1997). The Changing Role of Photographic Collections with the Advent of Digitization , in Katherine Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington: American Association of Museums, pages 115-127.
      • Further Readings:
    • "Why Ethics?" in Marie Malaro, Museum Governance: Mission, Ethics, Policy, pages 16-21
    • "Controlled Collecting: Drafting a Collection Management Policy" in Marie Malaro, Museum Governance: Mission, Ethics, Policy , pages 43-49
    • O'Toole, James. (1990) "The History of the Archives Profession." In Understanding Archives and Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists., pp. 27-47
    • Douglas, Mary. (1986) "Institutions Cannot Have Minds of Their Own." In How Institutions Think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, pp 9-19
    • Jane R. Glaser with Artemis A. Zenetou, "Museum Professional Positions: Qualifications, Duties, and Responsibilities," Museums: A Place to Work: Planning Museum Careers (London; New York: Routledge, 1996), 65-125
    • Libbie Rifkin, (2001) "Association/Value: Creative Collaborations in the Library ", RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2:2
    • News
Topics covered:

***Nov 25  No Class (enjoy Thanksgiving)

Dec 2 Copyright, Legal Issues, & Policy (week 13)

Assignments due before class:
Topics covered:
  • Discussion & logistics for final projects (10-15 min formal presentation, slides, on-time)
  • Issues of term, territory, and market
  • What are some of the practices with regard to copyright, ownership, licensing, and the use of "talent" or footage that are part of the history of a particular form of production or genre of work?
  • What are some of the recent or anticipated changes in the legal arena that affect moving image/sound preservation or use?
  • Effects of copyright on preservation and programming
  • Avoidance of intellectual property issues
  • Fair Use guidelines
  • How do intellectual property issues affect preservation, access, and use of visual materials ? (e.g., the implications of the digital millennium copyright act?
  • Complexity of underlying rights
  • Other legal issues
  • Policy issues
  • Future of Cinema
  • News Articles

Dec 9 Final Classroom Presentations (week 14)

Assignments due before class:
  • Present your final project to the rest of the class.  (Arrive promptly and be prepared to stay late so that everyone can present.)  We will only have 10-15 minutes for each presentation (including questions and discussion)
Topics covered:
  • Final Individual presentations
  • Course Evaluations
  • News articles & Events
    • xxx
Curation (not covered in Intro class this year)



Other Information

MIAP Digital Archive:  In addition to any paper or other materials that must be submitted for a course project, all MIAP course projects will be submitted with accompanying electronic copies.  The �e-versions� will be made part of the MIAP digital archive.  Provide all files with (1) a MIAP Submission Form and (2) file names that follow MIAP Digital Archive file-naming guidelines (which can be found at http://miap.hosting.nyu.edu/handbook.html#E10).  Identify on the Submission Form any content that might require access restrictions. 

Plagiarism Advisory:

Plagiarism and other violations of the University�s published policies are serious offenses and will be punished severely.  Plagiarism includes presenting or paraphrasing a phrase, sentence, or passage of a published work (including material from the World-Wide Web) in a paper or exam answer without quotation marks and attribution of the source, submitting your own original work toward requirements in more than one class without the prior permission of the instructors, submitting a paper written by someone else, submitting as your own work any portion of a paper or research that you purchased from another person or commercial firm, and presenting in any other way the work, ideas, data, or words of someone else without attribution. These are punishable offenses whether intended or unintended (e.g., occurs through poor citations or confusion about how to reference properly).
           
You are encouraged to read additional texts and to discuss the issues of this course and your papers with others; but if you use ideas that come from others, you must acknowledge their help.  It is always better to err on the side of acknowledging other people than to fail to do so.  

Other offenses against academic integrity include: collaborating with others on assignments without the express permission of the instructor, giving your work to another student to submit as his/her own, copying answers from another student or source materials during examinations, secreting or destroying library or reference materials. . If you have any questions about how to cite sources, what constitutes appropriate use of a text, or other matters of academic integrity, please discuss them with your course instructor. 

Anyone caught plagiarizing will fail the course.  In addition, violations of academic integrity, including plagiarism, call for disciplinary action through the University. 


Moving Image Archiving and Preservation - Department of Cinema Studies - 721 Broadway, Room 600 New York NY 10003

+1 212 998 1600 phone +1 212 995 4061 fax tisch.preservation@nyu.edu

Department of Cinema Studies - Tisch School of the Arts - New York University