Co-operation for Improvement and Survival

FIAT/IFTA took one step in that direction a few years ago by forming a new work group - the Programming and Production Commission. One of the obvious activities is the FIAT/IFTA Television Archives Award. Another one, not as striking, but not less important, is the idea of an exchange of media archivists/archive editors between organisations. By linking archives in this way FIAT/IFTA hopes to create a network of valuable informal contacts.

Expanding Knowledge

My first question was how he in the first place ended up in Stockholm.

- I have a position at SÙdwestfunk as something like an intermediate between the television archive and the production departments. I mainly do research for the programme Report, an investigative current affairs magazine. But I am also responsible for supplying the archive with the documentation relating to the actual broadcast of this programme.

- Since I felt I needed to widen my experiences, especially on a European level, I discussed the idea of getting some kind of trainee position outside Germany with my archive manager Wolfgang Dehn. He immediately suggested this solution. Since he is a member of the Executive Council of FIAT/IFTA I guess it was quite obvious; and he of course knew about the exchange that had already taken place between SVT and ORF in Austria last year.

Asked if this stay had been worthwhile he concluded that it had definitely been of great value to him personally. But he underline that it had also supplied new and valuable knowledge for his daily work. Another - unexpected - discovery was a new view of his own organisation, through differences and similarities between the two TV companies. He was sure the experience would bring new energy to his work at home.

- I will definitely bring back to SWF the SVT archives idea of collecting as much digitised information on a programme as possible for the catalogue at the primary source - the production team itself. I agree that the cataloguer's work in the future will be more of rewriting, quality checking and indexing already written information. The lack of cataloguing resources is something TV archives have in common. The SVT concept which will set free time for more research and training of production staff in delivering better catalogue information sounds very interesting.

- Another thing I want to bring back to SWF is the many different activities you have for marketing the archives both within the SVT and to the audience.

The first week at the Archive he spent trying to get an overview of the work process, both at the television archive and the historical press photo library. During his time with the Customer Service he had to learn to use editing tables and search the archive database. I take it as a certificate of a good user interface and structure of the database that he after short training could find important material to bring back home.

Networking - The Way Forward

- I was really happy to get that response from SVT. In the work as a researcher for an investigative magazine traditional database searchingis not enough. Getting the opportunity to extend ones personal network is invaluable. I know that from my work within the ARD - the co-operative body of German public service broadcasters. Now I can have a European, and even Global perspective through FIAT. - When working for "Strip Tease" I was able to help them establish some contacts with editorial staff working in the investigative programming area in Europe. Since programming in this area is getting more and more expensive, I think it is important to find new levels of co-operation, ranging from informal networks between researchers to the exchange of programmes. It is especially important considering that we often share the same problems in the Europe of today. One interesting area for investigative programming is the agricultural politics in Europe.

After my discussion with Lutz I phoned Roger Jansson for an opinion of this exchange project. He very much agreed with Lutz's ideas on further co-operation and welcomed the FIAT initiative. He could easily see himself being part of more exchange projects. When I suggested that this could be the topic of a future FIAT conference workshop he immediately volunteered as speaker.

Lasse Nilsson
FIAT/IFTA Programming and Production Commission
Sveriges Television ProgramArkiv/Catalogue & Research dept.
lasse.nilsson@svt.se