FIAT Training Activities for developing countries

For the 3rd successive time an archive representative from a developing country in Africa will be attending a FIAT/IFTA conference. After the representatives of Senegal and Mozambique, our guest speaker will be Mr Everon Kloppers from Namibia who will bring a very intereresting report on the audiovisual archives scene in Namibia and also let us take part in the general situation of this country, of which I am sure we participants really have no idea. Just like last year, Messrs. Protape will be covering the expenses of our guest speaker - a warm thank you in the name of all collegues to Protape. This year FIAT itself will cover the flight expenses for a collegue who has great experience in the training of archivists in developing countries: Mrs Habibah Zon Yahaya of the Malaysian National Archives in Kuala Lumpur. She knows many collegues in countries where FIAT has no connections whatsoever.

By the way - I met both of these collegues at a Media Archives Training Seminar in Beijing which took place with the backing of UNESCO and was organised by ICA. Representatives from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, etc. met to discuss various problems in reference to the durability of film, the decompositioon of video tapes, copyright law, etc. What I want to say is that FIAT should enforce and intensify its contacts with collegues in countries where - at least at the moment - white spots can be found on the FIAT world map.

After all, contacts with the industry and the players in our line of work have greatly improved in the last years. We have to consider a healthy balance of involvement; although a necessary part of our work we canŠt only be occupied with EUROMEDIA and the super technology of the Kirch Archives - where we have, by the way, just shot a new training video for the FIAT Training Commission - but we must also deal with the problems of archives that are reaching for solutions - archives that have not yet been swept up by the digital revolution. The world-wide search for unknown archive material is in full action and therefore it should be easy for FIAT to find many sponsors, taking Protape as a shining example.

Peter Dusek
ORF