General Secretary's report

FIAT/IFTA Programme for 2003

• Reports from EC members
• FIAT management
• FIAT website
• Brussels Conference
• Media archive management projects
• Regional activities
• FIAT Awards
• Relations with sister organisations
• FIAT audiovisual archive

The newly elected FIAT / IFTA Executive Council met in Paris last 6th and 7th December. The agenda was overloaded as most EC members had prepared papers giving their views about FIAT future and prepared projects to be launched in 2003. However, all agenda items have been discussed, and a lot of decisions have been agreed on that has resulted in a renewed framework for FIAT management and a very concrete plan of action for 2003.

Reports from the EC members

As usual, the EC meeting began with the reports from its members. What have they done since Antalya ?

President Emmanuel Hoog reported that he had written to all members after Antalya. He had visited Beijing and had recruited Chinese Central Television and Doordarshan of India as new members. The Chinese are developing an archive centre in the new television building in Beijing, which will open in 2007, and they may need FIAT expertise. They could be future conference hosts.

General Secretary Steve Bryant reported on his visit to the AMIA Conference in Boston, where he had useful discussions with members of the AMIA board and potential exhibitors for the Brussels conference.

Treasurer Wolfgang Dehn presented the current list of incoming fees and proposed a planning budget of 85,000 Euros for 2003, which was accepted.

Branko Bubenik reported on Training Commission activities, including meetings in Turin on the impact of EU enlargement on the film heritage, and Moscow, for the founding of the EuroAsian Association of Audiovisual Archives, organised by Anatoly Vistorobets. This is an association of former USSR republics and will join FIAT as a collective member.

Henry Lindqvist reported on the activities of the Media Management Commission, including the survey of digital archives and preparations for a joint FIAT / IASA / DELOS workshop in Helsinki in the spring. The next meeting of the Commission will be on 31st January 2003 in Stockholm.

Steve Bryant reported on the Television Studies Commission, which was now a full commission of FIAT. Now that he was General Secretary, the Commission would need a new Chair. It was proposed that Mike Mashon (Library of Congress) should be Chair, with Bert Hogenkamp (NAA) as Deputy Chair. This was accepted.

Sue Malden reported on Programme and Production Commission activities, particularly the meeting in Venice which had recently taken place, at which they had discussed the theme for the Brussels conference - the history of television - and revisited the Shandwick PR proposals for FIATIFTA.

FIAT/IFTA management

Respective role of the EC, the Commissions and the Regional Coordinators

Steve Bryant presented his proposal for the future structure and organisation of commission work on a project basis and there was a general discussion on the future structure of FIAT, based on several written submissions circulated before the meeting.

Branko Bubenik initiated a discussion on regional co-ordination and the need for local representatives who should not be board members, but could be brought in to report and present cases. This led to a discussion on the size of the board and voting rights.

It was agreed that attendance at the EC should be restricted to elected members, commission heads (if not elected) and paid employees. Only elected members have a vote on EC business. Regional co-ordinators should be appointed, but should only attend when invited. Elected Council members should be appointed to liaise with regional co-ordinators. The rule on individuals holding elected offices rather than their companies will be more strictly enforced.

It was also agreed that the EC could initiate and assign projects, that regional co-ordinators could present project proposals to the EC, and that there is a need to find supplementary sources of finance.

FIAT office work

Regarding the FIAT office work, the EC accepted Sue Malden's proposal not only to act as a conference organiser and the Chair of the P&P Commission, but also to organise the FIAT membership record, to update the public relations materials and to take part in the reconstruction of the web site.

Members record

A discussion on the need to unify different membership lists was held. Roberto Rossetto offered the use of the RAI/FIAT members data base as a centralised version which could be shared on line by the FIAT Executives.

This data base will offer two different services for two different audiences : an administrative service restricted to the FIAT Executives and a service accessible to all FIAT members. The latter one will take the place of the former paper Guide to Audiovisual Archives edited by Jyrki Stolt. Each member will have the possibility to enter and update his own details and browse the archive details of other members. As soon as this service will be opened, FIAT members will be informed.

FIAT election rules

Steve Bryant presented his proposals for written election rules and proposed a workshop session for Brussels to consider them, together with various proposed changes to the Statutes, with a view to making recommendations to the General Assembly in 2004. This was accepted.

FIAT web site

It was agreed to accept the INA Proposal to host and reorganize the main FIAT website (www.fiatifta.org).

Objectives of the proposal

• Strengthen the corporate identity of FIAT
• Attract new members : presentation of FIAT purpose, objectives and activities, benefits of FIAT membership
• Foster cooperation between members and exchange of knowledge
• Provide more content and services to members
• Show moving images : illustrations of members' archives
• Improve the ergonomy
• At lower costs for FIAT, if possible

Operating scheme

• Editorial responsibility : General secretary Steve Bryant, with delegations to Dominique Saintville and Sue Malden
• Technical responsibility and host : INA/Direction des Systèmes d'Information - Safia Dziri
• Links with SWR/FIAT Awards and RAI/FIAT members data base web sites

Priorities and planning

• Priority 1 (January) : Improve FIAT identity ; Update and improve information about FIAT activities and membership in order to facilitate the recruitment of new members
• Priority 2 (February and March) : Improve site legibility ; Introduce the new headings and reorganize the existing pages along the new site map ; Create new content ; Provide relevant links to further sources of useful information
• Priority 3 (April) : Develop new services (such as Ask FIAT experts, Theme based FAQ, etc.) and make visible the output of FIAT work.

Next FIAT/IFTA annual conference : Brussels, 6-10th September 2003

Erik de Groef and Alain Goosens presented a proposal for the 2003 Conference in Brussels. This included a presentation of the Hotel Metropole and its conference facilities - www.metropolehotel.be -, rooms booking for delegates, conference registration fee, technical and administrative facilities offered by VRT and RTBF, social events, etc. More details in Steve Bryant's paper on the Brussels Conference.

The proposal was accepted. A meeting of the Conference Organising Committee will take place in Brussels on 21/22 Feb.2003.

Media archive management projects

Henry Lindqvist presented the project proposal from the Media management : update, extension and revision of the Metadata document (the first version was released in 2000) by researching, evaluating and describing the latest relevant metadata standardisation developments, the Metadata related IST projects, tools and technologies for automatic indexing. It was agreed to update the Metadata document, put it on the website and send Annemieke de Jong to present it at the Mexico Seminar.

Sue Malden explained the P&P Commission main project on Selection for preservation, which is presented thoroughly in this Newsletter. It was accepted.

Regional activities

Branko Bubenik and Tedd Urnes explained their proposals for regional seminars, together with Sue Malden on the Caribbean proposal and a proposal from Andris Kesteris on a Baltic seminar. Anatoly Vistorobets also spoke about the EuroAsia group proposals.

It was agreed that these were extensive and expensive proposals, for which FIAT has little resources at present, so other sources of funding, such as Unesco, should be sought where possible and some proposals delayed. If a seminar was going ahead without FIAT financial support, we should nevertheless give formal support where appropriate, especially if FIAT members were among the organisers.

Emmanuel Hoog said it would be better in many cases to send experts to archives which needed help rather than pay to gather their representatives together. This was particularly true in Africa. Branko Bubenik agreed to this as a model for the future in the Training Commission and will come back with proposals for Africa. It was agreed that FIAT will pay for one expert expenses to launch one mission of this type in Africa in 2003.

Anatoly Vistorobets stressed the need for seminars in the former USSR and Branko Bubenik said they were highly valued.

It was thus agreed that FIAT would supply the requested funding for the workshops in Brunei and at the CIRCOM Conference in Naples. Also the proposed EuroAsian seminar in Alma Alta, Kazakhstan, would be funded.

Tedd Urnes agreed that FIAT's name should be attached to the seminars he was involved with, even if there was no funding. The FIAT contribution to the Mexico seminar would be the participation of Annemieke de Jong. It was also agreed to grant funding towards the Caribbean seminar in Jamaica. The Baltic seminar should be supported, but not financially.

FIAT Awards

Karl Maier presented the Award budget for 2003. The screening procedure would revert to that of previous years and only the winner would be invited to the conference. No bags would be printed. This would lighten the Awards budget. This proposal was accepted.

Relations with sister organisations

AMIA will organise the programming of the Joint Technical Symposium in Montreal in (probably) May 2004 and had asked for a nomination from FIAT to join the committee. Henry Lindqvist was nominated as the FIAT representative. It was also agreed that Giorgio Dimino from RAI will join the MMC as technical co-ordinator and may be involved in the JTS planning.

Steve Bryant elaborated on his contacts with AMIA. A joint conference would not be a good idea, but co-operation through the CCAAA is important, as their programmes are very similar to ours. Dan DiPierro will build up US participation in FIAT.

IASA is a very important organisation for us, especially as regards radio archives, although their membership does not include very many, while FIAT has a lot of broadcasters which run both TV and radio archives, often under the same management. There is a lot of synergy between TV and radio and we should reflect this. IASA should be invited to supply radio experts to the MMC and a speaker to our conference, where this should be a subject. Roberto Rossetto explained that the EBU Interdisciplinary Archives Group is a model for radio/TV collaboration. Wolfgang Dehn proposed a workshop on TV/radio archive systems at SWR in June, which was agreed as a FIAT initiative. Roberto Rossetto described the IAG meeting on metadata standards and also the Copeam initiative for preservation work in the Balkans, which is being assisted by RAI at Branko Bubenik's suggestion.

Branko Bubenik proposed an invitation to SEAPAVAA to attend the Brussels conference. FIAF is also very important. They should also be invited to Brussels and film preservation should be part of the conference.

Sue Malden described co-operation with FOCAL - in projects with the P&P Commission and the annual Summerschool.

Philippe Poncin explained the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS - http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.html) UN initiative. This will promote the telecommunications industry, with proposals on access and the use of new technologies. It is also an opportunity for international organisations involved in the preservation and access to the audiovisual heritage, such as FIAT, IASA and others, to express formally and at an international level the value of the audiovisual heritage and the risks to which it is exposed in the short term. FIAT has been approached through UNESCO and IASA for input to the declaration and proposals on training. It was agreed that we should take part through the CCAAA. In addition, Emmanuel Hoog has taken the initiative to send a resolution on behalf of FIAT.

FIAT/IFTA contribution to WSIS Preserving the world audio-visual heritage - Developing digital migration policies Situation and challenges Sound and audio-visual archives, especially radio and television archives, are endangered. Large volumes of recordings on film, magnetic tape and disc, etc., often unique, are now at risk These materials constitute a great part of the XXth century history and knowledge and constitute a substantial record of our oral and visual memory Digital solutions are now available allowing long-term preservation, access and reuse Migration on to digital implies human and financial resources which should be allocated urgently. Decision proposals Each State should decide on digital preservation policies and establish migration plans for audio-visual archives Each State should organise selection criteria for priority preservation according to common principles and ethics rules Co-operation should be increased between States to introduce digital solutions and to organise mass transfers based on common standards Expertise and professional training actions should be extended to middle and small archives, bringing concrete help and support. It is the first step contribution to bridging the digital divide in the Least developed Countries. Emmanuel Hoog President of FIAT/IFTA

 FIAT Audiovisual Archive

Branko Bubenik proposed the creation of a FIAT audiovisual archive, containing videos of our conferences and other activities. All existing materials should be sent to HRT from local hosts or whoever else holds it and will be archived on IMX. Parts of it should be available on the website. It was agreed that Branko Bubenik will maintain an archive of video and photographic material relating to FIAT events.

Branko Bubenik also proposed an Award archive. This has been discussed in the P&P commission, which proposes a history of the Award on the SWR/FIAT website, together with contact addresses for producers. Rights may be a problem for using clips.

Steve Bryant
29th January 2003