Proposed FIAT sponsored Caribbean Conference
To be held in Jamaica, 4-9 November 2003

Draft programme

• Three or four day conference- with papers from experts and the "field", a mix of exhibitors with services and products of value to the field. Thus providing a mix of experience and challenges hopefully leading to solutions
• A basic workshop for newcomers. This workshop will come before the other sessions and should give an outline of archival issues: the history, composition and care of magnetic tape, film etc; the organisation content information- relevant software packages; access, rights, new technology etc. This would make the other sessions more meaningful especially to the newcomers who would be encountering certain terms and issues for the first time - by all participant speakers.
• Essential elements of audiovisual archive management : selection, purpose of the archive, acquisition activities, cataloguing, preservation and protection, storage, access issues, legal issues, overall management issues
• Need for national policies standards and legislation and other legal issues
• Storage and preservation considerations in the Caribbean
• Reasons for and main elements of preservation and protection
• Access and ethical issues - Misuse/Uses of Archives, who has access for what purposes and how
• Acquisition and Selection Criteria - selection and de-selection, what to gather, whose responsibility it is and what purpose the archive will serve
• Successful exploitation of archives - What needs to be done, How to go about pricing footage and audio, including the elements that should go into pricing e.g. research fee, license fee and transfer costs
• Is there a conflict between the public duty to preserve and the financial need to exploit?
• Rights issues : using model agreements from a range of organisations
• The need for National Archives to protect and promote Heritage
• Local Collections and activity
• Cataloguing / metadata standards looking at minimum levels
• UNESCO Memory of the World presentation

Sue Malden
Jan 2003