The FIAT Web Site : a "New Look"

E.Hoog - © Ina

No, you are not wrong, you have accessed the FIAT/IFTA web site. It has changed a bit ! We have been working on it since last December, when the project was presented to the Executive Council. It was then decided that the FIAT web site will be hosted by Ina from January 2003 onwards. The editorial responsibility is being shared by Steve Bryant, Sue Malden and Dominique Saintville. The design work and the technical aspects are provided by Safia D'ziri and her team (in charge of the Ina web site). A very special thanks to Jean-Miguel Kawamura! I personally have had a close look at its design, content and development.

May I remind you of what were the objectives of the project :

• Strengthen the corporate identity of FIAT
• Attract new members by providing a detailed presentation of FIAT missions, structures and activities
• Show and demonstrate the benefits of FIAT membership
• Foster cooperation between members through transfer/exchange of knowledge
• Provide more content and services to members
• Show more images : illustrations of members'archives, FIAT Awards clips, …
• Improve the ergonomy, implying a possible evolution of the design
• At lower costs for FIAT, if possible
• No service break for the users between the present and the future.

A new look

The new design is more colourful. However it remains fully professional. It offers a better legibility of contents and accessibility to them.

All headings and sub-headings are displayed on the home page. Each heading has a different colour in order to facilitate its identification. From the home page, you can have an overview of What is FIAT ? What is new (Focus) ? What are the forthcoming events (Calendar of events) ? What can be found (list of main headings) ? Who to contact ?

On each page, you can access directly the detailed content of one main heading or sub-heading. You can also access any of the other parts of the web site.

In case you need to print a page, use the print icon located at the end of each page. You will get the full page without the heavy and cumbersome design.

If you are lost, you can always click on the site map icon …

More pictures and clips

September 11th, 2001 - © CBS News

For the time being, most pictures which illustrate each heading welcome page come from the Ina Still Library. We do hope that this is only a provisional situation, and we'll welcome pictures from your own archives. Thank's to Dan DiPierro for having set a good example by sending some CBS pictures of September 11th and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A large space has been reserved to host clips from your archives. It is of the utmost importance that a site dedicated to broadcast archives can show some samples of our moving images. Let us know whether we can put on line the clips that you are sending to Eric de Groef for the Time Machine to be demonstrated next September in Brussels at the FIAT Annual Conference.

Six main parts

The content is now structured into six main parts :

About FIAT

• What is FIAT : formerly located in " Membership "
• FIAT policy papers : extracts from recent Newsletters
• Statutes : formerly located in " Membership "
• Join FIAT : formerly located in " Membership "
• FIAT organisation, i.e. Executive Council, Commissions, Regional Groups : formerly located in " Commissions "
• Members details, including Members archive presentations, Clips and stills from our members, List of members. The List of FIAT members has not been updated since last December because we are expecting very soon to operate the link towards the FIAT members data base developed and hosted by RAI which will be fed and updated directly by each of you. When the link will be operational, the former List of members will be deleted.
• News, i.e. the Latest News and the FIAT Newsletters archive : formerly located in " Newsletter ". The content of the last 2 or 3 years Newsletters is in the process of being selected and classified under the relevant headings of the website (as it is for the content of " Documents "). We shall maintain the archive of former Newsletter as long as this process is not achieved.
• the detailed version of the Calendar of events

Conferences

Under this new heading, you will find the information about forthcoming and previous conferences, seminars and workshops : announcement, programme, registration forms, etc. The papers delivered during the conferences and seminars will be classified under the following heading " Projects and Standards "..

Projects and standards

The idea was to underline the output of FIAT work achieved either in the Commissions, such as the P&P Commission " Selection guidelines " or the MMC " Survey on digital archives ", or on the occasion of the Conferences and seminars, as well as to circulate information about European or international projects dedicated to audiovisual archives. Most of these documents were formerly accessible under " Documents ".

Services

This new heading is designed to host the services offered by FIAT to its members : in the " Expert Forum ", you will find the answers to the questions sent by each of you to office@fiatifta.org . Sue Malden will analyse the questions and either answer them or redirect them to the most relevant FIAT expert. The answer will then be put on line. The " Requested and Offered " service is meant to facilitate exchange of information, footage, equipment between our members. We have already published some of them in the recent Newsletters. Send your announcement to webmaster@fiatifta.org . The answer is expected to come from other FIAT members. " Training opportunities " publicizes training offers, such as FOCAL or FIAF summer schools, or work experience in an advanced archive.

Awards

Under the Awards heading, you will find a short presentation and the link to the Fiat Awards web site hosted by SWR.

Links

You will find here the URL addresses of FIAT's sister organisations and many other useful websites. Do not hesitate to report to us any interesting web site !

Reorganisation of existing contents

• Membership : see About FIAT
• Newsletters : see About FIAT / News to access the Newsletters archive and have them sorted chronologically. The content is being organised according to its subject and distributed among the most relevant headings.
• Documents : see Projects & Standards
• Commissions : see About FIAT / FIAT Organisation
• Awards : no change

Public & restricted access

The rules have not been changed. Some areas or documents are restricted to FIAT. Usually the summaries, list of document references is free, whereas the access to the documents themselves is restricted.

Work still on progress !

We are not waiting until the reorganisation of contents and the development of new services are completely achieved to initialise the new version of the FIAT web site. The deadline has been set according to the FIAT calendar : 12th May 2003. There will be three FIAT meetings in Baden Baden between 15-18 May - P&P Commission, MMC, Executive Council. It is a very good opportunity to evaluate the work already done and to discuss further enhancements.

All comments are very welcome !

Emmanuel Hoog
May 2003