International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives

The International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) was established in 1969 to serve as a forum for international co-operation between archives, libraries, and individuals interested in the preservation of recorded sound

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

and audiovisual documents.

IASA aims

The IASA constitution states the following purposes:

To strengthen co-operation between archives and other institutions which preserve sound and audiovisual documents.
To initiate and encourage activities that develop and improve the organisation, administration and contents of recorded sound and audiovisual collections, and, in pursuance of these aims, to co-operate with other organisations in related fields.
To study all techniques relevant to the work of sound and audiovisual archives and other institutions which preserve these documents and to disseminate the results of such study on an international scale.
To encourage, on an international level, the exchange of sound and audiovisual documents and of literature and information relating to these documents.
To stimulate and further by every means the preservation, documentation and dissemination of all recorded sound and audiovisual collections.

Membership

IASA has members from more than 70 countries representing a broad palette of audiovisual archives and personal interests which are distinguished by their focus on particular subjects and areas, foer example: archives for all sorts of musical recordings, historic, literary, folkloric and ethnological sound documents, theatre productions and oral history interviews, bio-acoustics, environmental and medical sounds, linguistic and dialect recordings, as well as recordings for forensic purposes.

IASA activities

IASA promotes the open and ongoing exchange of ideas and information on current issues in the audiovisual field via annual conferences, a IASA Journal, an information bulletin, list-serve and the IASA web site.

Annual conferences

IASA has held a conference each year since its inception. In 2010, IASA and the Association of Moving Image Archivists

Association of Moving Image Archivists

The Association of Moving Image Archivists is a 501 not-for-profit organization established to advance the field of moving image archiving by fostering cooperation among individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, description, preservation, exhibition and use of moving image...

(AMIA) came together for the first time in a joint IASA-AMIA conference held in Philadelphia, USA. The 2012 conference will be held in Delhi, India, from 6-11 October.

Publications

IASA follows closely the progress of technology and members can call upon a pool of expertise for help and advice on various aspects, ranging from digitisation to metadata to technical issues. In this regard, IASA has published a number of special publications:

Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects (IASA-TC 04)
The Safeguarding of the Audio Heritage: Ethics, Principles and Preservation Strategy (IASA-TC 03)
IASA Cataloguing Rules (also a Spanish version as Reglas de Catalogación de IASA)
Task Force on Selection for Digital Transfer.
Ethical Principles for Sound and Audiovisual Archives

Collaboration

IASA has long standing relationships with international organisations such as UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

and is a respected partner in various international audiovisual archive projects. IASA is a founding member of the CCAAA (Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations).

Committees and Sections

IASA Committees focus on topics that are of common interest to all archives and collections:

The Organising Knowledge Task Force concerns itself with standards and rules as well as with systems, automated or manual, for the documentation and cataloguing of audiovisual media;
The Discography Committee deals with standards and recommended practices, as well as current and ongoing projects involving published recordings;
The Technical Committee devotes itself to all technical aspects of recording, storage, preservation and reproduction, including new recording transfer and storage technologies.
The Training and Education Committee concerns itself with audiovisual archiving Training & Education, as well as concentrated actions in gaining multifunctional training and education material.

IASA Sections provide a platform for the exchange of information between specific types of archives and collections:

The National Archives Section considers issues facing national archives, eg acquisition policies, legal deposit, the management of large collections;
The Broadcasts Archives Section handles the special responsibilities of audiovisual archives in broadcasting companies;
The Research Archives Section is concerned with special issues relating to audiovisual archives whose holdings include collections of recordings originally made for research purposes.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.