Understanding and preserving audio collections

Date: 
2 Oct 2013 to 4 Oct 2013
Location: 
London, UK

Understanding and preserving audio collections

Preservation Advisory Centre 3-day Course

2-4 October 2013

The British Library Centre for Conservation
96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom Location

Taking you from ‘what is it?’ through collection management issues to preservation strategies, this three day course provides an overview of managing and preserving audio material, with an emphasis on digitisation for preservation and access.

The course is aimed at people with responsibility for creating, managing and using audio collections. Whilst no hands-on experience is necessary, it is useful to have identified a collection to which the theory and practical elements of this course will be applied in order to get the most from it. The training is provided by members of the British Library Sound & Vision department and is structured to allow for plenty of informal discussion and information-sharing. A short pre-course reading list will be circulated to participants in advance. Places are limited to 20. Feedback from last year's course.

Programme

Wednesday 2 October 10.30 - 16.30
Introduction
What do you have, what are the issues, what should you do?
Practical guide to analogue audio
      History of analogue carriers and technology
      Information on care and handling
      Hands-on demonstrations of correct replay techniques

Thursday 3 October 10.00 - 16.30
Digital audio demystified
      Overview of digital audio theory
      Generic digital issues (including error correction and checksums)
      History of digital audio sources
      Practical information on extracting digital audio from different media
Collection level overviews
      Compiling an inventory
      Prioritization and selection
      Risk assessment
      Out-source, or in-house? Working with service providers
      Costs associated with managing digital collections

Friday 4 October 10.00 - 15.00
Working with audio files
      Procedures for creating, working with, and safely storing audio files (including file naming, verification and technical metadata)
      Introduction to Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs)
Archival principles for audiovisual material
      An overview based on the core reference work
Safeguarding the audio heritage: ethics, principles and preservation strategy
Final round-up and Q&A

Training day fee (including refreshments and lunch):
£435.00 + VAT = £522.00