1.2 IASA’s role

IASA members have been active players in this process, and IASA as an organisation has always provided an open platform for this development. As a consequence, this principle has been codified as a standard by the IASA Technical Committee in The Safeguarding of the Audio Heritage: Ethics, Principles and Preservation Strategy, colloquially referred to as IASA-TC 03. This is now in its third version and available in eight languages. The message, in a nutshell, is:

Long-term preservation of audio (and implicitly also for video) can only be achieved by converting contents into files, and by maintaining these files like any other computer data.

Consequently, after codification of the principle, in 2004 IASA published IASA-TC 04, Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects, and is preparing IASA-TC 06, Production and Preservation of Digital Video Objects.

More information about these publications can be found on the IASA website at http://www.iasa-web.org/iasa-publications.