Public audiovisual archives like the Österreichische Mediathek (Austrian National Audiovisual Archive) have long been concerned with documenting the political as well as the cultural public sphere. National and international efforts have worked to collect and preserve historic film documents from the private sphere. An ongoing Österreichische Mediathek project addresses a source typically viewed as marginal: private video sources from the …

This is the foreword to the book ‘SOIMA: Unlocking Sound and Image Heritage‘. The book offers tips and advice from dedicated professionals from all corners of the world for the preservation and creative use of sound and image heritage. As a resource, it aims to interest collectors, users and educators alike, as it offers compelling examples and strategies founded in evidence-based research. …

Digital technologies enable us to visualize dance in new ways and to capture recordings of dance which may be preserved and handed down to future generations. In this way, dance starts to become part of our intangible cultural heritage. But capturing dance also raises questions of authorship and ownership of copyright in both the dance and the recording of the …

The Casa K’ojom in La Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala, houses a unique collection of physical objects and audiovisual materials devoted to Mayan cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. What began as a private collection has evolved into a museum where thousands of visitors have learned about Mayan culture and music. This paper highlights the development and care of the collections from …

Documentation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) poses a series of new questions and challenges within the heritage practice. How do we document a heritage that is alive, through the heads, hands and practices of people? Heritage that is neither tangible nor fixed but intangible and dynamic. Heritage that lives within a community, which by its active practice also acts to …

In 2013–2014 the Musical Instruments Museum (mim) in Brussels worked with Musée de la Musique (MMO) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and the Musée Panafricain de la Musique (MPM) in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo to build digital inventories of their musical instrument collections. The purpose of this digitization campaign has been to provide a more complete view of musical …