Bury my bones but keep my words: The legacy of the dirge singer

The author’s experiences preparing and presenting at the 2013 (Nairobi, Kenya) and 2015 (Brussels, Belgium) SOIMA conferences form the basis for this reflection on the work of custodians safeguarding the sound and image heritage of the past. Drawing inspiration from the artistic reflections of acclaimed master poet Ko Awonoor and accomplished writer Yvonne Owuor on death and life viewed through …

Unlocking Sound and Image Heritage: Selected Readings from the 2015 SOIMA Conference

In Buenos Aires, the Museo del Cine – a small and relatively unknown museum – is working valiantly to save some of Latin America’s most valuable creative heritage. Dedicated to Argentina’s cinematographic history, the bulk of the collection currently consists of tens of thousands of film reels and video cassettes that are disintegrating and fading into obsolescence. Ravaged by war, the preservation of Syria’s …

`This is what you want, this is what you get´: Matching real training needs to delivery

There are limited training options for audiovisual archivists, with most formal courses centred in Europe or the United States of America, but high costs can prevent people working in audiovisual archives from accessing these opportunities. However, there are significant collections of audiovisual heritage spread across the globe, not the least in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, that are at …

Adapting university education in a digital and globally networked world

Since 2003, the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program (MIAP) at New York University has graduated nearly 90 new moving image preservation professionals. Practices for moving image archiving and preservation have changed dramatically since the programme began. In addition, ‘born-digital’ productions have become the norm. Thus, MIAP has needed to continually adapt to the increasingly broad nature of heritage collections, …

Applying the “baby nursing model” in under-resourced audiovisual archives in Africa: The J. H. Kwabena Nketia Archive at the University of Ghana

It is a well-known fact that there has been extensive documentation of African traditional arts in post-colonial Africa, which has contributed to the growing accumulation of field recordings in Africa that could form the nucleus for archives in individual African countries. These include private collections as well as recordings at broadcasting and television stations; government ministries such as Tourism, Culture …