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Presented by Dr Jan Lyall, Director, National Preservation Office at the opening of the 2nd National Preservation Office Conference: Multimedia Preservation - Capturing the Rainbow, in Brisbane, 28-30 November 1995.
  • Objective
  • Background
  • Key Issues
  • Desired Outcomes
  • Future Activities

Objective

In this brief talk, which I hope will focus our minds on the task that lies ahead of us over the coming three days, I have three main objectives:

  1. To emphasise what I believe are the key issues in the preservation of multimedia;
  2. To indicate what the National Preservation Office would like to achieve at this conference;
  3. To mention some relevant and associated activities which are being planned.

Background

The sub-title of this conference 'Capturing the Rainbow' was selected, not only because it captures everyone's imagination, but also because the phrase encapsulates our task in attempting to preserve multimedia. We are striving to capture what at present seems elusive while recognising that even once we understand all of the issues, we may never be able to preserve multimedia in the same way that we have preserved other forms of documentary heritage.

There is a high level of interest in this topic which is evidenced by publications and information available on the Internet. In Australia, the recent Australian Archives conference, 'Playing for Keeps' looked at the issues surrounding the management of electronic records in archives. At this conference, we are attempting to go beyond archival records-to try to include the full spectrum of electronic and digital documents created by individuals and collected by cultural organisations.There is little doubt that in the future more of our culture is going to be represented in digital form. Regardless of whether we work in a library, archive, museum or gallery, or even if we are concerned with maintaining our own personal records, we will all be dealing with digital material, much of which will be multimedia.

It is becoming apparent that the challenges we are facing will be easier to deal with if we work across professional and national boundaries. In planning this conference the NPO has attempted to keep up to date with the large number of international activities. Of major importance is the work of the US Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. Two members of this Task Force, Nancy Elkington and Michael Lesk, will be speaking at this conference. Other activities are taking place throughout the world: Michael Alexander will speak about developments at The British Library and in Europe. Ross Harvey from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore is another conference speaker. We have also gathered an impressive list of notable Australian speakers.

This conference has been exclusively planned by the three staff members of the National Preservation Office with advice from others. I'd particularly like to thank Katy Bramich who was instrumental in shaping this program; Tamara Lavrencic and Adrian Cunningham, who have acted in the position of National Preservation Officer in the last few months; and Joanne Paull who has provided superb administrative support.

We have seen a significant increase in the use of multimedia in Australia, both in terms of access to the Internet, and in the increase in the number of people with personal computers, enabling many to have access to multimedia products. Along with other libraries throughout the world, the National Library of Australia is having to make decisions about how to preserve and provide access to digital multimedia objects.

Key Issues

This conference is intended to be a working conference. I would like to list what I think are the key issues in multimedia preservation and request that you keep these issues in the back of your minds over the next few days. At the last session on Thursday we will attempt to identify how many issues we have been able to deal with, to see if any others have emerged from the conference, to examine how successful we were in solving any and to decide what our future actions should be.

The key issues are:

  • What multimedia products are being produced?
  • What changes have been implemented to enable Australians to obtain equitable access to these new forms of cultural heritage?
  • How can we improve access?
  • Are the traditional collecting organisations coping?
  • Is the legislation adequate?
  • Do we have the appropriate standards?
  • Do we need further research?
  • What are the costs?
  • What type of education/training is needed?
  • Has the relationship between preservation and access been recognised?
  • How widely is digitisation being used as a preservation strategy?
  • Who has a role to play in preserving and providing access to multimedia in this new environment?
  • Who has the responsibility for deciding what will be preserved and how access to it will be provided?
  • What partnerships will be required?
  • What is happening in the rest of the world and are we lagging behind?

It is sometimes argued that digital storage will become so inexpensive that we will be able to keep everything. I do not believe that this approach is either possible or desirable. We need to develop strategies to ensure that significant material survives, retains its integrity and is accessible. For this conference we should aim for achievable outcomes.

Desired Outcomes

The desired outcomes from this conference are to identify:

  • the solvable problems and those that are at present 'too hard';
  • the mechanisms to address both kinds of problems.

We need to decide whether the US model proposed by the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information is an appropriate one for us in Australia. We have already set in place activities which will take this matter forward after the conference.

Future Activities

On 6 December, the NPO is holding a workshop on 'Preservation of Digital Objects' in which some of our overseas speakers will be helping us to define some principles for the preservation of digital information. At this workshop we will also explore ways of improving cross-sectoral communication so that we can cooperate on finding solutions to the challenges of preserving digital information.


Return to 1995 NPO Conference
Last updated 27 February 198