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Media Archives Project Pilot Study
The Media Archives Project will encourage and support Australia’s media industry, media practitioners and individual hobbyists to preserve, make available, digitise, or deposit archival material in existing repositories. A pilot study will be undertaken in the second half of 2009 whereby a project officer will investigate how best to: update existing archival listings; identify material held by individuals and organisations; meet with industry leaders and collecting institutions; enable increased access by researchers; and expand the capacity of the CRN’s Australian Media History Database.
The pilot study will focus on Sydney, with the project to later expand across Australia. It will:
- Identify organisations located in Sydney in the following fields: newspapers and magazines, broadcasting, advertising, and market research on the media.
- Meet with leaders of the media industry to talk about: what has already been done; what needs to be done; and the importance of their archival material to researchers and, indeed, the industry.
- Organise a MAP launch in the second half of 2009.
- Attend the summit of collecting institutions being organised by the NFSA in the second half of 2009.
- Prepare descriptions of key holdings in established repositories, in part by using the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts in order to identify what is already known to exist: http://www.nla.gov.au/raam/
- Investigate how best to update the media holdings in the Australian Historic Records Register, compiled in 1987-88 to describe archival material of historical significance held in private ownership in Australia: http://www.nla.gov.au/ahrr/. This would be done in consultation with the National Library of Australia, which administers the database.
- Investigate how best to identify print and audio-visual material held by individual hobbyists, enthusiasts and industry veterans.
- Enter new sources in the Libraries and Archives section of the CRN’s Australian Media History Database: http://www.amhd.org.au/libraries.html
- Investigate how best to make a media archives register/inventory available online, via the Australian Media History Database.
- Identify issues such as the need to update register entries, differing technological formats, and copyright.
- Investigate external funding options for an Australia-wide MAP.
