sept12_b.indd


September 2012 499 C&RL News

Jane Hedberg is senior preservation program officer 
at Harvard University Library, e-mail: jane_hedberg@
harvard.edu; fax: (617) 496-8344

NARA conference
The National Archives and Records Admin-
istration (NARA) will hold its 26th Annual 
Preservation Conference October 19, 2012, at 
the National Archives Building in Washington, 
D.C. The conference, customarily held in the 
spring, was postponed due to internal re-
organization activities. The theme this year is 
“A Preservation Odyssey: Paths to the Future.” 
It will address how traditional preservation 
strategies are being shaped by new challenges 
and opportunities, specifically in environment 
and storage technology, conservation, refor-
matting, and outreach. Speakers include Doris 
Hamburg, Amy Lubick, Sara Shpargel, and 
Susan Page from NARA, Ronald Weiss from 
Arkival Technology Corporation, John Faun-
deen from the U.S. Geological Survey, Brad 
Lawrence from the Kennedy Space Center, 
Nancy Kraft from the University of Iowa, and 
Beth Doyle from Duke University.

The registration fee is $125 and includes 
food and beverages. For more information, 
go to www.archives.gov/preservation/confer-
ences/2012 or contact Richard Schneider at 
richard.schneider@nara.gov or (301) 837-3617.

AV preservation
The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) has 
published a DPC Technology Watch Report, 
“Preserving Motion Pictures and Sound,” by 
Richard Wright, former technology manager 
for the BBC. The 37-page report covers basic 
concepts and terminology, preservation is-
sues for sound and moving picture content, 
transitioning into the file-based world, digital 
preservation, standards, preservation for ac-
cess, implications for small collections and 
institutions, current activities and case studies, 
and conclusions and recommended actions. It 
particularly concentrates on digitization, en-
coding, file formats and wrappers, use of com-

pression, obsolescence, and specific problems 
posed by moving images and sound media.

The report is available free-of-charge at 
http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr12-01.

New AV journal
PrestoCentre, located in The Netherlands, is 
publishing a new online journal, AV insider. 
It will focus on AV digitization and digital 
preservation, offering interviews with prac-
titioners and articles about policy issues and 
challenges, the education landscape, funding 
and budgeting, long-term storage, research, 
and development. 

Each issue will have a specific theme, and 
the premier issue examines how changes today 
are influencing tomorrow’s possibilities. Titled 
“Play, Pause and Press Forward,” it features in-
terviews with Tony Ageh, controller of Archive 
Development at the BBC, and Anne Van Camp, 
director of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. 
It also includes articles about training for the 
future, budgeting for a digitization project, and 
improving scanning techniques.

The first issue is available free-of-charge at 
www.prestocentre.org/sites/prestocentre.org 
/files/avinsider_1.pdf. Subsequent issues will 
be available to PrestoCentre members only.

IFLA Principles of Engagement
The Governing Board of the International 
Federation of Library Associations and Institu-
tions (IFLA) has endorsed the IFLA Principles 
of Engagement in library-related activities of 
disaster risk reduction and in times of conflict, 
crisis, or natural disaster. In this document, 
IFLA has reiterated its commitment to protect-
ing all cultural heritage and explicitly stated its 
purposes, conditions for intervention, guiding 
principles, and levels of involvement for infor-
mation sharing, promoting public awareness, 
cooperation, and engagement on the ground.

The document is available free-of-charge 
at www.ifla.org/files/hq/gb/strategic-plan 
/cultural_heritage_principles_of_engagement 
_en.pdf. 

P r e s e r v a t i o n  N e w sJane Hedberg