IASA 2014 Award of Recognition

Last October, the 2014 IASA Award of Recognition was announced at the 45th IASA Annual conference in Cape Town. The following tribute was given by Kevin Bradley, one of IASA's past-presidents:

The winner of this year’s IASA award is a quintessential quiet achiever. It’s hard to get a word out of this person at any time, let alone a word that might be self congratulatory in any way.  Nonetheless, this year’s awardee has been at the centre of just about everything that has happened in technical work in sound and audiovisual archiving over the past many years.

I am of course talking about the Chair of the IASA Technical committee, Lars Gaustad.

Lars has been a key Preservation advisor at the Nasjonalbiblioteket / National Library of Norway since 1992 and remains so till today (22 years). He has, at that institution, implemented a wide range of innovative changes in sound preservation during a period of massive technical change, inching them into the digital preservation era, and the high volume preservation period. He is also responsible for providing preservation advice on film and moving image.

He has been chair of the AES SC 03-02 standards committee on mechanical carriers, and saw through the production of a limited series of a test record set including a re-edition of the IEC PUB 98 coarse-groove 78-RPM test frequency record and a lateral-cut geometrical and level test calibration record, with adequate technical and historical documentation and instructions for use in calibrating a playback system. Trying to get a set of technical experts to agree about a technical standard is never going to be easy, and Lars’ easy demeanour saw through the project.

Lars has also been associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK) for the past 14 years, in which he has encouraged many young thinkers in the sound and audiovisual archiving community.  And I know he has shared this knowledge with his pragmatic colleagues at IASA, AMIA and ARSC.

Most significantly, Lars Gaustad has been chair of the IASA Technical Committee, the second chair of that august committee, taking office in 2004 after the inaugural chair, Dietrich Schuller, retired his position. During that time Lars has guided the work of that committee, brought to fruition a number of important projects, and encouraged and nurtured the new members, trainees and other expertise. Lars has been a mentor and colleague for many and directly through his work, and indirectly through his encouragement of others, ensured the sound and audiovisual heritage has been appropriately cared for all round the world.

SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE TO IASA

Awarded by the IASA Executive Board in recognition of valuable contributions in promoting and furthering IASA.

Presented in 2014 to LARS GAUSTAD

For services to the advancement of the preservation of Sound and Audiovisual materials

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