Annual Conference: London, United Kingdom (with IAML)
President: Timothy Eckersley, British Broadcasting Corporation, United Kingdom
Editor: Dr. Rolf L. Schuursma, Documentationcentre, Foundation for Film and Science SFW, Utrecht, The Netherlands,
A PERSONAL VIEW
Timothy Eckersley, President of IASA
The theme of this year's IASA meeting in London will be a detailed examination of various Sound Archives throughout the world, and an exposition of some of the methods which each of them has evolved to meet the special needs of their users. As it is five years now since IASA was founded, I thought I might apply this theme to IASA itself -to remind ourselves what it is we set out to achieve, to review what we have done so far, and to look forward to what we hope to do during the next few years.
The reasons for the formation of an international association of Sound Archives are stated in Article II of our Constitution.
The purposes of the Association shall be:
These words express an enthusiastic belief in the value of sound documents as source material in many fields of research in the arts and sciences, and a desire to take positive action to make this precious material accessible to all who need it.
Fine words - praiseworthy ambitions! But what have we actually achieved in these five years? Not perhaps as much as many of us had hoped. Why? Because our membership is still small and restricted, and I suspect, because most of us are committed to jobs which demand our full time - and more! At the end of every Annual Meeting we part with fond farewells and good intentions, but because we return from these delightful annual journeys to confront a mountain of accumulated work, these good intentions and resolutions are almost totally forgotten until just before our next Annual Meeting. I speak for myself. Were it not in particular for the indefatigable efforts of our Secretary (and Editor of the Bulletin), Rolf Schuursma, I fear that hardly anything would be done between meetings. I very much hope that, in future, some of us (perhaps as a result of retirement) will be able to give more time and help to promote the aims of the Association.
However, even with our very limited resources, much valuable work has been done. Undoubtedly, the most tangible achievement is the regular publication of the Phonographic Bulletin containing not only many stimulating articles of interest to Sound Archivists, but also information about the Association, membership lists, Minutes of the Annual Meetings, and so on. The Bulletin provides a focus for the activities of the Association, and its very existence is of great importance in publicising IASA and encouraging the recruitment of new members. I hope that, at our London meeting and subsequently in letters to the Editor members will bring forward suggestions for improvements.
My own suggestion is that the Bulletin should be used much more as a medium for "discussion at a distance". Our Annual Meetings are short and, because of the language barrier (the Association cannot, unfortunately, yet afford to provide simultaneous translations), constructive discussion is virtually impossible. Contributions are limited to statements and comments. I very much hope that members will engage in controversy and discussion through the medium of the Bulletin. A helpful example of what I have in mind is the recent letter in Bulletin No. 6 from Mr. Semmler of the Australian Broadcasting Commission commenting on the article by Mr. Burgis in Bulletin No. 4 on "Sound Archives in Australia", to which I understand he is going to reply in the next Bulletin.
The publication of the Bulletin and, of course, our Annual Meetings where our range of professional contacts is enlarged and our frienships renewed, are the principle means we have at present of achieving our aim "to strengthen the bonds of co-operation between Archives".
But these bonds remain slender. What can be done to strengthen them in the immediate future?
AN INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY OF SOUND ARCHIVES:
Don Leavitt, our first President, outlined some tasks for IASA in his article in the Phonographic Bulletin No. 1. In his opinion, the most important was to undertake an international census of Sound Archives. Preliminary work has been done on this on the basis of carefully prepared questionnaires and, during next year, we hope to acquire a lot of factual information about recorded sound collections of all kinds on which to base a drive for increased membership, and eventually the publication of an international directory of Sound Archives.
BUT WHAT IS A 'SOUND ARCHIVE'?
What also may emerge from the analysis of the questionnaires is a clearer idea of what we really mean by the term 'Sound Archives'. The word 'Archives' (in English) is not a rough equivalent of 'Library'. To my mind (and I am in the happy position of being neither an Archivist nor a Librarian!) the essential difference between an Archive and a Library is the implication that an 'Archive' is a place where documents are deposited for permanent preservation - whereas a 'Library' is essentially organised to provide a loan service to borrowers. To professional Archivists and Librarians this may be a naive and over-simplified distinction, and I hope that members will express their views in the Bulletin.
NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVES AS A BASE FOR INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES:
A clear distinction between Archives and Libraries could influence our future policy - particularly in regard to our declared purpose “to encourage on an international level the exchange of sound recordings..."
If Sound Archives are organised as research centres to which scholars and researchers must come to carry out their searches, and if these Archives can guarantee to safeguard the recordings in their collections (particularly unpublished recordings acquired from Radio and T.V. broadcasts and from private sources) against unauthorised and uncontrolled copying, we are much more likely to gain the confidence of the various copyright protection societies and performers' unions upon whose goodwill these international exchanges are so largely dependent.
I hope ultimately to see the establishment of National Sound Archives all over the world, internationally recognised as research centres. On this basis we may, perhaps, expect the interested parties in each country to co-operate in permitting the copying of recordings (whether published or unpublished) for deposit in any other National Sound Archive recognised as a research centre. This is an idea which I hope will be more fully discussed at our joint session with the Record Library Commission of IAML, and also when we visit the British Institute of Recorded Sound on Wednesday, 29th August.
STANDARDISATION OF TERMINOLOGY:
Another really basic need, which I have encountered in organising international co-operation between Sound Archives and Libraries within the European Broadcasting Union, is the clarification of terminology. For instance, in comparing the size and content of our collections great confusion can be created, and misleading impressions given in questionnaires, unless terms are clearly defined and understood. In a situation where integrated multimedia catalogues will become more and more familiar, IASA should be in a position to put forward suggestions for a standardised international terminology related to sound recordings or 'audio-records' as they may in future be described (to take up a recent proposal of the Canadian Library Association). I hope to deal with this question in greater detail in a later issue of the Bulletin.
CO-OPERATION WITH OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION:
My experience in the BBC, which contains as part of its service to programme producers, a multi-media complex of Archives and Libraries, shows that whether the content and organisation of these Archives and Libraries is totally merged and integrated into a single multi-media catalogue, or whether each is kept as a separate organisation according to physical form (i.e. a Film Archive, a Sound Archive, a Written Archive, etc.), producers and researchers tend more and more to demand a co-ordinated service of information about all forms of documentation relevant to their subject. All Sound Archivists, I am sure, will realise that we are moving rapidly into a multi-media situation and, consequently, I believe that IASA ought to consider forming positive links with international organisation concerned with other media like the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF). The rapid development of electronic video-tape recording, a technique very closely resembling audio-tape recording, itself poses the question whether it is any longer reasonable to separate sound and video archives. This is another subject of discussion for future issues of the Bulletin.
There is so much to be done and much is expected from us. If we can continue to widen and extend our membership, and so provide a reasonable financial base for further development, we will be in a better position to realise the hopes expressed in our Constitution.'
Mr. Eckersley is Head of Recording Services, Radio, of the BBC, and Governor of the British Institut of Recorded Sound
