Audiovisual and Multimedia Section

Annual Report - January 2001 - August 2002

Mission and scope statement

The Section on Audiovisual and Multimedia concerns itself extensively with all issues relating sound, still and moving images and multimedia documents and services such as : children libraries, languages centres, and Internet (images, sounds delivery) in libraries : development of collections, cataloguing, access including Internet, conservation. Special expertises are required about sources and methods of acquisitions, technical issues for historical and for new carriers and equipments, legal issues affecting collecting, transferring and delivering documents, specifics rules and formats of cataloguing, and all kinds of libraries are concerned.

Relations have to be established in IFLA with corresponding groups and with PAC and UAP Core Programmes, and out of IFLA with professional organizations of sound and audiovisual archives.

Membership

Standing Committee Nominations

The former Round Table on Audiovisual and Multimedia became a section in 1999 Since the IFLA Bangkok conference (August 1999) a group of 23 persons had been considered as Provisional Standing Committee members. In 2001, the Standing Committee members were nominated by registered members of the section.

As the Section has to be considered as a special case, since only recently we had the transition from Round Table into Section, the board considered the final stage of the transition by asking us to make a selection of 14 of the 20 members, which we could then consider to join the 6 newly nominated to form the new Standing Committee. We kept one member from each country represented in the former provisional Standing Committee. The next opportunity for nominating is October 2002-February 2003.

Officers

Secretary and Information Coordinator:
Monika Cremer

Strategic plan 2001-2003

From September to December 2001, the Section has finalized the Strategic plan 2001-2003.

Goals

1. Promotion of the use of Audiovisual and Multimedia in Libraries. Discussion and information between librarians in charge of audiovisual and multimedia collections and services, in relation to users' needs.
(Professional priorities: (a) Supporting the role of libraries in society; (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (f) Promoting resource sharing)

Actions

2. Development of heritage collections: by voluntary deposit or by the extension of legal deposit to include Audiovisual and Multimedia, in both public and private archives
(Professional priorities: (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage)

Actions

3. Develop legal expertise in relation to acquisition and access questions, and for preservation requirements. (Professional priorities: (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (e) Balancing the intellectual property rights of authors with the needs of users)

Actions

4. Monitor technical knowledge regarding historical, present and future carriers and related equipments, in order to preserve heritage collections ; monitor the use of technological developments to copy and to deliver collections to the public, including via the Internet.
(Professional priorities: (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage; (k) Representing libraries in the technological marketplace)

Actions

5. Adaptation of cataloguing rules and formats for audiovisual and multimedia documents. Adaptation of indexing languages and classification. Encourage National Bibliographies to include sound and image records and multimedia. Expertise in enriching catalogs with sound and images. Adaptation of Information Retrieval systems to images and sounds on the Internet.
(Professional priorities: (i) Promoting standards, guidelines and best practice)

Actions

Meetings

The Standing Committee met twice during the Boston Conference (Saturday, 18 August 11h30 - 14h20, Friday, 24 August 8h00-10h15).
Besides programme discussions for the annual conferences 2002 and 2003, the most important issues for the meetings were: membership matters and projects. The chair and the secretary also took part of the Coordinating Board Meetings for Division VI.

Projects

The current project is: Guidelines for Audiovisual and Multimedia Services in Libraries (Draft)

1. Introduction
2. General statements
3. Definitions/Materials
4. Organization and administration
• Staff, education and training
• Budget
5. Acquisition, legal deposition
6. Copyright
7. Cataloguing and bibliographic access
8. Archiving, preservation and storage
9. Digitizing, Imaging
10. Internet
11. User services
12. Cooperation
13. Reference resources

The Section had to give up the project « A survey on legal deposit and copyright in Spanish speaking countries. » Graciela Dacosta (Montevideo, Uruguay) has worked on this project and could not finish it. The section gave the project money back and it was allocated to the 2002 administrative money.

Publications

The section was translated in German by Monika Cremer and put on Iflanet.

Information about the Section on Audiovisual and Multimedia in a German library review: Cremer, Monika: Neue IFLA-Sektion: Audiovisuelle Medien und Multimedia. In: BuB 54(2002) H.6, S. 367-368

Conference Programme in Boston, August 2001

The theme was: 'New Technologies for Access to Moving Images'

1. Moving Images and Cultural Heritage in Scotland
   BRUCE ROYAN (SCRAN, Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network, UK)
2. DIVA - the digital video and audio archive of the University Library of Karlsruhe
   RÉGINE TOBIAS and UDO WILLKE (Karlsruhe University, Germany)
   These papers will be followed by a presentation of the first working draft of the 'Guidelines for audiovisual and multimedia materials in libraries' by Joëlle Garcia (Bibliothèque nationale, France, Chair of the Section on Audiovisual and Multimedia)

The session was attended by more than 200 people. The Diva paper is avalaible on the IFLA website.

Relationship with other bodies

CCAAA meeting, Paris, March 2002

The CCAAA annual meeting took place in Paris at the end of March. IFLA was represented by Sjoerd Koopman and Joëlle Garcia. The AMIA's application for membership of CCAAA was accepted. A convenor and a rapporteur were appointed.

CCAAA members gave a report on their annual activities and conferences and exchanged information on audiovisual matters.

Date: August 2002