Digital preservation and the sustainability of film heritage

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the lack of published work on the preservation of digital materials within European film heritage institutions (FHIs).¹ In the long-term, technological change might have relevant consequences, on the sustainability of film preservation, affecting the ability to write film history and experience cultural memories. Although there is general awareness of the complexity and the cost of maintenance of digital preservation infrastructures, we have little knowledge of what specifically film heritage institutions are doing to address these challenges. Based on elite interviews with leading film archivists and analysis of relevant policy documents, this paper shows that FHIs are actively engaging with technological and institutional change and implementing valuable initiatives. However, this paper confirms that, roughly 10 years since the widespread of digital cinema distribution, FHIs are generally still striving to provide long-term sustainable and trustworthy solutions to safeguard the digital materials that they are acquiring or creating via digitisation. Although some institutions have built fairly reliable infrastructures, problems still arise from the instability of the information technology sector and from its persistent strategies of planned obsolescence.

KEYWORDS:

• Film heritage
• digital preservation
• media
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Luca Barra and Andreas Rauh for their insightful comments on an early draft of this paper. He also thanks the anonymous reviewers for constructive criticisms.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This paper is based on a rework of a chapter of my PhD thesis (Antoniazzi, 2017b). Data collection and analysis have been carried out between the end of 2014 and the end of 2016.

2 See Gracy and Kahn (2012) for a thorough review.

3 In 2005, Mark Kryder conceived the homonymous law according to which storage devices’ areal density doubles every 18 months (Walter, 2005). This implies an approximate simultaneous halving of digital storage costs.

4 Addis and Wright (2010) have criticised AMPAS (2007) using the study of Cavena, Wood, Bonwick, Steele, and Selway (2007, pp. 19–23). Sponsored by Sun Microsystem (since acquired by Oracle).

5 Other important contributions following the same line of argument are Wengström (2013), Gaustad (2012). For initial organisational conceptualisations, see also Mazzanti, Nowak, and Read (2008) and Walsh (2014).

6 For poor countries, for example, ‘temporary acceptance of less than best environmental conditions can be made more palatable if the rents from doing so are translated into productive investments [partially addressed at environmental repair]’ (Solow, 1993b, p. 172).

7 The term value links to Solow’s stress on ‘resources doing things to people’, and it is here ‘used to refer to the effects that culture has on those who experience it’ (Crossick & Kaszynska, 2014. p. 124). Reference to the enrichment of new productions draws on Solow’s idea of investment for the future. Deliberate loss refers to (legitimate) selective acquisitions and deaccessions.

8 In more recent works, Throsby (2003) adds the principles of diversity and precautionary principles. I take here his first model, as I think these new specifications are logically included respectively into the category of significance and intergenerational equity.

9 Former Chair of the Preservation Committee of the Association of Moving Image Archivists.

10 Interview with the author. The participant asked to remain anonymous.

11 Swedish Film Institute, Head of Archival Film Collections. Interview with the author.

12 IASA, Chair of National Archives Section. Interview with the author.

13 EYE Filmmuseum, Chief Curator. Interview with the author.

14 Open Archival Information System.

15 Head of Digital Collection, Imperial War Museum; former Head of Technical Commission, FIAF. Interview with the author.

16 General Manager, ProTek (now retired). Interview with the author.

17 Head of film section and digital preservation consultant. National Library of Norway. Interview with the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luca Antoniazzi

Luca Antoniazzi (Ph.D. University of Leeds) is post-doctoral fellow at the University of Bologna. Previously he worked in the field of film heritage preservation in a number of organisations across Europe [email: [email protected]].