NARA conference

The National Archives and Records Administration (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 reorganization 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, reformatting, and outreach. Speakers include Doris Hamburg, Amy Lubick, Sara Shpargel, and Susan Page from NARA, Ronald Weiss from Arkival Technology Corporation, John Faundeen 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/conferences/2012 or contact Richard Schneider at E-mail: 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 issues for sound and moving picture content, transitioning into the file-based world, digital preservation, standards, preservation for access, implications for small collections and institutions, current activities and case studies, and conclusions and recommended actions. It particularly concentrates on digitization, encoding, file formats and wrappers, use of compression, 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 practitioners 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 interviews 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 Institutions (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 protecting all cultural heritage and explicitly stated its purposes, conditions for intervention, guiding principles, and levels of involvement for information 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.