Resources

The Audiovisual Artifact Atlas is a community-based visual guide to the technical reasons that defects appear when videotapes are played back.

QC Tools is a suite of open-source software tools that can report on and graph data documenting video signal loss, flag errors in digitization, identify which errors and artifacts are in original format and which resulted from the digital transfer based on all the data collected in the past.

EAI/IMAP Media Art Resource This website brings together information on preservation, exhibition, and collection of media artworks, including single-channel videos, computer-based art, and installation artworks.

Smithsonian Institution Time-Based Art Working Group The Smithsonian’s working group on conservation of time-based art has published a number of reports, interviews, and surveys exploring current best practices and possible future approaches to conserving media art.

Film Preservation Guide The guide prepared by the National Film Preservation Foundation is the best online guide to the basics of preserving film materials—detailed, but very user-friendly, especially for those without film-handling experience.

Guggenheim Media Art Documentation The Guggenheim Museum has created detailed templates for the documentation of media art installation, including “Iteration Reports,” which describe specific installations of a work, and reports for documenting film and video elements.

Personal Digital Archiving Although aimed at a general audience, this resource, developed by Library of Congress, provides basic guidance for individuals to maintain their digital information.

Matters in Media Art is an international project to develop tools and strategies for the care of time-based artworks; the project partners are Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the New Art Trust.

Video Preservation Website is a detailed resource about analog videotape preservation, digitization, and migration. It includes information about videotape storage, management of analog video equipment, and archival texts about videotape history.

Essential Resources for Audio Preservation Created by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, (ARSC) this site is a comprehensive bibliography of online resources regarding the technical and logistical issues related to preserving audio material, both analog and digital.