Audio-Related Media Preservation Organizations, Projects and Events
Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC)
ARSC is the largest and strongest organization in North America focused solely on sound collections. Membership is diverse, including a good balance of archives and institutions, private collectors, and service vendors. Conferences will cover a range of material from music and artist history, preservation in archives, and technical sessions and tutorials. On the technical front, ARSC functions as an interpretive body, helping translate highly technical subjects for a non-technical audience, and providing practical recommendations and guidelines that can serve individuals as well as small and large organizations.
Audio Engineering Society (AES)
The AES is a highly technical society with a focus on audio engineering, research and development and technology. Most of its efforts are about pushing the field of audio forward and solving the problems of today. Nonetheless, they also have active subcommittees establishing standards and best practices for audio preservation work.
International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA)
IASA is the international equivalent of ARSC, except that its membership is more biased toward archives and institutions, and their technical subcommittees are more active in developing standards and best practice documents.
European Broadcast Union (EBU)
The EBU is the international equivalent of the AES. The two organizations often collaborate - or at least harmonize their efforts. The EBU developed the BWF standard now used for most audio preservation efforts.
Recording Academy
Although best known for their new music awards (the GRAMMY Awards), The Recording Academy via The GRAMMY Foundation is very active in preserving recorded music. Check out the Producers and Engineers Wing (P&E Wing) of the Recording Academy if you are technically oriented.
Sound Directions Project
This is an NEH-funded research and development project between Indiana University and Harvard University. The result has been a range of tools and software toolkits that sound archives can use, as well as best practice documents.
National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) of the Library of Congress
The NRPB promotes comprehensive audio preservation and access at the national and government level.
Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA)
Founded in 1996 and headquarted in the Phillipines, SEAPAVAA promotes audiovisual archiving in the Southeast Asia.
Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
The work of CLIR spans nearly every aspect of libraries and information access. With their deep contacts and knowledge of the library space, they produce some excellent research publications, including on the subject of audio and sound recording copyrights.
Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)
AMIA is the equivalent of ARSC for the world of film and video. Keep in mind that most films include sound, so the work of AMIA and ARSC do overlap.
Music Library Association (MLA)
Founded in 1931, and based in Wisconsin, the MLA is involved in all aspects of preserving the world's musical heritage. Membership is predominantly librarians and archivists.
American Library Association (ALA)
Founded long ago in 1876 and headquartered in Chicago, the ALA is quite active in cataloging and metadata - two areas which impact audio collections.
Society of American Archivists (SAA)
Founded in 1936, the members of SAA preserve collections of all kinds, including audio collections. As an organization, they are large, active, and vocal (as they should be).
International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)
Founded in 1938 in Paris, and now based in Belgium. Membership is focused on archives. They publish a print journal.
International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA)
Founded in 1977, and now based in Austria. Membership is focused on archives.
International Council on Archives (ICA)
Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Paris, the ICA promotes the preservation and use of archives. Check out their Resource Centre database that has a large collection of papers, best practices and standards documents - although the search interface is a bit clumsy.
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
Founded in 1927 and currently headquartered in the Netherlands. Their focus is on libraries and information services. However, preservation and conservation is a core activity of the IFLA, with the Library of Congress being the regional center for the United States and Canada.
Coordinating Council Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA)
This is meta-organization - an organization for organizations. Members include ARSC, AMIA and IASA, among others.
Joint Technical Symposium on Audiovisual Materials (JTS)
This is an event which occurs approximately once every three years.
What is unique about this event is that it brings together interested members from all the major associations (see CCAAA). The speakers and topics are truly international in scope with broad ranging interests, making for a very interesting event. Not to be missed!