Our History
Launched in 2021, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives' Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative (AVMPI) is the result of decades of media collections care, career-long labor by dedicated staff, and over six years of collaborative planning across multiple museums and research centers.
From December 2017 to May 2019, eleven Smithsonian units participated in an Audiovisual Preservation Readiness Assessment (AVPRA), building off of the 2016 Pan-Institutional Audiovisual Collections Survey. The purpose of AVPRA was to:
- 1) Complete and update the 2016 inventory of analog audiovisual holdings at the Smithsonian Institution;
- 2) Develop and implement a method to prioritize analog audiovisual collections for preservation;
- 3) Evaluate the Institution’s current audiovisual preservation practices; and,
- 4) Determine the risk for permanent collection loss at current preservation rates and establish preservation scenarios which can mitigate that loss.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives served as the lead unit for the project under the direction of Alison Reppert Gerber, Preservation Coordinator, and Kira Sobers, Digital Media Coordinator. As the Community Archiving Collective (CAC) under the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), contracted audiovisual archivists Kelli Hix, Marie Lascu, and Moriah Ulinskas conducted the assessment and prepared the report. Funding for the project was provided by the National Collections Program’s Collections Care Initiative (CCI).
Project Outcomes
The final project report was completed and presented to institutional stakeholders in July 2019. Appendices may be made available upon request.
- Smithsonian Audiovisual Preservation Readiness Assessment Final Report, July 17, 2019
- Smithsonian Audiovisual Collections Survey Infographic, June 2018
- Smithsonian Audiovisual Preservation Readiness Assessment Infographic, July 2019
Unit Participants
- Archives of American Art (AAA)
- Anacostia Community Museum (ACM)
- Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections (CFCH)
- National Anthropological Archives | Human Studies Film Archives (NAA-HSFA)
- National Air and Space Museum Archives (NASM)
- National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
- National Museum of American History Archives Center (NMAH-AC)
- National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)
- National Portrait Gallery (NPG)
- Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
- Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA)
Beginning in 2015 the Smithsonian Institution Archives partnered with seven Smithsonian units to conduct a comprehensive survey of audiovisual collections consisting of analog film, audio, and video held across the Institution. Proposed by the Audiovisual Archivists Interest Lunch (AVAIL) group and funded by the Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF), the 'Survey' project provided a foundation for the Smithsonian to develop pan-institutional guidelines on the preservation and care of audiovisual collection materials. The primary goals of the initial 'Survey' were to document the breadth and scope of audiovisual collections by gathering group-level data on formats, condition, and storage environments, and to report on areas of greatest strengths and needs in preservation practices gleaned from staff interviews. Funding for the project was provided by the National Collections Program’s Collections Care Initiative (CCI).
Project Outcomes
The final project report was completed in March 2017. The National Collections Program funded the project's second phase Audiovisual Preservation Readiness Assessment, which began in later 2017.
- Smithsonian Pan-Institutional Audiovisual Collections Survey Final Report, March 28, 2017
- Smithsonian Pan-Institutional Audiovisual Collections Survey Quick Facts, February 14, 2018
Unit Participants
- Anacostia Community Museum (ACM)
- Archives of American Art (AAA)
- Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections (CFCH)
- Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA)
- National Air and Space Museum Archives (NASM)
- National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
- National Museum of American History Archives Center (AC)
- Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA)
In 2014, the Smithsonian's Digitization Program Office (DPO) commissioned the internal Office of Policy & Analysis to conduct a study that would consider and propose how mass digitization might work at SI. The resulting Scaling Up Mass Digitization report contrasted the cost effectiveness of in-house versus vendor-based digitization for audiovisual collections, and concluded that centralized in-house digitization was not viable.
Upon its internal release the resultant "Scaling Up Mass Digitization" (2014) report proved controversial, as it failed to account for DPO's in-process mass digitization pilot programs and exposed several unfunded collections commitments. Smithsonian media archivists and audiovisual collections managers took specific issue with the report's cost-benefit analysis metrics for digitizing media, and its conclusions. The "Scaling Up Mass Digitization" report sparked members of the AVAIL group into action to collaborate on applying for resources from the National Collections Program to create their own self-authored studies, eventually resulting in the AVMPI.
N.B. The internal "Scaling Up Mass Digitization" report has never been made available to the public.
In 2009 Archives of American Art Audiovisual Archivist Megan McShea convened a lunchtime meeting of her media-friendly peers at other Smithsonian units to share knowledge and exchange ideas for preserving media at the Institution. With Pam Wintle (Human Studies Film Archive), Wendy Shay (National Museum of American History-Archives Center), and Michael Pahn (National Museum of the American Indian) among the earliest participants, the quickly-monikered 'AVAIL' (AV Archivists Interest Lunch) group established a quarterly meeting and long running listserv for staff at federal agencies with audiovisual collections.
Read more about the history of Smithsonian audiovisual collections in Kimberly Tarr and Wendy Shay's 2013 article "How Film (And Video) Found Its Way into "Our Nation's Attic": A Conversation about the Origins of Audiovisual Collecting and Archiving at the Smithsonian Institution," which appears in The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, Vol. 13, No. 1, (Spring 2013), pp. 178-184, published by University of Minnesota Press. Link to article.
N.B. Work produced by federal employees of the United States Government is Public Domain.
In 1992, audiovisual archivist and footage consultant Richard Prelinger of Prelinger Associates, Inc. was contracted to undertake an account of the media collections produced and stewarded by the Smithsonian Office of Telecommunications (OTC). Prelinger was tasked to, "determine the feasibility of various strategies for the commercial exploitation of this material, including but not limited to the establishment of a stock footage enterprise either within the Museum of by another entity..." and to, "clarify issues relating to the possible retention of junking of the material," which was incurring significant storage costs for OTC.
Prelinger's resulting report, "Smithsonian Office of Telecommunications Report," submitted in November of 1992 after two on-site visits and extensive interviews with several key OTC production staff, outlines recommendations for audiovisual collection storage conditions, discusses rights issues, and describes the landscape of commercial footage licensing from that era. Prelinger and OTC staff also collaborated on the creation of a collection inventory of OTC films and videos, which history has proven to be of immense value due to the fact that upon the dissolution of OTC (and its successor, Smithsonian Productions in 2002), only portions of its collections were transferred to the custody of Smithsonian Institution Archives. Thus, Prelinger and OTC's Inventory of OTC Films/Videos provides the AVMPI with a map of exactly what Smithsonian exhibition and documentary productions were created, and when.
A scanned copy of Prelinger's Smithsonian Office of Telecommunications Report can be found via the Internet Archive, where he serves a Board Member. Read more about Prelinger's work for the Smithsonian via the SLA's Unbound 'Through the Loupe' blog post by AVMPI Curator Walter Forsberg.
The Survey of Audiovisual Programs Produced by the Smithsonian Institution was created from 1981-1982 as a "comprehensive listing of all the films, videotapes, slide programs, filmstrips, audio tapes, and records" produced by SI bureaus and units. The Office of Museum Programs conducted the inventory, with the guidance of the "S.I. Audiovisual Advisory Committee," and published its resultant findings as a booklet intended for use as "a staff reference file."
The survey helpfully organized works by 'Medium,' and collecting 'Unit,' while also including notes about current distribution and available supplemental materials. Nancy Fuller, Assistant Program Manager of the Office of Museum Programs, and Dawn Marie Warfle, project assistant, compiled data from each participating SI bureau and unit via an item-level survey form. James Crockett and Sally Caldwell from the Smithsonian's Office of Information Resources Management assisted in gathering and organizing the data into a computer database (see: an excerpt of sample listings, below).
The report is a remarkable time capsule of how audiovisual collections were tracked, but also reveals realities about audiovisual collections that might surprise contemporary readers. For example: the Smithsonian actively sold and rented copies of many of its produced documentary and exhibition videos, and also held an immense amount of 35mm filmstrips (with accompanying compact audio cassette soundtracks) which were used for educational purposes.
Members of the 1981-1982 S.I. Audiovisual Advisory Committee:
Elena Borowski, Office of Museum Programs
Nazaret Cherkezian, Office of Telecommunications
Peter Erikson, Office of Museum Programs
Eleanor Fink, National Museum of American Art
Jane R. Glaser, Chairperson, Office of Museum Programs
Kerry Joels, National Air and Space Museum
Karen Loveland, Office of Exhibits Central, Motion Picture Unit
Vince MacDonnell, Office of Assistant Secretary for Public Service
Joan Madden, National Museum of Natural History
James Morris, Division of Performing Arts
Paul Perrot, Assistant Secretary for Museum Programs
Ralph Rinzler, Office of Folklife Programs
Glen Ruh, Smithsonian Exposition Books
James Wallace, Office of Printing and Photographic Services
Ken Yellis, National Portrait Gallery
James M. Young, Management Analysis Office
Who We Are
Audiovisual media preservation at the Smithsonian has a long history of pan-institutional collaboration, like that which defines the Institution's current "One Smithsonian" philosophy. The AVMPI embodies cross-pollination and its Staff, Task Force members, and Advisory Committee reflect that diversity of skill sets, subject expertise, and background.
The AVMPI Team in June 2024 (above, left to right): Yasmin Mohaideen, Brianna Toth, Walter Forsberg, Kayla Henry-Griffin, Dan Hockstein, Felicia Boretzky, Siobhan Hagan, Alison Reppert Gerber.
The AVMPI Team at the April 2023 Radio Preservation Task Force (above, left to right): Dan Hockstein, Brianna Toth, Alison Reppert Gerber, Siobhan Hagan, Walter Forsberg.
AVMPI Staff
Founding AVMPI Task Force (2019-2023)
Our Goals
The AVMPI project's accomplishments owe great debts to our team's thorough due diligence and planned phase approaches. Read more about our current priorities and strategic goals below.
Goal 1 for FY 2023: Recruitment of full 7-person AVMPI Team.
- Complete federal hiring for remaining positions outlined in AVMPI Strategic Plan (2021-2025).
Goal 2 for FY 2023: Assess needs gaps and outfit 4 interim satellite Media Conservation and Digitization Labs across SI, while AVMPI facility is constructed at the Pennsy Collection Center in Suitland, MD.
- Satellite Labs to be located at NMAH-Archives Center, NMAI-CRC, Anacostia Community Museum, and Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Goal 3 for FY 2023: Launch project website, monthly newsletter, and quarterly public events.
Goal 4 for FY2023: Undertake multiple magnetic media digitization pilot projects to test workflows and solidify SI museum unit collaborations and research center working relationships.
Goal 1: To develop a centralized space dedicated to the conservation and preservation transfer of Smithsonian audio, video, and film collections.
- Secure space for, design, outfit, and manage the creation of both an interim and permanent state-of-the-art facility.
- Support the overall treatment of audiovisual collections through the creation of specialized AVMPI spaces, to include a conservation laboratory, temporary collection storage, and digitization suites.
- Strengthen existing SI laboratories through equipment acquisition, software development, and increased staffing for rare format specialization.
Goal 2: To prioritize audiovisual collections for preservation based on format degradation and content value.
- Utilize data from the 2019 Audiovisual Preservation Readiness Assessment (AVPRA) to focus preservation efforts on the highest priority collections across SI units.
- Collaborate with unit curators and content specialists to determine SI-wide needs for preservation and subsequent access.
- Partner with existing and new institutional initiatives to support efforts to highlight Smithsonian collections that tell a unique and diverse viewpoint.
Goal 3: To create standard, pan-institutional workflows for the management of AVMPI to maximize the use of resources.
- Establish a minimal set of administrative and descriptive metadata to support an efficient digitization workflow. Support descriptive cataloging by making all digitized files available to unit staff via the Smithsonian’s Digital Asset Management System (DAMS).
- Develop and/or utilize software systems to support the capture of descriptive and technical metadata, digitization transfer, facilitate quality assurance and control, and track physical collection movement.
- Use both a 1:1 digitization workflow and parallel transfer stations, as appropriate, to support AVMPI goals.
- Develop protocols and standards for AVMPI staff and for working with external vendors for the physical conservation and digitization of rare formats.
Goal 4: To ensure institutional preparedness for digital preservation and increased storage needs.
- Determine network connectivity requirements, maintain existing file standards, convey storage needs, and ensure long-term digital preservation.
- Maintain current best practice standards for the digital transfer of audio, video, and film collections.
Goal 5: To promote the overall mission of the Smithsonian Institution by increasing access to digitized audiovisual collections.
- Develop new solutions for providing access to audio and moving image files to support the increase and diffusion of knowledge.
- Work with existing Smithsonian initiatives, such as the Open Access Initiative, the Smithsonian Transcription Center, the American Women’s History Initiative, and the Latino and Asian Pacific American Initiative, to support collection engagement and access.
- Consult with individual units, along with source communities, artists, and community-based scholars, in defining protocols for addressing collection-related inquiries and concerns. This can include the generation of cultural documentation, culturally appropriate collections care and handling, and the potential source community interest in digital return and repatriation.
(Read the complete Smithsonian Institution Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative Strategic Plan for FY2021 – FY2025, here: https://siarchives.si.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/AVMPI_Strategic_Plan.pdf)
Learn More Directly from Our Team
Read a selection of staff-authored posts on Smithsonian Libraries and Archives' Unbound blog:
- AVMPI Supervisor Alison Reppert Gerber introduces the AVMPI, outlining its history and debuting our promo reel.
- Initiative Coordinator Siobhan Hagan talks about how childhood visits to the National Aquarium inspired her career in audiovisual archiving.
- Curator Walter Forsberg outlines many of the exciting challenges in selection and prioritization of Smithsonian audiovisual collections.
- Audio Preservation Specialist Dan Hockstein shares his qualifications for laying a sound foundation for Smithsonian audio collections care.
- Video Preservation Specialist Brianna Toth lays forth her career's signal flow from MTV and video rental stores, to Bay Area non-profit audiovisual organizations and a master's degree in library science.
Contact our team by clicking the Air Mail envelope (or the 'Contact Us' form at the bottom of this webpage), or get in touch with a specific staff member via staff profile above.
