In Focus: The 21st Century Archive
edited by Eric Schaefer
Introduction: Twenty-five years ago and more anyone doing research in film and
television studies found it necessary--almost obligatory--to visit an archive to
gain access to material in order to accomplish his or her goals. The routine of writing
letters of inquiry, following up with phone calls, and waiting anxiously to find
out if the material you wanted was available, and for permission to access it, was a
rite that every scholar--from graduate student to much-published professor--
went through. We were humble supplicants waiting for admission at the gates of
knowledge. And the relationship between archivists, the keepers of those gates,
and scholars was often a tense one. Some archivists took their mission to preserve
material to extremes, considering scholars or others who wanted to use it not just
a burden but also a potential threat. Many scholars had an equally dim view of
archivists, one perhaps unfairly shaped by those who helped define the field in its
early years: Iris Barry, constructing an unbreachable canon at Museum of Modern
Art; Henri Langois, shambling through the streets of Paris juggling film cans, part
visionary, part Mad Hatter; James Card, sucking the last breath from Louise
Brooks in Rochester. Or they were simply considered the offshoot of an ascetic
tribe of librarians who existed only to peer over their spectacles and "shhhhhhhh"
scholarship, by thwarting access.
But historian Roy Rosenzweig reminds us "the split of archivists from historians
is a relatively recent one." He notes that early in the past century "historians
saw themselves as having a responsibility for preserving as well as researching the
past."1
Changes that have occurred over the past two decades have tended to
mend that split, at least within the field of film and media studies. Jim Collins observed
in 1995, "The emergence of new repositories of information such as the
computer network and the living room exemplify the widespread reformulation of
what constitutes an archive, and just as importantly, what constitutes an archivist."2
From a vantage point of ten years on, we might also say that computer networks
and the living room--the DVD players, the collections of audio and moving image
material housed there--have also begun to reformulate what constitutes a historian.
Minimally, they have altered the relationship between archivists and historians
from one--not always, but often--based on tension, suspicion, and mutual misgivings
to one of shared purpose, trust, and cooperation. These and other changes
constitute the emergence of something new, something we might term the twentyfirst
century archive.
The twenty-first century archive is marked by a growing professionalism, coupled
with energetic outreach and activism. The Association of Moving Image
 2007 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007 109
Archivists (AMIA), founded in 1991 and already with more than 750 individual
members, has encouraged this through its committees and interest groups, as well
as its annual conference. From the start, AMIA leaders and membership have recognized
the interdependence of archivists and scholars and have worked to build
collaborative relationships. This has come in the form of AMIA conference panels,
and more recently with AMIA-sponsored panels at the Society for Cinema and
Media Studies (SCMS), and the creation of AMIA's Academic-Archival Interest
Group that has labored to foster dialogue and cooperation between its constituent
groups. Perhaps the most potent evidence of this collaboration can be seen in the
creation of AMIA's semiannual journal, The Moving Image, under founding editor
Jan-Christopher Horak in 2001. The journal exemplifies collaboration in that it not
only deals with technical issues facing archives, ranging from cataloging to storage,
but also explores questions regarding the intersection of historiography and
archival practice, and publishes scholarship rooted in archival research.
The spirit of cooperation that is a hallmark of the twenty-first century archive
can be seen in other places as well. The "Archival News" column in this journal,
developed by Brian Taves, was born out of this desire to promote awareness on the
part of scholars of newly accessioned collections, preservation initiatives, and improved
finding aids--all with the purpose of encouraging original scholarship.
The Orphan Film Symposium and the Northeast Historic Film Summer Film
Symposium have become models of joint academic/archival endeavor that bring
together archivists, scholars, and artists to recognize and celebrate overlooked aspects
of our moving image heritage with screenings, presentations, and discus-
sion.3
Such informal links between academics and archivists present a vital model
of "grassroots" collaboration, but they should not substitute for more formal connections
between AMIA and SCMS. Those are overdue. Moreover, in my view, all
media scholars should be members of AMIA, whether they focus on early cinema or
the latest digital delivery systems. This is not only because of the excellent resources
the organization makes available but also because of the continuing education it
provides into the latest development in moving image access and preservation.
Conversely, moving image archivists--or certainly more of them--would be well
advised to join SCMS in order to monitor trends in scholarship.4
The development of the twenty-first century archive is being aided by the
creation of programs designed to train a new generation of moving image archivists.
Where once people fell into moving image archiving as much through accident as
through design, individuals now have the option of choosing it as a career path.
The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman House
established in 1996 was the first moving image preservation program in the United
States. The UCLA Moving Image Archive Studies Program and the NYU program
in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation followed. Other programs exist in
Europe, and many library science schools train their students in aspects of nonprint
materials to a much greater degree than they did in the past. While some
archivists have been equally well known for their scholarship, just as some scholars
110 Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007
have been attuned to archival practice, this new brand of archival education is
training a generation of archivists who not only are highly skilled in the science of
moving image preservation but also are knowledgeable in film and television history.
Indeed, many are historians in their own right, and all appear to be highly
sensitive to the needs of moving image scholars and the changing shape of the field.
Just as archivists are becoming more attuned to the needs of scholars, media
historians are once again embracing their responsibility for preserving the past.
This process has been greatly aided by technology. Prior to the rise of home video,
only those who were wealthy enough, eccentric enough, or both could afford to
amass a film collection, usually on 16 mm. Now, every media scholar possesses a
personal collection of material on tape or DVD that they can reach to on a daily
basis for teaching and research. And while these formats may not be "archival,"
they have made scholars more sensitive to the issues that archivists face on a routine
basis: cataloguing, preservation, and copyright, to name just a few.
Mundane technologies such as the photocopier have allowed scholars to
build their own paper archives of documents, and the ever-expanding universe of
e-commerce has meant that material ranging from original pressbooks to obscure
16 mm films to long-forgotten journals is available to anyone with a credit card, an
eBay account, and a degree of patience. A danger in the development of personal
archives is that they may so command the interest of individual researchers that
those researchers will take for granted "professional" archives, to the detriment of
their scholarship and to the archives. The health and viability of archives, especially
smaller, specialized collections, is often related to the amount of use they receive.
Scholars should feel a professional obligation to patronize them. Archives also welcome
the participation of scholars in conversations about what gets collected, as
well as what material receives preservation priority.
Of course, it is digital technology that has had the greatest impact on the
twenty-first century archive, with both positive and negative implications. DVDs
have become some of the most voracious users of archival material for the ubiquitous
supplemental "extras" they offer--miniature archives, if you will--that might
include script drafts, storyboards, promotional materials, as well as commentaries
from creators and critics that range from the informative to the infuriating. Not
only can such materials be of use to scholars and film buffs, they also help make
the public aware of the role of archives and the importance of preservation. Computers
have made restorations that would have been almost impossible in the past
a reality. They have also created new opportunities for access and the promotion
of archives through the Internet. Many archives, such as the UCLA Film and Television
Archive, have created online searchable databases.5
This means that scholars
no longer have to write letters and then wait weeks or more for replies regarding
the availability of materials. The benefit to the scholar is obvious, but in theory
these databases should also relieve archive staff of some of the day-to-day burden
of fielding inquiries and provide them with more time to concentrate on other
tasks. The development of online archival databases has inspired the creation of a
Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007 111
single electronic portal to a variety of resources: MIC (Moving Image Collections).
This ambitious project not only serves as a compendium moving image archives
and other institutions that hold film, television, and video, it is creating an integrated
online union catalogue of moving images. At present there are 14 participating
archives, including the Library of Congress, Academic Film Archive of
North America, the Pacific Film Archive, the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and
Peabody Awards Collection, CNN, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive.6
We can hope that more will contribute their records as MIC matures so that one
day it will truly offer "one stop shopping" for those searching for archived moving
images.
While digital technologies have defined the twenty-first century archive to a
great extent, they have also created a whole new set of preservation challenges.
Materials that are "born digital"--whether a digital film, an e-mail, or a wordprocessed
memo--are even more evanescent than the nitrate, which we were told
"can't wait," in the 1980s. Hardware and software become rapidly outdated, making
the materials created with them outmoded as well. It is likely that every person
reading this article has some file, some document, created on a now-dated
software or hardware system that she or he is no longer able to use. This state of
affairs will only become more pressing as material moves to Internet sites such as
YouTube. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times observed, "Much like global
warming, the [digital] archive problem emerged suddenly, its effects remain murky
and the brunt of its effect will be felt by future generations. The era we are living
in could become a gap in history."7
As individuals we must maintain a constant and
time-consuming program of "data migration" if we hope to keep the material accessible,
and thus useful. Imagine this task a thousandfold, and we can begin to
comprehend the challenge that digital materials pose for even the smallest archive.
Fortunately, the twenty-first century archive is being built in an environment
in which public awareness about the importance of archival preservation has increased.
This has been fostered by high-profile film restorations and by such efforts
as the National Film Registry, the annual selection of 25 "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant films" begun in 1989 by the Librarian of Congress. Still,
funding for preservation and restoration remains at a premium. The grants provided
by the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF), established by Congress
in 1996, have made a difference in supporting the preservation of films that
"would be unlikely to survive without public support."8
Even with the availability
of NFPF funding and other grants, archives still require a trained staff and the
time to write grant proposals, and they need to have engaged in sufficient strategic
planning to determine which of their holdings are in most need of preservation
and combine historic/cultural worth, potential for scholarly interest, and so on. All
of this simply highlights the increasingly decisive role archives play in determining
how film and television history are written through decisions made about what is
collected and preserved, a point that is often overlooked (or at least insufficiently
acknowledged) by scholars.
112 Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007
This "In Focus" brings together six of the architects of the twenty-first century
archive, individuals who blur the boundaries between archivists, scholars, and
activists. Rick Prelinger put "ephemeral" films on the map during the 1980s when
most scholars were still focused on the products of the large-scale moving image
industries in the United States and other countries. He weighs in on access and
copyright, and how, despite advances, these issues continue to hamstring progress
in scholarship and archival practice. Karan Sheldon, the cofounder of Northeast
Historic Film, one of the leading regional film archives in North America, discusses
the emergence of such archives that are increasingly the wellspring of cutting edge
scholarship. The awareness of orphan films has transformed moving image
archives and historiography in the past decade, and Dan Streible, the spokesman
of the orphan movement, surveys this paradigm shift. Margaret Compton of the
Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection discusses the
unique challenges that face television archives in a period of rapid technological
change. Specialized archives increasingly command the attention of scholars, and
Lynne Kirste, of the Academy Film Archive, looks at the development of collections
devoted to the Lesbian, Gay, Bi, and Transgendered (LGBT) community. Finally,
Mike Mashon of the Library of Congress outlines the monumental efforts
that the LC is undertaking to store and improve access to its massive collection.
The twenty-first century archive promises to be an exciting and dynamic
place. It is a universe that is simultaneously expanding and contracting: expanding,
as more material is collected and as outreach increases through the Internet; contracting,
as it focuses on more "local" and specialized collections that in the past
might have been ignored. It is increasingly professional, and it is marked by a growing
cooperation between archivists and scholars who have come to recognize their
shared interests and interdependence. Every media studies professional has an investment
in the twenty-first century archive because, ultimately, it will shape the
field of cinema and media studies for decades to come.
Notes
1. Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era," The
American Historical Review 108, no. 3, http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/
108.3/rosenzweig.html (accessed April 25, 2006).
2. Jim Collins, Architectures of Excess: Cultural Life in the Information Age (New York:
Routledge, 1995), 25.
3. The Orphan Film Symposium was inaugurated in 1999, and the NHF Summer Film
Symposium started the following year. Both continue to thrive.
4. AMIA's Web site, accessible at http://www.amianet.org, offers a number of useful features
for members and nonmembers alike, including links to archives, reports, and other
resources. The organization's listserv at http://www.amianet.org/amial/amial.html is a
valuable forum that provides a space for the exchange of information, ideas, and advice.
5. The UCLA Film and Television Archive databases can be accessed at http://www
.cinema.ucla.edu/access/databases.html.
6. The main MIC portal is located at http://mic.loc.gov.
Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007 113
7. Charles Piller, "Unable to Repeat the Past," Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2006,
A 1.
8. "About the NFPF," http://www.filmpreservation.org/ (accessed October 17, 2006).
Archives and Access in the 21st Century
by Rick Prelinger
Some 30 years ago moving image archives began migrating from the fringes of
media culture towards the center. For some (but not all) collections, mainstreaming
has brought wealth and fame, visibility and allure. Scholarly work built on the
archival record is increasing, mass media is redolent with archival images and sounds,
and a growing number of "archives fans" regard once-obscure repositories as exciting,
relevant, and culturally hip institutions. But while the archival hour may be
at hand, the sustainability and survival of archival institutions are far from certain.
The reasons are both extrinsic and intrinsic to archives. Many institutions sequester
their holdings behind walls of copyright, policy, or indifference, rendering them
inaccessible to many. Quick Web searches are replacing deep archival research,
and most archival materials are not online. Copyright maximalism, a reluctance to
embrace technology, and resistance to providing public access are marginalizing
moving image archives at the very moment when they might otherwise be addressing
massive new audiences and building new constituencies.
What is it about moving images that problematizes archival practice? How
can we turn risks into opportunities in the twenty-first century archives? How can
archivists embrace new public roles and put the stereotype of the reclusive, dustcovered
repository to rest? And how can scholars, the canonical beneficiaries of
archives, help them to reconcile legacy practices and new cultural functions?
While the "classical" moving image archives may have theoretically accepted
the indivisibility of its two primary missions, preservation and access, archivists
tended to privilege preservation. This was perfectly logical. For moving image
archives, access has always been a sticky door. Free and open access was potentially
against the law (for certain copyrighted materials) and insupportably expensive
(when staffing was short, budgets inadequate, or equipment lacking). Allowing access
to formerly private collections contravened contracts (if donor restrictions
governed). Many moving image archives held materials covertly, without explicit
authorization, again making access to materials risky.
In fact, excepting a few exemplary institutions, access to most moving image
collections is still minimal. As many scholars know, archival access requires viewing
a film on the premises, using special flatbed editing tables on which fast forward
has been disabled, with five days' notice to pull material. Access is often restricted
114 Cinema Journal 46, No. 3, Spring 2007