The 2018 Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference (#UMDCC18) will be held on November 8-9th at St. Catherine University campus, St. Paul, Minnesota. The UMDCC provides opportunities for digital collections creators and curators in the region and beyond to network, share best practices, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn from leaders in digital cultural heritage.
Preservation of our audiovisual heritage is one of the most pressing concerns for today’s archival professionals. Analog audio and video carriers are rapidly becoming obsolete, due to media degradation and lack of playback equipment. Despite such challenges, these recordings contain valuable research material and need to be made accessible to potential users.
The Archives of Iowa Broadcasting at Wartburg College is currently undertaking the creation of an online media library for its collection of more than 28,000 audio and video recordings, thanks to a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The grant project addresses the dual challenges of preservation – through the reformatting of more than 2,200 videotapes of news broadcast footage from KWWL-TV in Waterloo, Iowa, a flagship news station in eastern Iowa – and providing access to audiovisual collections. The media library utilizes Proficio Elements archival collection management software to create each catalog record, then links to a digital copy of the media item that will be accessible online.
This presentation will follow the Online Media Library project from planning and research to implementation, and provide insight on creating a large digital collection with limited resources. Amy Moorman, Project Director and Wartburg Archivist, will also discuss her role as a Lone Arranger managing a large audiovisual archive, and leading an extensive multi-year grant project.
