GOOD PRACTICE FORM FOR NOMINATIONS

We propose to start the activity of the workgroup on 'good practice' proposing an initial set of some main areas where to put the nominations. In particular we think to start with the basic issue of digitisation itself.
Each project can be 'nominated' for more than one area, following your evaluation of the most important features contained in the example.

AREAS for nominations of 'good practice' for on-going projects on digitisation:
1.	Preservation of physical objects via digitisation and electronic surrogates.
2.	High quality of the digitisation process.
3.	Metadata and Thesaurus.
4.	Usability of project results.
5.	Management of the process and workflow.

For each project please specify:

•	Area of 'good practice' where you like to nominate your project (you can put more than only one area): 
Management of the process and workflow
	+ Preservation of audio-visual objects via digitalisation.
	+ Metadata and Thesaurus.
	+ Usability of projects results and access to AV collections.

•	Name:	 Audio-Visual Heritage Plan in France.
INA digitisation programme of National Audio-Visual Archives.

•	Responsible body and/or any specific : Institut National de l’Audiovisuel
Co-ordinating body/mechanism: Idem

•	Contact person:

Jean-Michel Rodes : Director of  Projects and Methods and 
    Head of Legal Deposit Unit at INA.
Marie-Claire Amblard : Director of Archives INA.
Daniel Teruggi : Director of Research and Experimentation at INA.
Philippe Poncin : Deputy Director of Research INA. 

•	Web site: http://www.ina.fr/index.en.html

•	Objectives and priorities: 
  
 Some media are difficult to operate as technically obsolete.
 Further, 60 % of television archives and 90 % of radio media are unique and their survival is thus a delicate matter. We estimate that the collection includes 220,000 hours of television and 300,000 hours of radio that need to be transferred to new media. To ensure permanent conservation of the heritage and make it more accessible, especially for professionals, INA has launched huge back-up and digitisation plan including two aspects: a systematic back-up provision for collections dating prior to 1990, and a back-up and digitisation provision dedicated as a matter of priority to the day by day communication of archives.
The drive to classify on a theme basis is being conducted using the backed up and digitised collections. Additional analysis and release from copyright work then takes place on these theme-based sets.

•	The main technical features for what you consider the project a 'good practice' example:
The digitalisation implies to manage together technical features and knowledge about the contents.
+ Materials and techniques to be applied.
+ Standards and Methods for digitalisation and storage.
+ Taskforce organised internally and externally.

•	Long term sustainability strategy:

Research and Experimentation are the essential actions to lead for keeping on good tracks the Audio-visual Heritage plan. Main topics of research are both Preservation and Restoration of audio-visual materials and carriers, and Indexing and Metadata management solutions for today and according to future trends. Continuous and prospective research is one of the main issues to achieve a durable process through digitisation of mass media. One current example is given with projects of archiving the Web.

•	Accessibility by users via local network or Internet (describe modalities and IPR issue from a technical point of view):

The INA personnel is perfectly adept in hunting down in record time an image or a sound track from the 1.5 million hours of archives covering 50 years of television and 60 years of radio kept at INA. Thanks to the INA document databases and indexing system, you can find a sound or audiovisual excerpt in just a few clicks. Indeed, when they are first put out, programmes and news broadcasts are analysed and indexed precisely. All you then have to do is to make a search by author's name, broadcast date or theme to locate a precise document. The research assistants then offer the customer a list of documents for pre-selection. The documents retained are viewed on digital medium, meaning selection can be further refined.
For Web access new tools are going to be available for professionals and wider public for having access to large audio-visual collections through “Inamedia”. 

•	Problems encountered :

We may give at first lot of examples of goals achievement. But main problems come either from skills changes and requested staff training, or from the quick obsolescence of standards and technologies when the vast amount of documents is dramatically increasing . 
Therefore two main problems must be addressed :

1/ Human resources are essentiel in this digitising process.  All staff has to be involved from the beginning ; it is a critical challenge to be always « users demand » oriented so that digitisation can really  bring new solutions to daily exploitation.

2/ Within next years the volume of data created and to be archived will come beyond previous generated production; therefore we cannot image to transfer several times  our collections; that’s why all attention must be focused on durable and stable standards.

Comments: 

Answers will be given to all questions aiming from the audience.

Figures and documents enclosed:

All main figures may be found on the Web site.

I agree this information could be published/

                            X Yes
                               No

Organisation & person completing the questionnaire

•	Formal name of organisation:
INA – Institut National de l’Audiovisuel.

•	Type of organisation:
EPIC – Public Establishment with Commercial and Industrial objectives.

•	Field of action:	Archive / Library / Museum / Foundation / others ….
Archives (Audio-Visual); Training; Production; and Research.

•	Address:
INA, 4 avenue de l’Europe, 94366 Bry-sur-Marne.

•	Name of director:
President : Emmanuel Hoog
General Director : Jean-Marc Bordes.

•	Name and role of person completing the questionnaire:
Philippe Poncin : Deputy Director of Research and Experimentation .

•	Tel:   +33 1 49 83 28 36

•	Fax:  +33 1 49 83 25 82

•	Web site:	http://www.ina.fr/index.en.html

•	E-mail:	pponcin@ina.fr

Date:	25.04.2002

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