Listen up and watch out! Today is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

 

Listen up and watch out! Today is World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, a day founded by UNESCO to raise awareness about both the profound richness and unstable nature of our common audio and visual collections. UNESCO's Director-General Irina Bokova writes: "A vector of identity and memory, it [audiovisual heritage] carries the promise of sharing experience and broadening the horizons of everyone. It provides unique insight to humanity’s great cultural and scientific diversity. No other medium bears such vibrant testimony to the world’s rituals, customs and cultural expressions."

True that, however the intrinsic importance of our AV collections isn't powerful enough to save them from neglect and deterioration. Many AV formats--both analog and digital--are also intrinsically unstable: nitrate film, acetate discs, DAT tape, AMPEX 406/40 audio tape, etc., etc., etc.... And even when we find an AV format that is relatively stable and somewhat resistant to deterioration, the peril of format obsolescence descends. What is format obsolescence? When's the last time you tried to buy a Mini-Disc, VHS or laser disc player?

Now picture AV paradise, a high resolution heaven where formats are omnipresent and completely resistant to deterioration and obsolescence. Time to cancel World Day for Audiovisual Heritage? No! This AV heritage bliss may fall victim to excessively restrictive legislation and terms of use that prohibit libraries, archives, and museums from preserving and providing access to such works. When moves are afoot to erode fair use and the first sale doctrine, even an AV paradise isn't impervious to being lost.

Enough words! Now it's time to tune in and check out a 16mm film and reel-to-reel sound recoding we recently digitized for preservation and access at the UW Libraries Media Center.

Cannibals Once (1931) is an out of print film from the "Ports of Call Series." It's an early sound travelogue presenting the post-missionized "happy natives" of Fiji and an astonishing example of blatant racism (it appears UW is the only WorldCat library to hold this title). The film is from our Educational Media Collection

The sound recording is a unique and unpublished set of music documenting  a slice of Seattle's early jazz scene. It was recorded at the 908 Club on May 30, 1951 (according to the tape box), and features a young Ernestine Anderson on the first track: "September Song." The band, which appears to be the Cecil Young Quartet (Cecil Young piano, Gerald Brashear sax/congas/bongos, Jimmie Rodgers drums, and Traff Hubert bass), round out the remaining 3 tracks without Anderson. They perform a jumping "Camels are Coming," a percussive tribute to Ema Sumac, and a boisterous "Somebody's Got to Go."  It's from the UW Libraries recently acquired Burt Porter Collection, a collection of recordings made and/or compiled by jazz fan and Ampex tape  distributor Bur Porter. This collection and recoding--which we shared with Ernestine Anderson this past week--is part of our Puget Sounds project.

Long live our audiovisual heritage!

Goodbye Odegaard, Hello Suzzallo

Beginning this summer, Odegaard Library will undergo a 2-year renovation project. In order to make way for this work, the Media Center will be moving to Suzzallo Library's 3rd floor. We plan to move over the Spring-Summer interim and open in Suzzallo by the beginning of Summer Quarter A-Term (June 18). Stay tuned for updates.

Films From The Vaults (1/25 from 12-1pm)

Rare Piet Mondrian & Franklin Watkins films to be screened/digitized tomorrow (1/25), from 12-1 in Allen Auditorium: http://bit.ly/x6DyeY

Films From the Vaults, Nov 2 - Native American Films

Join us this Wednesday, November 2, from 1-3 as we digitize films at our 2nd Friends of the Libraries funded Films From the Vault screening. November is Native American Month, so we will be selecting rare films of import to Native American and American Indian Studies. Can't make it in person to the Odegaard Conference Room? Tune in live here.

Screening schedule includes...

Quillayute Story

• ----- color ----- 25 min ----- 16mm
• (Historical Collection) Shows ways in which the Quillayute Indians of Washington have adapted themselves to their environment. Illustrates their handicraft activities, sports, festivals, games, dances, fishing, agriculture and religious worship. (The film is dated in its attitude.)
• Topics: (American Indian Studies, Pacific Northwest)

Treaties Made, Treaties Broken

• 1970 ----- color ----- 17 min ----- 16mm
• (North American Indian series, Part 3) The Treaty of Medicine Creek, made in 1854, which guarantees the Indians of Washington State the rights of fishing, hunting, gathering roots and berries and pasturing for their animals is now in hot dispute. To many Indians this dispute exemplifies, in part, the continuing abrogation of treaties on the part of White America in its dealings with the Indians. Includes comments by members of Indian tribes, as well as testimonies by the Department of Fish and Game official concerning the demonstration at Frank's Landing.
• Topics: (American Indian Studies, History: American, Pacific Northwest)

Zaculeu

• 1961 ----- color ----- 20 min ----- 16mm
• (Historical Collection) Explains how archeologists were sponsored by the United Fruit Company for the purpose of restoring the highland city of Zaculeu in Central America. Compares shrines, temples, dance platforms and ballcourts in 1946 and after their restoration in 1949. (Restricted to use on University of Washington campuses only)
• Topics: (Archaeology, Latin America)

Timber and Totem Poles

• 1949 ----- color ----- 10 min ----- 16mm
• (Historical Collection) Southeast Alaska, land of timber and totem poles. Tongass National Forest timber waiting to be harvested. Native Alaskan Indians, in ceremonial garb, restore and copy their totem poles.
• Topics: (American Indian Studies, Art: Tribal, Pacific Northwest)

Totems

• 1950 ----- color ----- 10 min ----- 16mm
• (Historical Collection) Against a background of tribal chants historical and interpretive facts concerning the totem poles of coastal British Columbia tribes are presented.
• Topics: (American Indian Studies, Art: Tribal, Canadian Studies)

Seminoles of the Everglades

• 1950 ----- color ----- 20 min ----- 16mm
• (Historical Collection) Seminole Indians of Florida and the great swamp area in which they live: the problems of the tribe in changing world and what the U. S. Government is doing to help them in the realm of education and health economy. Includes some advertising of tobacco products.
• Topics: (American Indian Studies, Art: Tribal)

Films From The Vaults: NW Architecture & Structures

The Media Center has been awarded a Friends of the Libraries grant to simultaneously screen, digitize, and broadcast several hundred orphaned films from the Educational Media Collection. The project, called Films From The Vaults, begins this October 19 (in OUGL 220, from 9-Noon) and will focus on NW architecture and structures. Esteemed Built Environments Librarian Alan Michelson will be on hand to offer pithy insights and critiques in those awkward silences that crop up between films. Can't make it in person? Tune in live for an even grainier experience here. This is our inaugural (1st of 18) screenings, so check back here periodically for updates on future dates and themes.

Screening schedule for the 19th:

1. Tacoma Narrows Bridge Failure - 1964 - color - 21 min - 16mm - Photographs showing the construction and opening day ceremonies and then the movements of the bridge that led to its collapse. Scale models made later by the Engineering Experiment Station at the University of Washington show the identical movements when subjected to stresses duplicating those which caused the bridge collapse. Topics: (Civil Engineering, Engineering, Pacific Northwest)
2. Newsreel 1940, Includes Tacoma Bridge Collapse - 1940 - b & w - 10 min - 16mm - Events of 1940 including: The Battle of Britain, the military draft in the United States, President Roosevelt defeating Wendell Wilkie and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsing in the wake of heavy winds. Topics: (Communications, History: American, Pacific Northwest)
3. The Space Needle Story - 1965 ----- b & w ----- 14 min ----- 16mm - Contains historic footage of the erection of the needle from the foundation in which the center of gravity is below ground level, to the 50 foot spire at its' top rising over 600 feet in the air. Topics: (Building Construction, Civil Engineering, Pacific Northwest)
4. The Rebuilding of a Port - 1972 ----- color ----- 12 min ----- 16mm - In 1960 as a result of a television documentary exposing the inadequacies of the Port of Seattle, the city presented a bond issue to the voters. Subsequently the improvements in the ability of the port to handle the new container mode of shipped goods has made Seattle the third largest port in the United States and the sixth largest in the world, just behind London. Together with the massive rebuilding of the waterfront facilities, the port undertook the complete modernization of the Sea-Tac International Airport. Topics: (Pacific Northwest, Transportation, Urban Planning/Restoration)
5. Fountain/Sculpture - 1975 ----- color ----- 18 min ----- 16mm Documents the step by step fabrication of a major fountain/sculpture commission by George Tsutakawa. Starting with the design of the model, the evolution of the work is followed through to the final installation at the 1974 World's Fair, Spokane, Washington. The artist discusses his approach and philosophy. Mr. Tsutakawa has completed over 50 major fountain/sculpture commissions during the past 17 years. Topics: (Artists, Landscape Architecture, Pacific Northwest, Sculpture)
6. The Kingdome - 1977 ----- color ----- 17 min ----- 16mm - Chronicles the construction of King County's multi-purpose, domed stadium. Traces the stadium project from ground-breaking to completion. Reference to Pioneer Square and the history of the stadium site is included. Film of the inaugural ceremonies and dedication on March 27, 1976, is interwoven with construction scenes in a series of flashbacks. The arrival of the Seattle Sounders, the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners provides an additional dimension and meaning to the Kingdome and this presentation. Topics: (Engineering, Pacific Northwest, Urban Planning/Restoration)
7. Ports: The Peoples' Business - 1979 ----- color ----- 29 min ----- 16mm - From 1852 when the first cargo of logs was shipped out of Seattle to San Francisco, ports around the Puget Sound have been an increasingly complicated issue. In 1910 the railroads covered the entire length of Seattle's waterfront. Yet the Port of Seattle is a public industry--a servant of the people--providing more than 60,000 jobs in the Greater Seattle area. (Produced by the Washington Sea Grant Program). Topics: (Cities and Towns, Economics, Pacific Northwest)

Libraries Dance Party!

What? UW Libraries Dance Party
When? September 27, 2011 - Noon to 4pm
Where? Odegaard Library' on UW's Red Square
$? Free

Why?
Experience a postmodern pastiche of music and sounds at the first annual UW Libraries Dance Party. Nerdy (but welcoming) archivists will be on hand, playing tunes and spinning vinyl from UW Libraries' audio holdings. Come to dance, listen, and learn more about the Libraries' unique holdings, such as the Crocodile Cafe and Kearney Barton collections. Visit us online for more information:
http://www.lib.washington.edu/media

Sponsored by the UW Libraries Media Center

Contact John Vallier for more info: vallier "at" uw.edu

American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns at MOHAI

I recently had the opportunity to attend a preview for Ken Burns’ upcoming 3 part documentary, Prohibition, at MOHAI. Although it was only a ~15 minute clip, it intrigued me to say the least. I do not recall seeing any of Ken Burns’ other works, such as The Civil War or Baseball, so I was not sure what to be prepared for. It turns out that he seems to be a very traditional documentary filmmaker. He strives to be very historically accurate and to take an objective stance on the subject mater. Burns combines historical footage and interviews with historians and authors to further this accuracy.

I cannot help but compare him to Errol Morris, another documentary filmmaker (Have you seen The Thin Blue Line?), who is not as traditional. Morris seems to be more interested in allowing the audience to go through the facts and choose how they feel about the topic. He chooses to use reenactments of an event; however, changes them as actual testimonies are being told. Quite the opposite of Ken Burns, I would say.

I appear to be a fan of both filmmakers and would recommend Ken Burns’ Prohibition (airs in October on KCTS) and Errol Morris’ recently released film, Tabloid (I have only seen the trailer, but ended up researching it further, and it looks super interesting! And also my professor said it was great), and The Thin Blue Line if you have yet to see it (we have it in the Media Center).

22 Documentaries Online

UW community! Watch 22 docs online and for free. From The Most Dangerous Man in America to Barbie Nation, look for New Day Films here: http://bit.ly/n7T8VI

The complete list of docs includes...

The Double Burden
What is it like to grow up in a family where mothers have always worked outside the home?

Barbie Nation
The new Barbie Nation Collector's Edition DVD plumbs the cult of the Barbie doll, revealing attitudes about sexuality, body image, gender roles and creativity. Starring Barbie creator Ruth Handler.

Becoming American
A Hmong refugee family resettles in the United States: Culture shock, prejudice and gradual adaptation.

Daddy and Papa
A story of gay fathers in America

Downside Up
What happens when a poor, working-class town decides its best hope for survival is contemporary art? A personal and family story about MASS MoCA, America's largest museum of contemporary art.

Golden Venture
The epic tale of 286 Chinese immigrants on a freighter that ran aground off New York in 1993. With immigration dominating political debate, the fate of the Golden Venture passengers is more relevant than ever.

Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street
Holding Ground is at once a cautionary tale of urban policies gone wrong and a message of hope for all American cities.

Home Economics: A Documentary of Suburbia
As mortgage market "meltdowns" and the environmental crisis bespeak its wider consequences, HOME ECONOMICS bursts the bubble of the American Dream of homeownership and reveals the deep human costs of suburbanization and automobilization.

Homeless in Paradise
The intimate profile of four homeless people.

It's Elementary
The ground- breaking documentary that has inspired thousands of schools to pro-actively address anti-gay prejudice by by incorporating age-appropriate lessons into K-12 curricula.

It's Still Elementary
Ten years after the original "It's Elementary" the filmmakers investigate the impact on the original students who were filmed learning about LGBT people. A riveting story about the impact of documentary film and activism.

Let's Get Real
An in-depth look at name-calling and bullying in middle schools today, told entirely from a youth perspective.

Letters from the Other Side
Post-NAFTA immigration stories from the Mexican women left behind.

No Dumb Questions
Uncle Bill is becoming a woman in this funny and touching exploration of gender and sexuality through the eyes of 6, 9 and 11 year old sisters.

Power and Control
"Power and Control: Domestic Violence in America" is a comprehensive and timely exploration of the shocking persistence of domestic violence in our society.

Straightlaced - How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up
With a fearless look at a highly charged subject, Straightlaced unearths how popular pressures around gender and sexuality are confining American teens.

That's a Family!
A poignant, funny, and crucial documentary in which children were asked what they would like other kids to know about their diverse family structures.

The Last Atomic Bomb
Age ten and hiding in a Nagasaki shelter near ground zero when the bomb dropped, Sakue Shimohira survived to wage a personal campaign — joined by student activists — to abolish all nuclear weapons.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Penta
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concludes that the war is based on decades of lies and leaks 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world.

Red Pines
A pioneering Japanese American community perseveres.

Union Maids
A vivid history of women organizing in the 1930's

View from a grain of sand
Three Afghan women tell how international interventions, war, and the rise of political Islam has stripped Afghan women of rights and freedom over the last 30 years.

Media Center Awarded Friends Grant

The Media Center has been awarded a grant to simultaneously screen, digitize, and broadcast orphaned films from the Educational Media Collection. The project, called Films From The Vaults, will begin in the Fall Quarter, 2011. Check back to this site for more information about the project, including a schedule of films to be screened and digitized.

In the meantime, here's more information from the grant proposal:

A. OVERVIEW: Archives are rarely sexy. There's dust, mold, metadata conventions, and copyright entanglements. And each format we aim to archive brings with it a unique mash-up of preservation ills. In the world of vintage 16mm films, we find vinegar syndrome, color dye fading, warping, and shrinkage.

Though rarely sexy, some archival collections do emanate historical significance, not just clouds of vinegar-scented off gassing. The Educational Media Collection (EMC) is such an example. Its holdings cover a broad array of rare and deteriorating 16mm titles, many of which were produced by UW departments.

With this project the Media Center is asking for funds to hire a student to digitize and simultaneously screen dozens of EMC films. We will use an existing telecine—which converts the film signal into a video signal—to project the film onto a screen in Odegaard 220. We also take the video signal from the telecine and plug it into an existing portable computer, where we digitize and later burn it to DVD-R for access through the Media Center.

Since 2009 the Media Center has hosted four of these “Films from the Vaults” sessions. Each one allowed us to preserve and make accessible rare films, while also performing outreach to community members on and off campus. With the last one, in conjunction with Poetry Month and Preservation Week, we also webcasted the screenings live via Ustream.tv. As we had more people watch the screenings via Ustream.tv than we had show up in person, we expect to webcast all 18 events proposed here.

We have given the issue of copyright considerable thought in regards to this project. Section 108 of the Copyright Code allows libraries and archives to preserve unique and rare materials for preservation purposes. Therefore, digitization of the films raises no copyright issues. In terms of screening the films, we will only choose films that we have explicit permission from the copyright holder to screen or are orphaned works (i.e., works for which a copyright holder cannot be identified). We have already identified numerous orphaned films in the EMC. These await digitization.

This project supports the following three criteria:

· Research and Scholarship: Many researchers and scholars—from UW and beyond—have already expressed interest in many of the films in the EMC. There is simply nowhere else to get this material. It will be lost without digitization. A small sampling of the EMC films we have already digitized is available on the Media Center’s Youtube Channel.

· Teaching and Learning: As many UW instructors have used EMC films in their classrooms, we still receive requests to make these films available on DVD. By supporting the digitization of these films, more titles will be available for these and future instructors. Additionally, the digitization process itself provides a learning opportunity for screening participants. On several occasions participants have asked about the process and we have provided a step-by-step overview of how we project, digitize, and make accessible these relics.

· Engagement and Sustainability: This project has a key outreach component and is, therefore, focused on engaging community members both in-person and online. Furthermore, since this project is also a preservation project, it is committed to the long-term sustainability of the knowledge and heritage captured in these films.

B. GOALS: We expect to digitize and screen—both in person and online—dozens of films over the course of 18 sessions. If we are able to do this and also make the digital files accessible via the Media Center’s collections, we have succeeded.

C. WORK PLAN: In order to raise maximum awareness about the project, we will coordinate all 18 of these screening/digitization sessions (6 per quarter) with AC Peterson, Libraries Communications Officer. Each session will be 3 three hours in length and will enable us to digitize anywhere between 2 and 8 films per session (depending on the length of the films). The student hired to complete this work will also spend an equal amount of time prepping the films prior to the sessions and processing them for access following the sessions. John Vallier—Head, Distributed Media—will coordinate and be responsible for the work. No other units will be impacted by this work.

Ruins - "Burning Stone" (CD SHIMMY 001)

This early-90's release from Japan's premier complexi-core duo, Ruins, takes the listener on an unpredictable sonic journey. Like being blindfolded and put on a psychotic roller coaster ride, bandleader/drummer/singer Tatsuya Yoshida and bassist/singer Ryuichi Masuda toss the listener about by throwing hairpin-turn changes and free-fall melodic dementia into the mix. Driving polyrhythmic drumbeats, a heavily processed bass guitar, and vocal lines that dip into the operatic, comedic, and ominous characterize the tunes on this CD. Though the vocals sound and are meant to be nonsensical, their phonetic renderings are written down in liner notes in case you want to try following along.

Check it out from the Media Center today: Call # CD SHIMMY 001