{"id":5882,"title":"Assessing a Collection for Preservation","kind":"book","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/node/5882","version":"371ddb410b9331ed41eb41906c7e0c1c5238bd748f463d4d73c755388fbaa4de","modified":"2026-09-15T19:02:12.027065+00:00","credits":[],"authorKeys":[],"subjects":[],"metadata":[{"label":"Publication type","value":"Web Article","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Assessing a Collection for Preservation.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/node/5882.","publication":"Assessing a Collection for Preservation.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/5882.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Looking Back/Looking Forward: A Symposium on Electronic Media Preservation","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/looking-backlooking-forward","relationship":"record body link","contentType":null},{"label":"Survey","url":"#Survey","relationship":"record body link","contentType":null}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":27764},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":685}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Looking Back/Looking Forward: A Symposium on Electronic Media Preservation: contents Presenter: Sarah Stauderman (Smithsonian Institution) Survey Sarah Stauderman SARAH STAUDERMAN: I\u0027m Sarah Stauderman, and I work at an archive at the Smithsonian Institution. It has a lot of paper and old photographs and glass-based materials, but it also has a lot of audio materials, video materials, and film. I\u0027m going to introduce something I\u0027ve developed over the past several years--working off of what the Society of American Archivists had done to prioritize their collections within archives. I recognize there are many individual owners and institutions here that do not strictly fit into an archives type of collection. Please keep your mind open and see how this might relate to your collections, or to your interaction with collections of videotape. Help me figure out whether or not this is going to be a useful document for people who are trying to prioritize their collections within an archive, or for that matter, when trying to advise other people about how to approach their collections. The Society of American Archivists has something that they call a matrix. Basically, they\u0027re trying to combine issues of value, issues of the use, and issues of the risk of any given material. I adapted this for videotape. Obviously, the first thing you are going to do when you walk through a collection is you are going to identify it. It is sometimes just useful to know simply what the age of it is. The first thing we designate is the series or collection name, the date range, where its location is, and how big it is. Then you come to a box that says \u201Csurvey results from part four.\u201D I put this on the front of the document because I wanted people to be able, once they had gone through the entire collection, to put the results of their search at the very front. This could pose a major formatting problem, and I\u0027m willing to put it at the end. There is a place for your name, a description of the person who is doing the survey, and the survey date. The first question asks: are the majority of items identified with labels or descriptive materials, yes or no? Boy, do I see lots of collections that don\u0027t have any descriptive materials or labels! This is our first big impediment when we go into a collection and try to prioritize it; if there are no labels or descriptive materials, it is going to be really hard to justify to my managers that I want to reformat this material. If [there are descriptions] we can proceed to part two and collect one hundred dollars; if not, we continue with this section, which simply asks one more question: can the majority of items be played back? Are there playback machines available? Yes, no, do not know. Now, for a lot of people filling out this form, they won\u0027t even know what they have. They\u0027ll be looking at something and they\u0027ll see that it looks like a VHS tape, but it\u0027s actually thicker than a VHS tape or it\u0027s actually smaller. What they probably have is a U-matic that\u0027s twenty minutes long, but they don\u0027t know that, so they won\u0027t know whether or not they have the playback machine. Or maybe they do have the playback machine and they feel confident about it and for the purposes of illustration, they can go ahead and look at some of the materials. If you can do this, randomly select 10% of your collections to preview and determine content. If you can not or do not know how, seek conservation or audiovisual assistance - which I love, because as a conservator, when I read that I\u0027m thinking: I do not know what to do next, and I\u0027m the conservator! They are supposed to tell me what to do! But anyway, the idea is to go find the experts. Do not bother proceeding with the survey; don\u0027t waste your time with the rest of this unless you know what you have, what you are going to be looking at. But let\u0027s say we know what we have and we have descriptive material; we can go to the value assessment, which is part two. This is sort of \u201Cjargon-y\u201D; it\u0027s the stuff archivists sat around a long time and thought about. Trying to stuff this into, say, an aesthetic collection, artistic or museum collection, might be difficult but let\u0027s work with it. We\u0027ll ask the following questions and give them points: Do the videotapes within this collection relate to the mission statement and collections policy of the institution, in terms of the topics that are being documented? I\u0027m going to give an example from my own archives of early videotapes of pandas. The Smithsonian Institution has pandas and many panda videotapes from 1972, half-inch reel-to-reel. These materials were watching the pandas every day, and used by the researchers to determine panda habits. How does this relate to our mission statement and collections policy? We collect materials that are related to the Smithsonian, and our mission statement says that we will preserve them. The topic that I\u0027m looking at is on Smithsonian pandas, so it gets a two. The purpose of our archives is to preserve materials and make them available to researchers. This is a major issue for us; if it is not available, it doesn\u0027t exist. Actually, that\u0027s like a line out of \u201CStar Wars: Attack of the Clones\u201D - it\u0027s actually a really bad line, but\u2026 If the material isn\u0027t here, it doesn\u0027t exist, which is not true. But it suits my stated purpose, so the answer is yes. The next section is regarding institution users. We know who our institutions users are, and we know who our clients are. Knowing who your users are is an extremely important part of whatever you do, or whoever your customers are. We have lots of developing interest in pandas, so it is assigned a two there as well. The general and specific functions and/or topics; this is a very archival term. The question is: do the materials relate to the mission statement or collections policy, with regard to your general/specific function, or your general/specific topic or area? If you\u0027re a rare books library and you have materials on 20th century industry, they don\u0027t relate. That\u0027s what this is about--whether or not they relate. In my institution, our general and specific function is to collect Smithsonian history. Things that are vaguely of interest to us might be things that we would capture off line, off of a television screen, when the secretary of the Smithsonian talks on Nightline or something like that. But that would be secondary; the videotape of his actual presentation made to our associates would be of primary interest to us. In the case of the pandas, we collect the research product of our employees; therefore, it is assigned a two. The next section is relationships and repository goals to other repositories. Yesterday, somebody said, \u201CWe have a problem where we may have a videotape that isn\u0027t as good, but for all we know it may be the only copy of this particular artist\u0027s output. But I think there might be families out there or collectors who may have a better quality copy.\u201D Within research libraries and within more established collaboration organizations, there are systems for determining where other copies exist. In this case, our repository may be very interested in collecting panda material, but the Bronx Zoo may as well. We may decide that we are going to share information, and they will collect certain types of panda material and we will collect certain types of materials. If it is possible, and you can make liaisons with other groups, you might be able to answer that question and say, \u201CActually, that institution over there is responsible for maintaining this artist\u0027s work.\u201D Or, \u201CThat institution or collection is doing a really good job of reformatting materials, and I\u0027m not going to spend my money on this item, when I have other items over here.\u201D So that is where that question is leading. In the case of original panda materials, it\u0027s a two; it\u0027s a yes for me. The next section is the relationship to the known world of related documentation with functions and topics. Again, it\u0027s a very similar question to who else is doing panda research? Who else does a better job? Maybe there is a panda research library out there that we should be sending our materials to because that is all they do. They are pandas, 24/7. In this case, we are the only people I know collecting live panda documentation from \u002772, so for us it is also assigned a two. That is the first part: what is its value to your institution? The second question is: what restrictions exist so your items cannot be accessed? Does the institution have legal custody of the videotapes, or the expectation of obtaining legal custody? This is a great question for those people who think they have the most valuable collection of late seventies kung fu movies, or something like that, and they want to duplicate them. They are not the legal owners of that material. It may be obvious to all of us, but it is a good question to ask. Since we have legal custody of these panda videotapes, it gets a one. The next question: are the videotapes accessible to users without excessive restrictions or hindrances? This is a tricky question, because if it is in half-inch reel format, it is not accessible at my archive because we do not have a playback machine. I will have to reformat it. What this question is asking you is if you theoretically had a copy of it, would it be accessible to users? Yes, there would be no restrictive hindrances or copyright issues--they would be accessible now. Finally: are there resources to preserve and maintain the videotapes, or the expectation of obtaining resources? Well, I figure once I fill out this form, take it to my manager and tell them it\u0027s the number one priority, there will be resources available. So basically, for my panda tapes from the early seventies, I\u0027m giving this a high score. You just add up all the numbers you have assigned. When I do that with this example I get a fifteen. If you had other things that were lower assigned values you would still add up those to get your total. Down below it gives you a value score. So maybe the pandas weren\u0027t a great example because it\u0027s the highest value material I have. As an illustration, sometimes it is good to have a medium value material. You would put the information in your little form, and would know you had a value score of fifteen, or an \u201CA\u201D. My caveat here is if your overall value is high or moderate, proceed to part three. If it\u0027s low, it\u0027s not worth analyzing. You already know it\u0027s going to fall to the bottom of your prioritization issues. Part three is about risk assessment; we are going to determine fragility or obsolescence of the collection, and the need to reformat. Physical condition is going to be a matrix of the instability and the physical damage. There are a couple of problems with this matrix. First of all, there is currently no system for determining damage with materials unless you actually play them back. We don\u0027t have an acid detection strip - though Linda Tadic mentioned the Image Permanence Institute is working on some sort of detection system for determining condition in the collection. You may have had an opportunity to play back one thing and you saw that there was lots of gunk on the head, or as you cleaned it there were a lot of problems that occurred in your collection. You look at the physical condition of your collection and first determine the number of highly unstable materials. It may be a type of chromium metal tape from the late seventies or early eighties, and those are notorious for being unstable. Then you\u0027d look for the amount of dirt or other physical damage. Under the \u201CPhysical Condition\u201D category it says: amount of highly unstable materials. My panda materials are actually not in bad condition; they\u0027ve been stored fairly well. Even though they are half-inch reel-to-reel, they are in their boxes and there is no evidence that there is a problem. I\u0027m going to guess that it has a B value, that it is moderately unstable. Then after assessing the amo","offset":0,"nextOffset":12000,"totalCharacters":27764,"complete":false},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}