Abstract
In the plenary address for the second session, Caroline Frick presents a brief historical overview of the field and offers a “snapshot” of the current state of affairs. The introduction posits that the key players in the audiovisual preservation field are facing new threats to their traditional expertise including decreased funding for film-to-film preservation, professional convergence, and the looming demise of celluloid. Media preservation professionals need to get out of their “comfort zone” of focusing on twentieth-century analog techniques and shake off the quasi-nostalgic view of the preservation heyday of the 1990s in which monies from major funders and the general public fueled high-profile programs in moving-image archives. New approaches to educating those interested in joining the field, as well as those already in its ranks, are critical to insure that the profession remains relevant in the twenty-first century.
About the author
Caroline Frick is Associate Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, Austin. She is also the founder and Executive Director of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, and President of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. She is the author of Saving Cinema (Oxford, 2011) and has been published in many journals. She holds a Ph.D. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas, Austin.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
