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#nttw4 talk, December 5, 2019, Dave Rice at #nttw4, | |
#video at https://twitter.com/nttwconf/status/1202509295973216257 | |
Good morning, | |
During my first full-time archivist gig, I worked with a large audio collection | |
and, in adherence to the best practices of my community, would digitize audio | |
tapes to Broadcast Wave Files. I was a new archivist and working as the only | |
archivist in a media organization so I felt that relief from looking to the | |
best practices of our communities as a way of reducing my own decision-making | |
and defering my judgement that to a best practice. When discussing workflow | |
with an IT coworker, I heard about FLAC. FLAC is a Free Lossless Audio Codec | |
that stores audio with efficient lossless compression and integrates fixity | |
data within the container and stream. My coworker was confused at my | |
justification for Broadcast Wave Format, made a sincere effort to demonstrate | |
the preservation features of FLAC, and honestly my ability to defend Broadcast | |
Wave Format as a best practice was limited. I don't mean to imply that | |
Broadcast Wave Format isn't a good choice, one of my top two audio preservation | |
format recommendations, but as I struggled to defend the choice I realized that | |
I was accepting a recommendation as best practice blindly. We went on to debate | |
preservation objectives and the advantages and disadvantages of one format | |
versus the other. Broadcast Wave was certainly the “best practice” in digital | |
audio archiving, but by the end of the conversion I was questioning why I was | |
defending it. I reviewed the listservs of archival communities and there was | |
little or no mention of FLAC. In that context, when I asked, it was almost like | |
"no know has ever heard of FLAC before". There was a reaction of disruption, as | |
if "As a community, we've already decided. Why are you asking about this?". | |
As an archivist, I've had to decide how to store lots of data, and at the time | |
the best practice appeared to be not to use LTO tape or hard drives, but gold | |
CDs. The community buzzed with stories of hard drive failures while gold CDs | |
would resist decomposition for hundreds of years. I considered this, but with | |
consensus with my colleagues suggested getting an LTO drive. This made me | |
realize though that there's a danger in holding onto best practices too tightly | |
in the spirit of permanance while such practices should have expiration dates. | |
A best practice is only a best practice for now. We should invest more in | |
sustaining archival collections rather than sustaining a practice. It won't | |
necessarily matter if the gold CDs last for hundreds of years if I simply have | |
to rip them all to LTO tape a couple years later. | |
I also realize that working to make better practices is far more meaningful | |
than working to implement best practices. As practioners, we should balance any | |
utilization of a 'best practice' with an investment of time and momentum is | |
generating better practices. | |
Archivists struggle to sustain media and metadata into the future. However, the | |
practices we use to do so are not worthy of the same struggle. If a best | |
practice is stale, outdated, or exhibits a potential to be improved upon, then | |
let's do. There's no time to wait for the chance to be consumer of a miracle | |
solution or products, we need to be constantly nitpick, justify, contribute, | |
and share. | |
Often archivists working on new technological challenges must quickly adopt the | |
tools of related communities, adopting tools made for broadcasters, video | |
editors, or creative work, but as we try updating our operating system, we know | |
the pain of trying to maintain those tools once that related community has | |
moved on. I acknowledge that archivists have to grab onto what works to get the | |
job done, but we can be more strongly empowered by creating, contributing, and | |
supporting for ourselves. Just as we need to open our videotape players and | |
projectors to understand, tinker and fix, just as we need to run our hands | |
along a film print on a bench or open a video cassette, we have a similar need | |
with digital equivalents. Whether analog or digital, we should nuture our own | |
hackers. | |
Bringing innovation into one’s work can produce meaningful personal | |
accomplishments; still more meaningful when such innovations can be a solution | |
shared with others. However, even more impactful innovations may be those that | |
also act as a building block or foothold for others to build upon or learn | |
from. For innovation within a community, being a contributor or supporter can | |
create a bigger impact than being a lone pioneer. | |
When archivists require services from a vendor, or coworker, or specialist, we | |
may demand a deployment of meticulous, precise, and reliable practices. We want | |
the results of the best practice, but need to give space for experimentation | |
for there to be innovation. | |
Back in 2012 and 2013, a number of us here worked to contribute ideas, testing, | |
documentation and code to verion 3 of FFV1. This was at a time when often | |
jpeg2000 was referred to as the "best practice" to archival video compression. | |
Sometimes it felt like our efforts weren't fully welcome, as it contributing to | |
another practice only derails the best one. We'd hear things like "I asked | |
around, and no one has ever heard of FFV1". | |
Audiovisual preservation is a community where we’ll lament about a digital dark | |
age in one room while we’ll discuss the opportunities of digital preservation | |
in the next room. | |
I’m grateful for the good work of our instigators and contrarians. For those to | |
foster innovation through supportive, skill-sharing rather than a demonstration | |
of exclusive expert knowledge. The field of audiovisual preservation thoguh | |
contains its share of discouragement to innovation. Trying to improve our | |
existing opportunities, can be met with resistance by those who consider that | |
further research and innovation are not needed in an area that has already seen | |
a pioneer or found a conceptual best practice. Or by those that consider | |
innovation as credible only from a so-called expert. Additionally organizing | |
our communities under uncooperative terms such as 'analog vs digital' or 'open | |
vs proprietary' or 'jpeg2000 vs ffv1' limits our abilities to work stronger | |
together. Best practices can be better, gatekeepers can be surpassed, and we | |
together can innovate for ourselves. | |
In the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka is demonstrating an | |
invention of lickable fruity wallpaper. Verona Salt ridicules Wonka to claim | |
that no one has heard of a Snoozberry before. Willy Wonka changes his tone and | |
quotes Arthur O’Snaughessy to assert: “We are the music makers and we are the | |
dreamers of the dreams”. To the extent we can put ourselves into action as | |
innovators, archivists, activists, and active collaborators, please make music | |
and please dream dreams. Peace.% |
The link is to the full day's recording which is not subtitled, but the individual videos found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb-Zj-nXPS3JIA7qN62Y7hNotcrnS1mFW are subtitled and some are translated too.
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How have you made sub off that video it have no sub on Youtube,