Digitization of FIAF's Collection of Audio Tapes

IULMIA student Courtney Holschuh prepares the tapes for digitization

To celebrate the 2017 World Day for Audio Visual Heritage, we are pleased to announce that over 600 audio tapes (1/4” open reel and audio cassettes) that document the history of FIAF Congresses and Executive Committee meetings, dating from 1975-1997, have been identified and sorted, and now properly and archivally housed, and preserved. These unique historical documents had been stored for decades in the room temperature FIAF office and were not accessible, nor had these items been digitized for preservation purposes.

Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive (IULMIA), a FIAF Member, is now the archival home of the tapes, which have been archived and digitized, with the original materials stored in IULMIA’s offsite vault at 50° F and 30% RH, and the newly digitized files kept both in IULMIA’s dual location data storage repositories, and on hard discs in FIAF’s Brussels office.

Since July 2017, IULMIA has digitized 31 ¼ audio tapes and 372 audio cassette tapes and the remaining 274 tapes will be digitized in the coming months.

We are currently working on plans for making these important items accessible to researchers in the future.