Share that Knowledge!
Finding Strategies for Passing on Knowledge Across Generations of Audiovisual Archivists
An initiative of the Austrian Film Museum and the Slovenian Cinematheque, endorsed and supported by FIAF, funded by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of Austria.
The project "Share that Knowledge! Finding Strategies for Passing on Knowledge Across Generations of Audiovisual Archivists" aims to research and develop strategies and methods of unlocking, articulating and sustaining the knowledge that audiovisual archivists hold about the collections they work with. Through research, presentations and publications, the project will connect existing ideas and foster discussion about the topic of knowledge transfer within the field of audiovisual archiving.
In 2019, with a group of colleagues from 13 different audiovisual archives from around the world, we have started planning and preparing the research. A funding from the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport in Austria, which will run until 2022, and with the support of FIAF, will now make it possible to sustain and carry out the research.
The first step is to hold a survey among our colleagues within the audiovisual archives community, to get a global idea of the state of knowledge transfer within our organizations. Parallel to this survey, the members of the working group are starting to collect data through interviews and observations within their respective institutions. We are using qualitative research methods and ‘archival ethnography’ to find answers to the following questions: What is the expert knowledge we need to preserve and sustain? Which challenges do we encounter in passing on this knowledge? What are the methods of knowledge transfer which are already in place? In the course of this project, Karen F. Gracy (associate professor at the School of Information of Kent State University, author of Film Preservation: Competing Definitions of Value, Use, and Practice) will advise and guide the working group in their qualitative research.
In the course of these three years, we will gather data to develop a publication of methodologies to improve knowledge sharing practices within audiovisual archives. Besides a publication, the project will conclude with a symposium at the Austrian Film Museum in 2022.
Additional information on the project you can find in THIS DOCUMENT and on the PROJECT WEBSITE, where regular updates will be posted. For more information on this project or if you would like to take part in it, please contact:
Janneke van Dalen [j.vandalen@filmmuseum.at] and Nadja Šičarov [n.sicarov@filmmuseum.at].
