A participant's perspective for the third week of the course in Riga, Latvia relates course activities including a field recording session and a disaster simulation exercise.

11 August. After a fruitful stay in Vilnius, Lithuania, the SOIMA course returned for the third and last week to Riga, the capital of Latvia, beautifully situated at the mouth of the River Daugava. Testimony to a long and intense history, the heart of Riga is a jewel of medieval, baroque and Art Nouveau buildings, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

The third week started with a field recording session at the Archives of Latvian Folklore, located at the Latvian Academy of Sciences, an impressive building from Soviet times. On this occasion the participants had the chance to record the live performance of the Livonian band Nurmorkestõr, composed of young musicians who are trying to keep the music and language of their ancestors alive. (The Livonians are Latvia’s ancient indigenous inhabitants, currently numbering fewer than 200 people.)

In the rooms of the Latvian University, the lectures mainly focused on tools and strategies for effective collection management, including the following:

• access and meeting user needs and expectations;
• developing business models;
• fundraising and grant applications;
• effective communication and networking.

In the course of several group exercises and discussions, it became clear that audiovisual collections need to open to new ideas and make use of online resources, for example outsourcing the documentation of audiovisual material to the community through crowdsourcing. An innovative approach could pave the way to a sustainable and more accessible audiovisual heritage.  Such an approach will require the input of well-informed and creative audiovisual specialists.

The modules on disaster preparedness and response and risk management confronted the participants with events that could happen at any time. In the case of disaster, good and timely decisions together with organized teamwork and communication are essential to safeguard and secure the future of the collections. Once the theoretical background was covered, the participants were confronted with a disaster exercise; they had to rescue an audiovisual collection after a staged explosion and subsequent flood. During 45 minutes of tension, hard work and a heavy storm (which was not planned but helped to make the exercise even more dramatic) the group worked as one team and successfully concluded the exercise.

During the risk management lectures, the main deterioration agents or sources of risk to sound and image collections were discussed, since audiovisual media are particularly vulnerable to specific threats such as incorrect temperature and relative humidity, obsolescence, physical and chemical composition, and many others. The participants split into groups to analyze and evaluate the risks faced by collections belonging to the Archives of Latvian Folklore. The exercise showed how risk analysis helps in setting priorities. Since lack of resources is a problem most archives share, the proposed methodology of risk assessment could help audiovisual managers to assign resources effectively, prioritizing the most valuable components of the archive.

On the last day of the course, the participants had the opportunity to develop and share their own home projects and evaluate the course. All the projects reflected hope, inspiration and the desire to implement the acquired knowledge in their own countries and institutions.

On 29 July, the SOIMA 2011 course came to an end, but for the 19 participants it is only the beginning. For three weeks they acquired the tools and knowledge to manage and preserve sound and image collections. Now it is their turn to act and contribute to safeguarding our audiovisual heritage. Fortunately they are not alone: as an international course, SOIMA has not only gathered specialists from different countries and cultures to share knowledge and experiences, but has also allowed building networks and support channels and, perhaps even more important, making new friends. 

Christine Gleisner
SOIMA 2011 participant

updated on: 25 August, 2011