Journal of Film Preservation N° 60/61 - FIAF

the various types of sound records that are stored. This is a major
issue, for indeed one cannot reasonably expect an archive to archive
if it has no tools to do its work. If this author has stated in his
Introduction that the project experts have been much impressed by
the work of their Baltic colleagues under difficult circumstances, this
compliment ought to be repeated even more forcefully here ! The
problem does not only touch preservation activities; if today a user
wishes to view an archive film he can only do so by having it run
through a projector, which is not ideal.
In Lithuania the issue of equipment is carried one step further as the
national archives are gradually collecting the necessary equipment for
a film preservation unit. This indeed is a matter of regional
importance, as there are no longer film preservation facilities in the
Baltic countries. Films are prepared
for preservation, but actual preservation has to be done abroad and is
therefore rather expensive and by no means offers the necessary
preservation capacity.
Preservation
The arrears in preserving film, recorded sound and video collections
pose a risk for the continued existence of parts of the national
collections, and the Baltic countries are therefore very keen to seek
ways and means to remedy this situation. One possible, and probably
partial, solution could be digitalisation; however, though
digitalisation greatly eases and shortens the preservation process,
considerably reduces the volume of the audio-visual documents, and
finally eases public access to the collections, there are also some
serious questions. At the moment digitalisation and the concomitant
processes of compression see new norms and standards almost every
year, and consequently a standard may become superceded rather too
soon for archival comfort. This matter therefore is the subject of
major attention in the countries, the more so as films cannot (yet) be
preserved locally and mechanical and magnetic recordings require
usually more professional equipment than is available. In
broadcasting libraries there are, or have been, projects to safeguard
selected programmes in a digital format; in some cases these projects
have been rounded off successfully, in others they have had to be
halted mid-way. Photographs, too, are the subjects of digitalisation,
particularly at ELTA, the Lithuanian national news agency.
Cataloguing and Customer Services
Virtually all-newer documents in the various national collections
have been inventoried, but arrears are reported in inventorising. In
most cases cataloguing is still done manually due to budgetary
restraints, but the indices are being transferred to a database in
among other places, Tallinn. The change into computerised systems,
not only for cataloguing but also for related purposes in
management, is slowed down still due to a lack of local back up or
servicing facilities. They use keyword systems that are in turn based
14 Journal of Film Preservation / 60/61 / 2000