IT'S ONLY A MOVING IMAGE Archives, Access and the Social Contract ...

Unbundling access from preservation,cataloging & description• Digitization confers visibility on collections, which canhelp drive preservation (what’s this?)• This isn’t our first massive paradigm shift on preservation(film/film copying to cold storage)• Expose unpreserved and uncataloged collections online• Users as partners in description & contextualization• Ask forgiveness rather than permission• Put reading copies on open shelves• Default to access rather than enclosure (and ritual)• Honestly identify and expose unencumbered (or mostlyunencumbered)materialsMuch of this has been discussed, and much is being done in the textual and visual materials world. It’ssummed up very well in “Shifting Gears,” a new paper by Ricky Erway and Jennifer Schaffner. Butinterestingly enough, these ideas are deeply controversial in the moving image archives world, and they’renot being actualized. At least for me, this is a unsettling instance of exceptionalism.--We don’t know what preservation means any more.--Archives hold many materials that aren’t encumbered by copyright or donor restrictions, but it oftenisn’t in their interest to expose them because of staff and financial constraints.37