Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council (BAAC) announces its 2008 conference
which will be held 24.09-27.09.2008 in Tartu, Estonia.
The conference will be hosted by the Estonian Literary Museum and the
Estonian National Museum

BAAC is an organisation uniting institutions and individuals concerned with
audiovisual heritage about the Baltic States, Scandinavian countries and
the worldwide Baltic diaspora.
BAAC annual conference (known already as Riga Seminar) takes this year
place in Tartu, the historical university town in the southern Estonia.

The conference theme is:
Transformation as Stability: Audiovisual Archives in the Era of New Media.
/The one who evolves, endures
J. Rainis/

This year the conference takes a look at the rapidly developing media and
the changes it has brought to the audiovisual archives. The new media has
turned our world from textual to audiovisual one. In order to ensure their
continuous existence audiovisual archives have to change, accept new roles
and acquire new skills. Changes have affected the social values, but have
they also changed the value systems in the archives?
The topic gives us an opportunity to observe the problems of archiving ever
altering forms of digital media, and coping with the constantly growing
amount of resource materials.
An archive as a symbol of stability and continuity has to combine tradition
with innovation. In developing new solutions and renewing the archiving
criteria are the archives moulding their user or are the users shaping the
archives?
The user expectations and the usage practices of audiovisual materials have
certainly changed. How those changes have influenced the everyday archival
work?
Will the analogue material be there only to serve as a guarantee of trust
in the future of "intangible archives"? Audiovisual archives today have to
preserve fading crafts to providing hi-tech access tomorrow. We hope to
look into the digital future not neglecting our analogue heritage.
For survival archives should also look back to changes in the history, how
the radical political changes and censorship have influenced their realm.

The conference language is English.

The program committee:
Juozas Markauskas
Piret Noorhani
Aldis Putelis

Conference organisers:
Marin Laak- Estonian Literary Museum
Piret Noorhani- Estonian National Museum
Andris Kesteris- Library and Archives Canada
Maarja Savan- Esonian Literary Museum

The estimated conference fee will be 20 EUR
Updates about the conference will be published on BAAC website
www.baacouncil.org


Maarja Savan
Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council
+372 7377 721
Vanemuise 42
51003 Tartu
Estonia
 

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