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Digital Audio-Visual Preservation Prototyping Projects


The Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division is carrying out a family of prototyping projects pertaining to the digital preservation of recorded sound, video, and film collections. The projects are in preparation for the division's move to the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia, and they have been under way since 1999. The portion of the new Center devoted to physical storage will open in 2005 and the remainder of the facility will be operational during 2006.

The prototyping projects are developing approaches for the digital reformatting of moving image and recorded sound collections as well as studying issues related to "born-digital" audio-visual content. The projects include explorations of the scanning of motion picture film and the reformatting of video recordings from tape to digital files. The prototyping of recorded sound reformatting has moved through two phases, with participation by the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division and the American Folklife Center. The first phase (1999-2004) made a preliminary assessment of transfer technology (audio workstations) together with a thorough examination of digital-object packaging and METS metadata. The second phase is elaborating on the development of transfer technology and extending the division's use of the MAVIS collection management software into the realm of recorded sound.


This Web site currently offers access to documents from the first phase of the recorded sound prototyping project, 1999-2004.

Annotated List of Documents from the First Phase


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August 31, 2010