The Adirondack History Museum in Elizabethtown has announced a Historians Day Workshop, set for October 16th, from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm.

Prof. Gerald Zahavi, historian and Director of the Documentary Studies Program at the University at Albany, will present a workshop on strategies for film, video and audio media preservation, restoration, and digital conversion and reformatting.

While much attention has been paid to the preservation of paper records and photographs, there has been considerably less focus on strategies needed to preserve audio-visual records (e.g. discs, tapes, films, records, cylinders). The fragility, instability, and limited lifespan of such records requires us to pay more attention to preservation strategies.

While some audio-visual media can survive for as long as a century, most can’t – and working playback devices for older media formats are often difficult to obtain. Experts have estimated that analog and digital content has an average lifespan of 10 years, unless it is migrated, as new formats evolve.

The workshop will provide participants with an overview of the major issues that archivists and museums confront when dealing with both pre-digital and post-digital era visual and audio media, and the best-practices that should be employed to preserve, restore, and reformat audio-visual media in preparation for public access and dissemination.

The workshop fee is $15 ($10 for town historians), and includes lunch. RSVP at echs@adkhistorymuseum.org or by calling (518) 873-6466.

Photo provided by Adirondack History Museum.