Broadcast archive collections have become the “digital oil” of the AI age. As technology companies seek access to vast quantities of curated content and metadata, those responsible for these archives face difficult choices: should they license their collections for AI training, and under what conditions? This peer discussion will examine the opportunities, risks and governance questions surrounding AI licensing, from copyright and public value to ethics, accountability and institutional strategy.

As a follow up of the FIAT/IFTA webinar in May and the workshop “Ethical Challenges in Broadcasting Archives” at the conference, this session gives the opportunity to openly discuss ethical considerations of AV-collections. When it comes to re-publishing harmful, biased and outdated archive footage, sensitivity and prudent handling is required. Attendees are welcome to bring their showcases and exchange their experiences on this field.

Audiovisual archives services are reinventing themselves by putting their expertise in information management more broadly to the benefit of the organization. The management of standardized information in the organization is sometimes an unsuspected force. A controlled vocabulary or an organizational taxonomy allows the description standardization that can be used in different archival and content production systems. Various advantages can therefore result from this, such as the identification of entities with a unique identifier allowing the information linking in the various systems, the simplification and the efficiency of cataloguing practices as well as the production reports for production monitoring purposes. And you, what do you think and/or experiment about it?

How, what & where to archive non-linear content? There is so much content being created and posted on third-party platforms. It’s difficult to have any visibility on what is being created and if indeed the production teams are saving any of the content or metadata. What is your experience? Share your showcases.

How to protect your teams from violent or shocking images, sounds and content? Documentalists, archivists, librarians but also other professions (editors, image and sound restorers, technicians, journalists, etc.) dealing with violent audio or video – and even written – content are potentially exposed to so-called “vicarious trauma”. How is this issue addressed in the various archive departments? What best practices can be shared?

The roundtable will address awareness and practical aspects of Digital Preservation. What are our organisations doing or planning to do in this space? For example, have we implemented, or are we planning to implement, the OAIS model for preservation of digital archival objects? Do we adhere to recognised metadata standards? Do we perform any file integrity checks, and how do we do migrations?

Archive and preservation teams rarely compete for budget on their own terms. Whether the case is commercial (licensing and monetization), risk-based (cost of inaction, format obsolescence, legal exposure) or mandate-driven (public value, cultural obligation), most institutions default to one case when a different one may land better with their leadership. This roundtable brings together archivists and preservation leads to compare what has actually worked internally, and what hasn’t, when making the case for investment. Bring your own funding battles, won or lost.

This roundtable will discuss considerations related to Indigenous Peoples and media archives. Topics may include ethical considerations related to racist/harmful depictions; navigating copyright and licensing policies to provide access for Indigenous Peoples to their cultural and linguistic knowledge; Indigenizing metadata; and avenues for greater collaboration between media archives and Indigenous Peoples.