Research papers now available
FIAT/IFTA PUBLICATIONS
LIBRARY
FIAT/IFTA has produced numerous publications in the field of media archiving. On this site these publications are accessible:
The future of archives with Generative AI
Curated for #AiPicks
Guide to Quality Control in Migration Processes
English and Spanish versions
Proceedings of the FIAT/IFTA Media Management Seminars
The FIAT/IFTA Media Management Commission has organised seminars since 1998, when it was still called Documentation Commission. Except for those of the first and third edition, the highlights of the papers presented at these seminars have been published and are freely available for download below.
Outsourced Migration Guide
(2020)
The Preservation and Migration Commission propose the Outsourced Migration Guide as an assistance to any organisation planning to carry out a migration project and involve a third party to execute the actual migration work and possibly other tasks surrounding it, such as transport, reporting, quality control, etc. It is also helpful for any organisation looking to carry out a migration project on its own, as many of the organisational and technical aspects of such a project are identical whether the work is outsourced or not.
Guide to Quality Control in
Migration Processes (2025)
The Preservation and Migration Commission propose the Guide to Quality Control in Migration Processes as a resource for organisations and professionals who are planning or undertaking a migration project and hold responsibility for the quality of its outcome. The guide addresses the full scope of quality arrangements across the entire process, emphasizing the critical importance of proper quality control in migration. Since migration is typically a one-time action, undetected quality issues would result in irreversible damage.
Research Papers of the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Grant
Research carried out through the Media Studies Grant is made available to the FIAT/IFTA archive community through conference presentations and research reports. Previous research reports from the Media Studies Grant are accessible through open access on the FIAT/IFTA website. A new Media Studies Grant Call for Papers is issued at the start of each calendar year.
Overview of Online Resources and Tools
#ArchivalReads
The #ArchivalReads are a series of publications collected by the FIAT/IFTA Value, Use and Copyright Commission. The #ArchivalReads can be in-house produced articles or articles or recommended reading: high-quality publications by other organisations or individuals active in the audiovisual and media archiving domain.
Additional reading recommendations from VUC members
- VIEW, the Journal of European Television History and Culture: the latest issue of VIEW reexamines public service broadcasting (PSB) in the light of the most recent technological, political and economic developments. Traditional public service broadcasters, ideally designed to serve citizens rather than consumers to inform the national conversations in well-informed democracies, face the double challenge of commercialization (since the 1980s) and digitization (since the 1990s). The question of their survival in this context has been posed repeatedly. The need for a redefinition seems inevitable.
- Typology Guide of the Lacquer Disks Collection of Radio Lausanne and Radio Genève: an outcome of a large-scale lacquer disk digitisation project (2014 – 2018) at RTS in Switzerland, this publication provides deep insight into the history of lacquer disk production and use. Furthermore, it explores various types of disks and discusses particular preservation issues and remedies for each. A study of rare scientific quality in this domain.
- The FIAF Journal of Film Preservation nr. 102, April 2020: in reaction to the coronavirus outbreak, our colleagues at the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) have made the April 2020 edition of the Journal of Film Preservation freely accessible to all online. This issue features an article by Jörg Houpert, a member of the FIAT/IFTA Preservation and Migration Commission (PMC), on the new German standard for film digitisation DIN SPEC 15587.
- The results of UNESCO’s Magnetic Tape Alert Project: organised in collaboration with IASA, the survey provides interesting insights into the global preservation situation of obsolete magnetic tape carriers. The survey received 411 submissions from 355 archives from 76 countries.
- The results of INA’s survey on obsolete video formats: this study analyses the preservation means and training needs for quadruplex videotapes and/or other video collections. The survey results will be the basis for a training programme focused on a specific video format.
- The Olympic World Feed Project: Searching, acquiring and preserving the international television signal of the Olympic Games from 1956 to 1988. This article discusses the efforts of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage to track down lost tapes and recover missing television footage from several editions of the Olympics, with a focus on the XIV Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo. The project, in which intensive use was made of the FIAT/IFTA network, yielded excellent results in enhancing the IOC’s own audiovisual collections and several participating broadcast archives.
- MediaNumeric State of the Art report on Data Journalism. “Though misinformation and disinformation have existed since the dawn of time, the social media era is enabling information (and misinformation) to spread at split-second speeds, creating real-world harm as people turn to unqualified sources to seek answers to their questions.”