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Catching lightning in a bucket: Archiving the performing arts in the digital age

by Paul Bentley

 

Article originally published in Online Currents April 2013 and reprinted with kind permission of Thomson Reuters.

 


Carnegie Hall. Image www.nycgo.com

In its August 2012 issue, Online Currents explored how arts organisations and artists were employing digital pathways to promote and distribute their work.[1] Material cited in that article has now been joined to a Pew Research Centre report which found that technology use now permeates arts organisations in the United States, their marketing and education efforts, and their performance offerings.[2] 
 

Using technology to reach new audiences is one thing. Using it to capture the performing arts for posterity is another. Carnegie Hall decided to establish an archive only after it emerged in 1986 that a significant portion of its documented history had not been captured. With its centenary looming in 1991, the archive was established to round up the scattered evidence of its luminous history.

The Pew Center, in its recent opinion-based survey of selected organisations, reports that 27% of arts organisations say that digital technology is “very important for improving arts cataloguing and collections management.” It is a statement about an issue that receives little attention in the report. And it is a statement that flags a problem in the way governments and arts organisations conceptualise and prioritise archival strategies. 

Online Currents last looked at online information strategies by performing arts companies in 2005.[3] Now that digitisation has become more widespread, what are the Carnegie Halls of the world doing to make sure that the record of their work can be found in the future? 

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

New York’s famous concert hall (http://www.carnegiehall.org/) has continued to build on its 1986 decision. A history page and links to its archive and museum are prominent on its website. A digital archive project began in 2012. There are still gaps in its documented history, but the cavalier practice of the past has been turned around.   

A company that graced Carnegie Hall for much of the 20th century has adopted a similar approach. After receiving a grant of US$2.4 million from the Leon Levy Foundation, the New York Philharmonic is digitising the orchestra’s entire archival collection of eight million pages of documents and 7,000 hours of audio-visual material (http://archives.nyphil.org/). Every program from 1842 onwards has been described in great detail using an Inmagic DB/Textworks database and a metadata scheme tailored to the specialised needs of the business. Other systems, including the Alfresco Enterprise content management system, have been employed to open up the archive and assist searching.[4]  

One of the oldest performing arts centres in the United States has also received financial support for digitisation from the Leon Levy Foundation. The Brooklyn Academy of Music (http://www.bam.org/) established its archive in 1995 to address concerns about the way its information resources were being managed. With US$1 million from the Levy Foundation over four years, the Academy is creating a new digital archive to be launched online in 2015.[5]  

In England, the National Theatre (NT, http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/) gives prominence to its archive and related digital activities. When the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan was appointed Literary Manager of the newly established theatre 50 years ago, The Stage newspaper on 15 August 1963 expressed the hope that his appointment would lead to the establishment of an archive:


"Few theatres in this country bother about keeping records. It is no one's specific job and consequently no one bothers about it. A number of leading West End theatres recently celebrated their jubilee, but journalists who wished to write features on these events found it very difficult to get material...Managements come and go without leaving a trace behind them."  

But it was not until 1993 that the archive was set up by concerned members of staff who drew together material in various departments of the theatre. It is a story that will resonate throughout the rest of this article. 

The famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin (http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/) has struck a partnership with a university to create its digital archive. With the help of the National University Ireland, Galway, the Abbey has begun digitising two million items in its archive with a view to making them more widely available online.[6]

The Royal Opera House (http://www.roh.org.uk) is outward looking in dealing with its information resources. Ellen West and Jamie Tetlow, at a recent conference in London, described their work in transforming its old website, with “incoherent connections between bits of information” and “a bloated content management system”, into a new site with more potential for exposing its information more effectively on the internet.[7]  

Libraries and museums are playing their part. Two libraries in the United States stand out. The Library of Congress highlights its substantial performing arts holdings in the form of an encyclopedia at http://www.loc.gov/performingarts/. The New York Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center capitalises on its innovative online work over more than four decades at http://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa. The Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Archive has recorded and preserved live theatrical productions since the 1970s. Its Dance Oral History Channel takes you to the voices and ideas of performers, choreographers, and others working in all areas of dance over more than half a century.  

The British Library’s work on its Malcolm Sargent collection is indicative of the work of one major United Kingdom library in exposing performing arts archival material in its possession.[8] The National Archives, in partnership with Arts Council England, has a program called Archiving the Arts. In launching the program, it observed that “the arts is a complex area to archive because arts organisations’ and artists’ heritage is more than their documents and records: to capture the essence of an art form for posterity, a variety of audio and visual media are often needed, and objects can be a crucial part of the heritage too.” The first stage of the program involves a survey of funders, collecting archives and arts practitioners to identify the capacity of those involved and gather views on other issues to be addressed.[9]  

The theatre and performance collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A, http://www.vam.ac.uk/) traces its origins back to the 1920s. Between 1987 and 2007 it housed part of the collection in the now defunct Theatre Museum, its branch at Covent Garden. New galleries devoted to the performing arts opened at the V&A, South Kensington, in 2009. Its National Video Archive of Performance, launched in 1992, has a collection of 280 recordings of stage shows made by the V&A's video unit.  

Prompted by discussions at a seminar of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres in 1981, and after a gestation of more than 20 years, Cardiff University and the Royal College of Music, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, have developed the Concert Programmes Project (http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/), which describes collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In a recent article about the project, Rupert Ridgewell comments on the myriad problems of describing programs by libraries and performing arts organisations. In the future, he anticipates wider access to collections through the development and use of optical character recognition technology.[10] The spelling of programs as programmes in the United Kingdom and its spelling as programs in Australia and the United States are indicative of many issues to be addressed in linking performing arts data internationally. 

A number of other associations and consortia coordinate projects and influence strategies. These include SIBMAS, the International Association of Museums and Libraries of the Performing Arts (http://www.sibmas.org/), the Arts and Humanities Data Services (http://www.ahds.ac.uk/) and the Theatre Library Association (http://www.tla-online.org/). The European Collected Library of Artistic Performance (http://www.eclap.eu) is an online archive for the performing arts in Europe.   

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently provided funds to the University of Minnesota Libraries Performing Arts Archives and partners for a project that looked at archival practices by theatres in the United States. A nationwide survey attracted 300 responses. This revealed that the majority of theatres, especially those with the greatest financial pressures, lack a coherent records management plan. Nearly 60% of theatres have made an effort to establish an accessible archive. Thirty percent – mainly those with budgets of US$5 million and above - place their material in a library or university. Ten percent primarily store things electronically. The project aims to develop a framework for providing improved archival support for theatres.[11] 

Relationships between overseas government agencies and broadcasters is demonstrated in the pilot project The Space (http://thespace.org/ ), a partnership between Arts Council England and the British Broadcasting Corporation to capture and broadcast the work of performing arts companies and cultural institutions in the United Kingdom.[12] The National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States has launched a digital projects grant program to encourage the integration of new digital technologies in traditional humanities spaces such as museums and historic sites.[13] 

Clarifying stakeholder roles and finding the right concepts to drive overarching government policies are constant challenges for those shaping future directions. The needs of the so-called creative industries, the arts and cultural heritage organisations are often lumped together. Solutions for one are frequently assumed to be the solutions for another. Newspaper columnist Ian Bell, for example, commenting about the replacement of the Scottish Arts Council with a new organisation, Creative Scotland, says the decision that was accompanied by “hideous jargon masquerading as coherent speech.” Creative Scotland is “a body dreamed up by people who see no problem in bureaucrat-sanctioned art.” The new agency, he says, has no clear purpose and has failed to understand the questions it is supposed to address.[14] 

THE AUSTRALIAN SCENE  

In Australia, the development of archival strategies for the performing arts over the past 20 years has been a drawn out, patchwork effort by governments, performing arts organisations and other bodies.

Government policies and research 

Broad government policies in a number of areas are important contexts when considering questions about archiving the performing arts because a large proportion of government funds is allocated to publicly-funded cultural institutions.  

Recent developments in cultural policy from 1994 to the present day were sketched out in the August 2012 issue of Online Currents.[15] In a recent essay, arts bureaucrat Leigh Tabrett concluded that government policy is shambolic:
 

“we do not have a system of arts and cultural funding in Australia – rather we have a series of programs and interventions that lack a coherent logic and lack of resonance and acceptance across government, in the sector itself, and in the broad Australian community.”[16]

In an attempt to address the shambles, the federal government in March 2013 launched its national cultural policy, Creative Australia (http://creativeaustralia.arts.gov.au). Heralded as the first comprehensive policy since Paul Keating’s 1994 Creative Nation, it provides funding of A$235 million to support a number of initiatives. These include the restructuring of the Australia Council, the development of the amalgamated Australian Business Arts Foundation and Artsupport as Creative Partnerships Australia, and programs for education and training, Indigenous culture, and the film industry.  

Like Creative Nation it is a worthy set of ideas that has attracted widespread support. Like Creative Nation it will be at the mercy of federal and state political dynamics. Creative Nation was followed by a plethora of reports and strategies by successive governments.[17] Soon after Labor came to power in 2007, it closed down the Cultural Ministers Council, the Collections Council of Australia and the Collections Australia Network. To address the challenges of Australia’s federal system, it is now promoting inter-governmental national arts and cultural accords, a National Local Government Cultural Forum, and investments through a Regional Development Fund. It has earmarked additional funds of nearly A$40 million over four years for the national collecting institutions. And it has promised the establishment of a national network for museum and galleries - presumably to make up for closing down the Collections Australia Network. 

At the very least the next ten years will have the benefit of lessons learned from the experiments – the successes and failures – of the previous ten. Enterprises were closed down rather than simply modified. The cultural heritage sector is in need of an overarching force to fully develop its online potential. Some of the responsibility for future success will depend on the way the so-called creative sector responds to new opportunities. Creativity can sometimes be pursued at the expense of common sense.  

Government policies about information and communications technology over the past decade were outlined by Online Currents in February 2009.[18] The federal government has focused on stimulating digital economies, whereas state governments have concentrated on information management practices within and across government agencies. In NSW, the O’Farrell government has introduced a new ICT strategy and an accompanying draft Digital Economy Industry Action Plan, which according to one commentator will simply end up illustrating the gap between government rhetoric and effective action. [19]  

Government recordkeeping policies and action have met with mixed success. Several audits of public recordkeeping practices during the past decade have reported deficiencies in the performance of public institutions. According to the recently retired director of State Records NSW, Alan Ventress, public recordkeeping is in a parlous state in Australia’s most populous jurisdiction. There are grave shortfalls in the provision of reasonable resources to carry out the tasks mandated by the government. The budget of State Records NSW is a third of the size of the equivalent services in Victoria and a quarter of the funds allocated by the Queensland Government for its State archives. Recently State Records closed its city facilities following substantial budget cuts.[20] 

Archiving the arts has now received special attention in a new report by the Australia Council. Archives in the Digital Era and related documents set out to “illustrate the existing landscape of artistic and cultural collections, the impact of the digital realm, and how this is currently being addressed by Australian arts, cultural and memory sector as a whole.” [21]   

After a substantial section on how to set up a digital archive, it provides thumbnail assessments of a wide range of issues. Arts organisations, the report says, have little capacity for archiving. Many are not up to speed on the issues at stake and the technical skill required. Many don’t realise they have an archive: they view the evidence of their work as “stuff in boxes‟. Many consider their website as their main archival and documentation platform. Small-to-medium arts organisations are not well served by software solutions. Their descriptions of material are often rudimentary. Variable data management practices make it difficult to share information. Intellectual property is not well managed. Frequent staff turnover and the use of IT contractors lead to loss of knowledge within organisations.  

It concludes there is potential for Australian arts organisations to improve the way they manage digital content. Collaboration is difficult to sustain because of different business drivers and budgetary considerations. Marshalling the knowledge of smaller specialist organisations and larger institutions, including libraries and museums, is vital. 

The Council planned a similar study in 1999, but did not follow through with the exercise possibly because it realised the terms of reference focused more on the use of technology than on how arts organisations were managing their information. Its latest endeavour describes itself as a scoping report, a starting point to assist artists and arts organisation to gain a better understanding of the “challenging and complex topic.” A large number of issues are excluded. Although it acknowledges that a focus on technology may be bowing to a false god, it gives little attention to the essential underpinnings of information management and recordkeeping. It suggests there is a need for funds to sustain efforts without considering the possibility that recordkeeping may be a legitimate priority without extra funds in today’s digital environment. The foundations, it says, need to be put in place but it does not recommend how the foundations are to be laid.  

Practices within institutions 

A quick review of past and present practices in individual organisations will flesh out some of the points made in the Australia Council report.   

Evolving building, evolving history. Photo: Paul Bentley

Australia’s cultural icon, the Sydney Opera House (http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/) did the opposite of Carnegie Hall. After setting up an archive when it opened in 1973, it discarded part of it in 1997. During the first 15 years of its operation, managing information at the Opera House was an experimental affair. It established the Dennis Wolanski Library and Archives of the Performing Arts. Recordkeeping responsibilities were shared by several units including the library, administration, venues, marketing and engineering departments. The arrival of standalone PCs in the mid-1980s created a feudal IT environment and black holes in its records. 

The Dennis Wolanski Library became a prime mover of improvements in information management practices. A new enterprise-wide strategic information management plan in 1991 put the finger on fragmented responsibilities, duplicated effort and levels of data redundancy. New information management governance regimes were introduced. A major events management system was purchased as the institution’s hub for managing events. New records management plans were developed to address black holes. The library created pseudo-bibliographic MARC records in its library management system to index events. It invested in a digital asset management system and started to digitise programs, photographs, press clippings and other material. 

To capitalise on the value of its documented history, the library was responsible for several trailblazing exhibitions about the house. It gained the support of the Minister for the Arts to develop a A$7.1 million hi-tech performing arts museum, with a projected income of $2 million a year, centring on the story of the Opera House. In partnership with the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Opera Australia, the Australian Ballet and the University of Wollongong, it contributed to Stage Struck, an Australia on CD Project distributed to all schools in Australia, which went on to win a British Academy of Films and Television multimedia award in 1999. Additional multimedia projects were in the planning stages.  

After the 1995 NSW State election, new brooms arrived in the form of a Premier, Opera House chairman and CEO. The organisation, after two decades, was ripe for regeneration. New brooms arrive in any organisation with fresh ideas and the desire to make a difference but they sometimes implement their plans with the finesse of bulls in a china shop. The new chairman’s catch-cry was “generational change.” The broken china included the library. He closed it down and dispersed its collections to 17 other organisations throughout Australia. A Sydney Opera House oral history project ceased. Digitised material and indexes about the house were junked or transferred elsewhere. In the rush to implement plans in the new CEO’s mud map, well-honed knowledge of enterprise-wide information management issues and Opera House history was unceremoniously dumped. 

Large institutions with a guaranteed cash flow have the means to recover from hasty decisions. After the brakes were applied to digitisation work in the mid-1990s, there are signs that the Opera House is now getting up to speed with old opportunities in a more conducive environment. The Sydney Opera House website has pages on the history of the building. A new strategic information management plan is being written to complement its recordkeeping regime. A digital strategy guides work on promoting its history and its current activities.  

In partnership with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Sydney Opera House Trust has produced The Opera House Project (http://www.theoperahouseproject.com) a new online documentary with over 24 hours of content drawn from the archives of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, State Library of NSW and State Records NSW. The Opera House is also one of 10 international sites being digitally scanned as part of the Scottish Ten Project (http://www.scottishten.org/) with the aim of assisting conservation, research and education programs associated with each of the sites. The Sydney Opera House digital education program offers an interactive behind-the-scenes tour, live streaming of performances and workshops delivered with the assistance of the NSW government’s Connected Classroom program.   

After dispersing the Dennis Wolanski Library in 1997, the Opera House has now established links with the Wolanski Foundation (http://www.twf.org.au), which was set up in 1998 to address anomalies from the rapid dispersal of the collection, offer a web-based information service, and give support to other organisations. The foundation has a rudimentary catalogue of material transferred to other organisations and assists researchers to navigate to information about the Opera House and the performing arts in general. In 2011, it provided funds to the Sydney Opera House to support digital strategies.   

Between 2005 and 2008, the Wolanski Foundation, along with other philanthropic organisations, provided funds to support the development of archival and information resources at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA, http://www.nida.edu.au/). The project had begun to address a feudal information management environment there before a new broom arrived to dismantle emerging plans with little explanation. In an essay for Currency House, Chris Puplick has pilloried developments and the attempts of NIDA to “distance itself from history” under the rubric “creative transformation” involving the massacre of a large number of its staff. "Some of the longest serving, most dedicated and talented members of staff were summarily marched off the premises and told they were no longer of any use to the school."[22]   

The Seaborn Broughton Walford Foundation (http://www.sbwfoundation.com/), with a performing arts collection of its own housed in a new archive annexe at NIDA, and a major sponsor of the NIDA library and archive, set up its operations elsewhere. Among its holdings is material transferred from the Sydney Opera House. This includes a collection of 3 million press clippings and ephemera - with extensive material on performers and performances at the Sydney Opera House 1972-1997 – and a collection of 80,000 programs. An accompanying card index has cross-references to all plays, operas and dance productions performed at the Sydney Opera House and other venues in Australia, mainly in the period 1973-1996 but also covering performances back to the 19th century.  

Archiving the Opera House is complicated in part because most of its most important work is performed by other organisations. All of the major presenters at the House now have emerging histories on their websites. At least two of the companies – the Sydney Theatre Company and Australian Chamber Orchestra - have dedicated archivists. The archive at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC, http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/) is the most prominent.  More than 300 performance videos dating back to 1981 are currently being digitised. The archive is open to the public and details of its service are clearly indicated. The STC Pier Group and the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation have supported the archive financially. Production photographs are presented as an evolving exhibition in the long walkway leading to the theatres.   

Other major presenters at the Opera House include Opera Australia, the Sydney Symphony, Music Viva, Sydney Dance Company and Australian Ballet. Their websites reveal recent interest in digital strategies and amplification of their productions in educational programs. The challenge will be to travel back into their deeper past to enrich the knowledge of those experiencing their latest performances. 

Performing arts centres in most other States have specialist archival collections. The performing arts collection at the Victorian Arts Centre (http://artscentremelbourne.com.au/), one of the main recipients of material from the Dennis Wolanski Library, ironically owes its development over the past decade to the CEO who was instrumental in closing down the performing arts collection at the Opera House. Other performing arts collections are located at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (http://www.qpac.com.au/), the Adelaide Festival Centre (http://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/) and His Majesty’s Theatre Perth (http://www.hismajestystheatre.com.au/). Budgets among other factors influence the visibility of services on the websites of the parent organisations and quality of online access to their collections.  

The work of the National Library of Australia, State libraries and some other libraries are an important part of the picture. The National Library recently revised its online finding aids for 7000 JC Williamson programs from a larger JC Williamson collection held by the Library (http://www.nla.gov.au/prompt/jc-williamson-theatres). The project added additional details and addressed inconsistent descriptions of the productions. The extensive performing arts collection at the State Library of NSW was boosted in 1997 when it acquired selected material from the Dennis Wolanski Library. A website page devoted to the subject provides a launching pad for further investigation.[23]  An example of work of smaller, specialist libraries can be found at the University of Melbourne, where the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library has catalogued and digitised its Marshall-Hall concert programs.[24]

Sector-wide initiatives  

Three portals, involving collaborations between academia and cultural heritage organisations, illustrate developments in sector-wide aggregation.  

AusStage (http://www.ausstage.edu.au) has been developed over the past decade by a consortium of universities, government agencies, industry organisations and collecting institutions with funding from the Australian Research Council. Illustrating the benefits of links with academia, its database currently has information on more than 66,500 productions, nearly 100,000 people, over 50,000 information objects, and 18,000 venues and companies. Efforts are being made to facilitate links to individual items - such as programs, posters, and photographs, collection descriptions and finding aids - and hosting item-level cataloguing for smaller collections. 

A number of other AusStage digitisation projects are also underway. These include support for cataloguing a theatre and music program collection at Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, work by Macquarie University on a history of Sidetrack Performance Group, and the development of standards and strategies for a collection of video resources at University of Sydney’s Department of Performance Studies. Monash University is working with AusStage on the BlackStage Project relating to contemporary Indigenous Australian theatre. The Stage on Screen Project takes in two research collections - theatre related videos held by the University of New England from the archives of ABC Television and Channel 9 and work by Deakin University on the multimedia Dance and Physical Melbourne Workers Theatre. The Ballets Russes Project, involving the Australian Ballet, National Library of Australia, and University of Adelaide involves cataloguing the Ballets Russes collection in the Special Collections of the University of Adelaide Library and linking digitised objects at the National Library of Australia to AusStage records.[25]  

AustLit (http://www.austlit.edu.au/) is a subscription service in the broader field of Australian literature, involving funds from the Australian Research Council and a network of contributors from Australian universities and the National Library of Australia. 

The National Library’s discovery service Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) is a lynchpin for future development. Based on more than half a century of disciplined work by libraries in describing and aggregating their holdings, it has now integrated the national bibliographic database with specialist performing arts initiatives – such as Music Australia – and services such as PictureAustralia and the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts both of which point to important original performing arts research material. The availability of digitised versions of newspapers from 1803 to 1954 – in which the imperfections of scanning are corrected by the public – has made significant differences to those digging up the past. Its strategy of encouraging the inclusion of data from organisations and systems outside libraries brings challenges in balancing the need for disciplined with the need for flexibility, This work will no doubt lead in the long term to increased sector-wide efficiency in the way information on the performing arts is captured and made available. 

In 2008, the Wolanski Foundation assisted University of Technology Sydney student Stephanie Volkens to undertake a select survey of performing arts programs and press clippings in national and state libraries, collecting institutions and online services. She reported on inconsistent cataloguing approaches in part driven by different business drivers, outlooks, priorities, resources, and capabilities. Libraries typically used library management systems and standards such as the AACR and MARC, whereas specialist performing arts collections have been inclined to adopt their own cataloguing methods and other kinds of systems. Most collections described programs and press clippings at collection level rather than item level. There was still a large quantity of uncatalogued material in collections of programs and press clippings.[26]  

SUMMING UP 

The histories of the performing arts in Australia will rely on the way cultural centres, performing arts organisations and others manage their records. Keeping records in performing arts organisations involves standard recordkeeping practices, but it also calls for approaches that go beyond simply keeping the evidence of business transactions. It is highly desirable that digital and non-digital records be managed in tandem as part of day-to-day business.  

Writing histories will depend on how well the authors are able to unravel the natural tendency of organisations to treat their achievements as public relations exercises. The new official online documentary about the Sydney Opera House offers a refreshing consolidation of competing facts about the construction of the building between 1954 and 1973. Some important details are left out. Other loose threads need to be tidied up. As our understanding of these central years continues to evolve, interpretations will depend on a deeper exploration and more open explanation of the story before 1954 and after 1973. Digging deeper will partly depend on the nature of the archives at the Sydney Opera House and on the documented views of the participants.   

The widespread use of technology and emerging digitisation activities are generating a stronger appreciation of the value of more effective archiving of the performing arts.  

Use of technology is dependent on information engineering principles. The performing arts, like Asia, is composed of diverse parts. Theatre, dance, music and opera have different histories and dynamics that call upon variations in the way they are described. The movies, popular forms of entertainment, radio and television broadcasting, all of which have not been touched on in this article, all carry their own peculiarities. 

But, as Elings and Waibel noted in 2007, there is a need for a more homogenous practice in describing like-materials in different institutions.[27] These assumptions are constantly tested by new developments in standards, linked open data, optical character recognition technology and discovery tools. 

Government cultural and ICT policies are vital contexts. However, government rhetoric in Australia is often followed by start-stop confusion. After the Howard government established the Collections Council of Australia in 2004, the Rudd government closed it down in 2009 without explanation. A Collections Council proposal for regional hubs has reappeared in a different guise as part of the National Broadband Network programs.  

Collaboration is difficult, but needs to be encouraged. Professional associations and consortia, sometimes with a dependency on project-based funding, usually lack authority and capacity but they make a difference. The National Library of Australia and other major cultural institutions are crucial in guiding and sustaining future strategies. 

The views of those who run institutions and companies are paramount. In Australia the work of visionaries is sometimes undone by journeymen.  

At the 2012 national conference of Museums Australia Performing Arts Heritage Network, Rob Brookman, CEO of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, in his opening address, Catching Lightning in a Bucket: Why Theatre Folk Love Archivists, recalled his instrumental role in establishing the Sydney Theatre Company archives to help capture the “evanescent moment of live performances.”  

In 1996, the new chairman at the Opera House, Joe Skrzynski, closed down a library and archive because he thought everything inside an organisation could be found using a search engine such as Isys and anything elsewhere could be found on the internet. He was seduced by the invention of Sir Tim Berners-Lee without giving much thought to what was needed to be part of it.  

Set up the bucket to catch the lightning - but watch out for the bulls in the china shop.

Endnotes


[1] Bentley, P. Being there without being there: the arts in the age of YouTube (2012) 26 OLC 171

[2] Thomson, K, Purcell, K and Rainie, L. Arts organizations and digital technologies. Pew Research Center, 4 January 2013 http://pewinternete.org/Reports/2-13/Arts-and-technology.aspx

[3] Bentley, P. Evolving stages: Australian performing arts online.(2005) 20 OLC 14

[4] Tobar, C. Music to my ears: The New York Philharmonic Archives. D-Lib Magazine (July/August 2011) http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july11/tobar/07tobar.html

[5] Price, G. Performing Arts: Brooklyn Academy of Music receives $1 million grant to build online digital archive. Infodocket (2 August 2012) http://www.infodocket.com/2012/08/02/performing-arts-1-million-grant-for-brooklyn-academy-of-music-to-build-online-digital-archive/

[6] Historic Dublin Abbey Theatre’s document archives get published online. Irish Central (23 October 2012) http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/Historic-Dublin-Abbey-Theatres-document-archives-get-published-online--175389381.html

[7] West, E and Tetlow, J. Why we love linked data and the semantic web. Presentation at the Culture Geek conference,  Barbican Centre, 7 September 2012 ] http://www.slideshare.net/oddtype/royal-opera-house-why-we-love-linked-data-and-the-semantic-web

[8] Small, E. Cataloguing the Malcolm Sargent Collection, Music in the British Library Blog, (30 November 2012) http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/music/2012/11/cataloguing-the-malcolm-sargent-collection.html.

[9] Haunton, M. Archiving the arts – why and how? National Archives blog (3 December 2012) http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/archiving-the-arts-why-and-how/#.UL8H-N577Mw.twitter

[10] Ridgewell, R. The Concert Programmes Project: history, progress and future directions (Fontis Artis Musicae January-March 2010)

[11] Zettervall, S. Behind the scenes: Theater archives and the documentation of a legacy. UpNext (30 August 2012) http://blog.imls.gov/?p=1739

[12] Arts Council England. The Space set to continue as a freely available digital arts service (9 October 2012) http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/space-set-continue-freely-available-digital-arts-s/  

[13] National Endowment for the Humanities. Calls for Comments on Digital Projects for the Public Grant Program Guidelines (14 November 2012) http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2012-11-14

[14] Bell, I. Creative Scotland was a project doomed to failure. Herald Scotland (5 December 2012)  http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/creative-scotland-was-a-project-doomed-to-failure.19591337

[15] Bentley, P. Being there without being there: The arts in the age of YouTube. (2012) 26 OLC 171

[16] Tabrett, L. It’s culture, stupid! Reflections of an arts bureaucrat (Platform Papers no 34, February 2013)

[17] Bentley, P. The digital economy dance: Getting into step with government policy. (2009) 23 OLC 13

[18] Bentley, P. The digital economy dance: getting into step with Government policy (2009), 23 OLC 13

[19] NSW Government ICT strategy 2012 http://www.services.nsw.gov.au/ict, NSW Draft Digital Economy Industry Action Plan 2012 http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/doing-business-in-nsw/industry-action-plans/digital-economy and Moses, A. A heavy fog on information superhighway as action plan scorned as ‘fluff’. Sydney Morning Herald 12 June 2012

[20] Ventress, A. Support by the NSW Government for the Archives Authority of New South Wales 1960-1998 and State Records New South Wales 1999-2012. Archives and Manuscripts (forthcoming 2013)

[21] Australia Council. Archives in the digital era, 2012 http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/digitalarchives

[22] Puplick, C. Changing times at NIDA (Platform Papers no 33, October 2012) and Crittendon, S. Panned: Is NIDA critique plain-speaking or villainous betrayal? The Global Mail (21 September 2012)  http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/panned-is-nida-critique-plain-speaking-or-villainous-betrayal/389/.

[23] http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/cdp/documenting/arts/performingarts.html

[24] http://library.unimelb.edu.au/digitalcollections/cultural_and_special_collections

[25] http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/learn/research/digitisation.html

[26] Volkens, S. Cataloguing programs and press clippings by Australian performing arts collections and online services: a research project for the Wolanski Foundation, 2008.

[27] Elings, MW and Waibel, G. Metadata for all: Descriptive standards and metadata sharing across libraries, archives and museums. First Monday, vol 12, no 3 http://www.firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1628/1543

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