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Cinematography was also introduced to anthropological fieldwork, but, because
of the technical complexity and the costs of this technology, not systematically
employed to considerable extent.
Over the following decades the phonograph remained in use until the 1940s,
as gramophone recording, though technically superior, was hardly applicable
under field conditions. Audio field recording became only widespread with
advent of battery operated tape recorders in the mid-1950s, which permitted
uninterrupted recording of considerable lengths and quality everywhere in the
world. Similarly, video recording became popular with the advent of “handy
cams” since the 1980s. Though technically inferior to cinematography, even to
8mm amateur film, this was affordable even for private researchers which made
“videotaping” a widespread documentary tool in fieldwork. More recently
video documents became an important factor even in linguistics, to permit
research into gestures and mimics.
As a result of this technological development audiovisual collections
mushroomed and became irreplaceable stocks of primary sources of linguistic
and cultural diversity of human kind. This mushrooming was supported by the
relative affordability of audio and video recording equipment, which lead to the
establishment of collections as part of research institutions, museums, and even
in the possession of private researches. Generally, however, these collections
remained without specific custodial infrastructure, or any preservation strategy,
let alone budgetary provisions. It is estimated that the greater part, possibly
80% of these primary sources, which are the basis of our present knowledge in
many disciplines, are outside archival custody in the narrower sense. Only 20%
of this heritage are professionally preserved.
This system of relative anarchy has worked until recently somehow.
However, audio and video recordings are prone to deterioration and threatened
by format obsolescence. More dangerous than the instability of carriers is
meanwhile the inescapable unavailability of replay equipment, as traditional
analogue, and also single carrier based digital formats, became obsolete. As a
consequence, the industry ceases production of equipment, spare parts and
provision of service.
This situation was anticipated already in 1989/1990 which had lead to shift of
paradigm for audiovisual archiving; first for audio, followed since the late 1990s
by video, and presently also applied for film archiving: The new strategy is to
preserve the content, not the carrier, by transferring contents to digital files
and migrate these files from one IT preservation platform to the next 51 . There
is unanimous agreement that the time window left for transferring audiovisual
51
The principles of this strategy and the practical guidelines for audio and video see IASA-TC 03, 04, and 06.
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