2012 Archival Education and Research Institute, July 9–13, 2012, Los Angeles

Report on the fourth annual Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI) held at the University of California, Los Angeles, July 9-13, 2012. The institutes are about the challenges of training the next generation of professional archivists and in the five-day programme two panel discussions and five presentations directly addressed audiovisual and moving images archiving. These highlighted the continuing relevance of research into how motion pictures are created, collected, preserved, and used. Recent findings related to digital and multimedia documentation of dance performances were presented that have interesting implications for both digital humanities scholarship and archives with performance-related collections. New data was presented showing how and why cultural institutions provide online access to moving image materials from their collections. Case studies were presented on film festivals and their archives, and on the preservation of thousands of high-definition video files generated by a school of journalism. An experiment in experiential learning with historic home movies in a graduate course on archival administration was reported. AERI reflects the stubborn persistence of an "other" status for audiovisual media in archives but is an excellent vector for change: the programme's commitment to increasing diversity and exploring plurality in archival education encompasses not just the people who create, manage, and use records but the forms those records take. AERI participants represent a variety of disciplinary perspectives and contexts. Emergent trends in research and practice are readily seen here. (Quotes from original text)