Contact: archiveforum@rmit.edu.au

I have a dog, both faithful and true.
His name is Kim, and his color is blue.
He is my pal, the best one I've had.
He came as a present, the last one from Dad.

Just a snippet from a song entitled "Kim" by Australian yodeling cowgirl Jacqueline Hall. As the professionally mastered and packaged audio CD, Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts produced in 1999 by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia informs me, Jacqueline Hall was an itinerant child performer and top Australian country music songstress of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the wonderful discovery of Jacqueline and her fellow yodeling cowgirls, Joan Ridgway and Lily Connors a discovery I have shared countless times with fellow Texans (who know a good yodel when they hear one) and friends in American locales stretching from California to New York (Yodeling? How curious!) I have learned from the NFSA's CD about sound preservation itself in the text provided about the digital restoration process.

I find it quite disturbing that Kim Dalton (not the faithful pup to whom Jacqueline Hall dedicates her sad song, but the faithless CEO of the Australian Film Commission) and his AFC want to put an end to activities such as the NFSA's production of moving image and sound recording compilations. These top-notch recordings provide access to the Archive's stellar collections to people such as myself who may never have the pleasure of visiting the Archive in person and otherwise may never have known about these gems.

And how did I learn of Down the Trail of Achin' Hearts in the first place? It was promoted in a catalogue published by NFSA that I received in 2000 when a student in the NFSA/(then) University of New South Wales online course in audiovisual archiving, another globally significant outreach effort led by the NFSA. I can honestly say that the quality of the education I received in the online audiovisual archiving course and the level of engagement of the faculty leading the course (NFSA's own Meg Lambrum and Ray Edmondson and UNSW professor Paul Wilson) were among the highest I experienced in my graduate studies. At that time, the archival studies program at my university, The University of Texas at Austin, offered no such courses. The audiovisual archiving course I took remotely from Australia and the encouragement I received from its committed faculty were instrumental in my education and ultimate decision to pursue a career as a moving image archivist.

While the online audiovisual archiving program has not been directly targeted for cutting in the AFC's "State Two Directions Paper," I fear that with the transfer of educational functions directly from the Archive (with its unique expertise and incomparably committed staff) to the AFC (with its lack of expertise in the archival field and seeming lack of respect for NFSA and its accomplishments) could mean the end of this innovative educational opportunity that has touched the lives of so many people, both in highly developed countries such as mine and in countries whose archival professionals have less access to training opportunities.

I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know several of the NFSA staff members through our interaction at the conferences of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, where NFSA staff are leaders in the areas of preservation, cataloging, and documentation. I cannot overemphasize the high regard that the international moving image archival community has for the work of NFSA and the length to which it is looked to as a standard-bearer in our field in the areas of technical innovation, access, and ethics. The last point is especially important to the current debate, as I am convinced that to marry the NFSA with the AFC in the manner proposed in the "Stage Two Directions Paper" would be to comprise the ethical undergirdings of the Archive and its work.

I strongly oppose the adaptation of the NFSA to fit the needs of the AFC as expressed in the "Stage Two Directions Paper" and add my voice to the legions of people worldwide that would like to see the NFSA continue as an independent national audiovisual archive.

Sarah Ziebell Mann
Certified Archivist
Director of the Collection, American Museum of the Moving Image
Chair, Conference Committee and Cataloging Standards Review Subcommittee,
Association of Moving Image Archivists Board of Directors,
Independent Media Arts Preservation
szmann@earthlink.net

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I would be happy for my comments to be quoted at any time or place if it would help what I can only think must be a destructive cost-cutting measure. This would not happen anywhere else in the world of filmmaking. What is the point of the Govt. funding development and production of film and then wishing to break up the only skilled organisation to preserve our hard-won culture. I would come to Canberra and camp outside Partiament House if I thought it would do any good. However, they obviously treat filmamkers with distain in the first place to wish to commit what I believe is a serious crime against future generations.

Patricia Lovell
Lovell Films Pty.Ltd