SURVIVAL KIT / METHODOLOGY / OPATL Best Practices Guide

Best Practices Guide for Stablishment a Permanent Observatory for Archives and Local Television (OPATL, abbreviated in catalan)  

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Best Practices Guide for Stablishment a Permanent Observatory for Archives and Local Television. The Permanent Observatory was created in 2008 by the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) in Girona, the National Archives of Andorra (NAA), the Local Television Net in Catalonia (XTVL) and the Catalan Archivist Association (AAC). Its mission is to ensure the safeguarding of the documentary heritage of local television and other local producers of audiovisual content; to establish the methodological basis of the work of audiovisual archives; to raise awareness and foster the use of new technologies; to promote best practices and respect for copyright; to contribute to the training of professionals; to make government and society in general aware of local audiovisual heritage and the need to preserve it. 

  

  

The wish to export its expertise to try to help people and institutions elsewhere in the world that find themselves in similar situations encouraged the OPATL to write a Best Practices Guide. This received support and funding from the Programme Commission (PCOM) of the International Council on Archives (ICA). 

  

The highlights: 

  

  • The Good Practices Guide aims to become a roadmap for anyone interested in establishing an observatory similar to the OPATL in their territory.
  • It provides a model that allows them to approach the development of these types of projects with more confidence and avoid, as far as possible, errors and setbacks that always arise in the early stages.
  • It consider some strategic factors or its implementation: Establishing the geographic area it covers; Contacting the institutions and organizations that are to form part of it; Signing a collaboration agreement between the parties; Preparing an inventory of audiovisual documentation; Studying the characteristics of the documentation; Studying the conditions of the archives; Studying the producing agents; Studying the legislative framework; Establishing partnerships between the public and the private sector; Creating spaces for the communication and dissemination of the project.
  • There is a complete version in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Catalan) and a summarized version in Arabic, Hindi, Russian and Japanese.

  

It is aimed at all those involved in the preservation of television heritage.