You have to wonder how many other universities of all shapes and sizes are in the same shape (or worse) than IU?
Indiana University Bloomington holds more than 560,000 audio and video recordings and film reels, many of which are historically significant, all of which are actively deteriorating. And the window of time to save these materials is closing fast; most archivists agree that such audio and video materials could be lost forever in 20 years or less.
That's the urgent conclusion of the just-released IU Bloomington Media Preservation Survey, a comprehensive study produced by a task force of archival experts drawn from around the campus.
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The final report presents a detailed look at the characteristics and condition of audio, video, and film media on the campus, including numbers of holdings, general condition, and preservation risks. (This survey focused on one class of media and did not include photographs or other physical objects in special collections.) Among its major findings, the report reveals that IU Bloomington:
* Has media holdings dating back to wax cylinder recordings of Native Americans made in the early 1890s
* Holds an estimated 154,136 unique (one-of-a-kind) items
* Holds an estimated 94,993 rare items
* Holds a larger and more diverse film collection than almost any other U.S. university
* Has at least 180,000 items that are at high or very high risk for loss of content
"Large portions of IUB holdings are seriously endangered due to inadequate storage, degradation of media, and format obsolescence," says [Mike] Casey [associate director for recording services at the Archives of Traditional Music] in his introduction to the survey report. "Some media preservation efforts on campus exist, but none are sustainable, and none are at a scale or pace that will allow them to preserve more than a tiny fraction of their holdings before it is too late."
Carolyn Walters, interim Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries, noted that "specialized collections, in whatever form, distinguish IU. Because the IU Libraries steward more than half of the media collections on campus, this report is especially helpful in documenting and prioritizing critical needs. Preserving collections is as important to us as providing access to them."
Notable media held at IU Bloomington include:
* Performances by world-renowned musicians such as Janos Starker and Joshua Bell
* The Peter Bogdanovich Film Collection, from the director of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon
* Home movies of Hoagy Carmichael
* 276 cylinders documenting Native American musical traditions recorded 1907-13
* Lectures and other events featuring figures such as Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Bill Gates and Will Shortz
* One of the largest educational film collections in the country dating from the 1920s
The preservation crisis at IU Bloomington is shared by universities across the nation and the world in institutions that hold similar audio and moving image media. Growing awareness of this crisis led to the survey, which is the most thorough and extensive study of its kind conducted by a large American university to date.
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