AGM 2011

Minutes of British & Irish Sound Archives (BISA) Annual General Meeting held on 20 May 2011, at BBC Scotland, Pacific Quay, Glasgow

Present: Peter Adamson; Almut Boehme (National Library of Scotland); Jamie Cross (Ayrshire Archives); Jonathan Draper (Norfolk Sound Archive); Mike Hirst (DAS-360° Digital Archive Services); David Lee (Wessex Film and Sound Archive); Hannah Little (Glasgow Women's Library); Cathlin Macaulay (School of Scottish Studies Archives); Shona MacDonald (Tobar an Dualchais); Nóra Noonan (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland); Alasdair Pettinger (Scottish Music Centre); Will Prentice (British Library Sound Archive); Dafydd Pritchard (National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales); Brian Rice (RTÉ); Simon Rooks (BBC Information and Archives)

1. To Receive the Minutes of the Previous Annual General Meeting held on 14 May 2010 at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York
The minutes of the meeting held on 14 May 2010 were accepted with one amendment noted by Almut Boehme (AB), namely under item number 5, first sentence Brian Rice’s initials should be BR not BC. Simon Rooks (SR) duly signed the minutes.

2. Committee Members' Reports
Convenor
SR stated that the half-yearly telephone meeting of the BISA Committee which took place in November 2010 worked well. He proposed that there should be something similar for this year, but it should take place slightly earlier so that arrangements for the BISA event were confirmed at an earlier date and that the event could be publicised earlier. AB agreed that as much notice as possible was needed in order to persuade managers of the merits of the BISA event.

SR suggested 'BISA Training Day' was not the correct name for BISA's annual event and canvassed opinion from those present for an alternative. It was noted that the name should allow potential attendees get support to attend from their employers. Dafydd Pritchard (DP) suggested the event be called a conference. Peter Adamson (PA) suggested that the event included a workshop / training element. Jonathan Draper (JD) confirmed that during the last two events, Will Prentice (WP) had delivered training on the digitization of compact cassettes and open reel audio tape. The consensus from those present was that BISA's annual event should be referred to as a conference in future.

SR suggested that a survey was carried out on the BISA e-mail discussion list to see what members wanted from BISA's annual event and to find out why people decided to attend or not attend.

SR thanked RTÉ for hosting the BISA website for the last 12 months. He noted that, though the minutes of BISA AGM in 2010 indicated that RTÉ would not be able to carry on hosting the site beyond May 2011, the fact was that RTÉ could continue to host the website. Brian Rice (BR) believed that this was the case.

Secretary
JD noted that there were 71 members of BISA. The other news of note was that the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives accepted BISA as a regional branch member. SR explained what IASA is.

Treasurer
DP stated that there was £2,958.32 in BISA's bank account prior to this year's annual event.

Webmaster
See agenda item number 3 below.

Listowner
WP reported that there were 129 members of BISA's JISC e-mail discussion list, commenting that this was favourable when compared to the IASA e-mail discussion list which has 486 members. He stated that the quality of traffic is good, but that there needs to be more messages posted and urged BISA members to use the BISA list more.

3. BISA Directory
BR on behalf of Malachy Moran, showed what the BISA directory looks like at present and described how it would work. He explained that there remained some minor problems with the directory, particularly related to browser compatibility and that it was hoped that these would be resolved soon. BR stated that there will be a user guide and that it will rely on members to edit their own entries. David Lee (DL) pointed out that there will be some cross over with the work of the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUVFC). BR acknowledged this but stated that the BISA directory had been created in compliance with the International Council on Archives' International Standard for Describing Institutions with Archival Holdings so that it can easily be adapted. JD acknowledged that BISA has been in contact with the Oral History Society for some time over the directory and that is one of the reasons why the directory has adopted the ISDIAH standard. It was noted that once the directory was working as the developer's intended, the BISA committee would contact the Oral History Society to see how the directory might be developed. SR thanked RTÉ for their work developing the directory.

4. Expenses Policy
SR explained that he had written an expenses policy for BISA. He had circulated it amongst the Committee members and following some minor changes should be deemed adopted.

5. Promotion of BISA
SR noted that at least one BISA member had featured in a couple of broadcasts on BBC Radio and that we should highlight such events on the BISA e-mail discussion list. SR appealed to BISA members to think of new ways of promoting BISA. PA suggested that the BISA application form be amended to include a question on how the applicant became aware of BISA. DP encouraged members to write articles in various organizations' journals, such as the Archives and Records Association newsletter, the ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) journal and Oral History Society's journal.

6. Sound Archive Toolkit
JD brought members’ attention to BISA’s Saturday morning workshop, entitled ‘What every Sound Archivist needs to know’. JD explained that the event would encourage discussion about what information someone needed in order to preserve sound archives and that it was hoped that this would encourage comment on the BISA e-mail discussion list. SR reiterated these comments and stressed that this would address some of the points raised at BISA's inaugural meeting in Edinburgh in 2006.

7. Any Other Items of Business
The BISA committee formally thanked all contributors to BISA's 2011 event and its host, BBC Scotland&'s Information and Archives Department.

8. Date and Time of Next BISA Conference
The next BISA meeting will be hosted by the Norfolk Record Office and Norfolk Sound Archive in Norwich on 18 and 19 May 2012.

The meeting ended at 13:25.

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