BISA's Convenor, Simon Rooks looks back on BISA 2012

Two weeks and whole Diamond Jubilee later*, BISA’s 2012 Conference in Norwich, I’ve been reflecting on what feedback so far is telling me was a highly successful event for us. Representing British and Irish collections, our speakers and delegates took us as far as Antarctica and across continental Europe in a packed day and a half. As always with these events, it’s rather like throwing a party and not being sure how many are going to actually come. Many delegates tend to register late, but numbers were a respectable 32 or so (from a membership of around 75). This is not to be complaisant – we’ll work on getting more to BISA 2013 of which more later.

BISA 2012 was generously hosted by the Norfolk Record Office and we were warmly welcomed by County Archivist, Dr. John Alban whose passion for archiving was reflected in both his words of welcome and in the impressive facilities on the outskirts of the city.

A few of us were staying in a hotel that formed part of the Norwich City football ground where I enjoyed a grandstand view of the pitch. I say ‘enjoyed’, but not being a football fan it was rather wasted on me. It was a novelty though, for sure.

Friday
Following naturally from John Alban’s welcome, Senior Archivist (and BISA Secretary) Jonathan Draper spoke about the establishment of the Norfolk Sound Archive in 2003.

In the mid-morning slot, Richard Ranft (the British Library’s Head of Sound and Vision) gave us a history and update on the BL’s JISC-funded projects to make what is now 50,000 sound recordings online via British Library Sounds for academic and general access. Richard covered selection, digitisation, cataloguing, and the legal and ethical challenges.

After lunch, we welcomed back Delaina Sepko, PhD student in Humanities Computing at the University of Glasgow’s HATII Institute . Using this year her own extensive and eclectic record collection as a case study, Delaina called for archivists to engage with genre classification of popular music as a fundamental element to understanding these accumulated assets as meaningful archival collections. It immediately made me think of the current attempts to showcase John Peel’s monumental collection via The Space

Two speakers new to BISA brought an aspect of archival sound recordings to our forum that hasn’t I think been given due attention – or perhaps I’m just revealing my own lack of awareness here. Richard Deswarte of the UK Data Archive and Joanna Rae of the British Antarctic Survey Archive in different fields highlighted their work in the archival management of sound as scientific data such as oral history as social science data or the curious ‘whistler’ recordings of radio waves made by the BAS. This last was the subject of an enthusiastic call from delegates for an encore!

Rounding off the day, Richard Ranft returned to present to delegates on the latest developments in Europeana , Europe’s cultural heritage portal which now provides access to over 23 million digital assets. With only 1.5% of Europeana’s sound recordings originating from BISA’s member nations and regions, there was much to think about concerning engagement in a project which in other European states can be taken more seriously in political and governmental circles.

Saturday Morning
Following a great Friday night out at the charming Wig and Pen pub, delegates assembled back at the Record Office early enough on Saturday. BISA’s Saturday sessions usually take the form of a practical workshop or training session. This year’s amounted to Taxonomy Boot Camp – with our (benign) Drill Sergeant being played by Janis Mcanallen, Taxonomy Analyst at the BBC. Janis took us on a rollercoaster ride through the principles of taxonomy followed by a working ‘card-sorting’ session based on the very real current issue or re-engineering the BBC Sound Effects collection taxonomy. Managing to pack an awful lot into BISA’s allocated (and in retrospect all too limited) time, Janis still managed to leave us just enough time for a final tour of the NRO’s award winning Archive Centre.

BISA 2013
Start thinking now about offering us a paper or attending BISA in 2013! We have had a very exciting and strong offer from a unique location most delegates from BISA’s constituent lands have never visited. Intrigued? We’re finalising dates for May 2013 and you’ll hear more very shortly.

Archivally Yours,

Simon

*"Diamond Jubilee" does not apply to all BISA's constituent members - other Heads of State are available.