Video Archiving: Best Practices & Recommendations A Report for the American Folklore Society, Prepared by Media Folk

Abstract

Folklorist Lynne Williamson approached Media Folk, Anna and Christopher Mulé, to consult on best practices for building her video archive. She had a common scenario in the folklore world—a mobile folklorist capturing lots of digital materials, working on more than one computer, without time or resources to process the collected data into shareable content for peers, the broader public, and traditional communities. Like many of us, these materials were being collected and stacked on a shelf. While the 20th-century folklorist would glance woefully at a stack of unprocessed cassette or VHS tapes, the 21st century folklorist now stares at unprocessed SD cards. Luckily, with Lynne, we also had an intelligent and creative community scholar, extremely patient woman, and folklorist committed to processing materials while following best practices.