ASRA Conference 2004

Australasian Sound Recordings Association Conference

"Sounding Out a Cultural Heritage"
ScreenSound Australia, Canberra
12-14 May 2004

Provisional Program

Coinciding with the 20th Anniversary of the establishment of the National Film & Sound Archive (now ScreenSound Australia) in 2004, next year's ASRA conference will celebrate Australasia's sound archives and investigate their role in defining and describing cultural heritage.

Sound (and audiovisual) archives are enjoying increasing prominence as government and business place increasing importance on "knowledge management" within an "information economy". New delivery systems create an increasing demand for "rich content". Technological developments have delivered enormously increased capability, but bring new problems of increasing scale and complexity. But we ignore the past at our peril.

Radio, growing as it did through the 20th century, still serves huge audiences across huge distances. Australians continue to buy sound recordings in large numbers. These are significant old technologies and understanding them enhances our appreciation of their role in contemporary society.

After 20 years of institutional collecting how well are we positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century? What has been achieved, and how does this inform our plans for the future? Have institutional and technological developments helped us realise a "vision" for sound archives, and how has that vision evolved? What role are our sound archives and collections playing in our society and our communities, now and for the future? What sort of future archives are we building when we make choices today?

Speakers will include professionals from the past and present staff of a range of government institutional collections, plus representatives of the academic sector, industry and private collectors. The program will also include a range of professional visits and social functions, plus the ASRA Annual General Meeting.

Call For Papers

Papers should be approximately 20 minutes in length and will be considered for publication in the annual ASRA journal.

Suggested topics for discussion include:

• How it all began - the history of sound collections and archives in Australia.
• Archives, society and communities.
• Planning for the future - how will our collections and archives evolve in the 21st Century?
• Technical Developments and their impact on sound archive activities.