ASRA Newsletter

President's Newsletter - Winter, 2010

As I write this newsletter I 'm feeling optimistic and excited about our future in the world of sound recordings and collections. The record industry seems to be finding its feet with new business models, and we have more choice than ever before in the range of music and other recordings available to us. I'm also seeing the increasing availability of affordable solutions for personal and community based archiving and optimistic about the survival and ongoing availability of the countless hours of material that sits outside commercial and institutional archives.

Of course technology is just part of the solution; the other ingredient will be passionate people who want to contribute to getting this work done. Those people will also need advice and support, which ASRA and its membership are in a good position to give. They may also have new needs, and new ideas that we should listen to. They may not be part of our circle at the moment; we may not even know who they are.

That's one reason I 'm so excited about the next ASRA conference - "Outside The Circle", to be held in Melbourne from the 1st to the 3rd of September. This conference theme is an invitation to broaden our view and open ourselves up to new ways of thinking about sound recordings and sound collections. The conference has already attracted offers of some inspiring and insightful papers, but there is still time to submit an abstract or a proposal to present at the conference. Conference presentations are generally 20 minutes plus question time, and provide a great opportunity to share your passion for sound with a like minded audience. Details about the conference theme and sub-themes are on the ASRA website, and included in this mail out as well. We will be updating the ASRA website with more information about the conference program and activities as it comes to hand, so make sure you have asra.asn.au bookmarked and check back from time to time for updates. The conference is also the location for the Annual General Meeting, so come along and have your say on what you think is important to our organisation.

The next issue of the ASRA journal is almost ready to send to the printers. We have had some challenges completing this journal, and I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to you all for the long wait, but I assure you it is going to be worth it. The journal will include papers from our 2009 conference, including William Duckworth’s  keynote “Endangered Sounds of the Future” & Robyn Ravlich’s paper “Radio- the Art of Possibilities”; and much more including Jan Lyall’s fascinating keynote from the 2008 joint ASRA/IASA conference “Satawal to Cyberspace” .  The journal will be accompanied by an audiovisual supplement on DVD. 

ASRA’s membership year runs from April to March, and as we haven’t yet sent reminders for 2010 most of our members need to renew their subscription now to remain financial members of the organisation. Benefits include discounted registration for ASRA conferences, eligibility to vote in ASRA elections, and eligibility to stand for office in the organisation, as well as the included journal subscription. A membership renewal form is enclosed for you to send with your subscription to ensure we have all your details up to date. We are working to implement a PayPal facility for subscription payments, but for now we require a cheque or money order with your renewal form, thank you.

2010 is an ASRA election year and so we have included a nomination from in this mailout. Any ASRA member can nominate, and there are two years between elections.  Committee members are encouraged to attend four meetings per year, and are expected to participate in at least two.  The ASRA board is responsible for organising activities such as the annual conference and occasional technical seminars; managing ASRA’s finances; publication of the ASRA journal and managing the ASRA website. We welcome nominations of members who would like to assist, especially with the editorial support for future journals and the ASRA website. I you would like more information feel free to talk to one of our existing board members.

ASRA exists to bring people with passion for sound collections together to support, inform, advise and enjoy each other through sharing our mutual interest. We do this mainly through our conferences, our journal and our website. All of these activities depend on the support of ASRA members - whether individual members, institutional members, or ASRA board members. This support is gratefully received, and presently while we have some challenges especially with the journal, we have the support we need to maintain ASRA's publication and other activities at existing levels.

Rather than just maintaining the status quo, the board would like to increase the level of ASRA activity, especially through the ASRA website.  The website is looking better than ever, with pictures from past conferences and lots of information about the upcoming Melbourne conference, but we have barely scratched the surface of what we could do with asra.asn.au We are very lucky to have a dedicated webmaster, Daniel Saw who manages the technical aspects of the site for us to a professional standard for a nominal fee, so all we need from the membership is - content!  We are looking for relevant news items or short articles, photographs, reviews, opinions and curiosities.

We are also looking for help to convert articles from previous ASRA journals to electronic text so we can put them up on the website.  Do you know how to scan and do Optical Character Recognition? Or maybe you're happy to re-type some short articles?  Can you help us to get the knowledge from our ASRA journals off the shelf and on to the net? If you would like to help let me know by email at matthew.davies@nfsa.gov.au

 

ASRA Information via Email

To date ASRA has not made any systematic use of email for communication. We have a few email addresses in our membership database, but we don’t have this information for most of our members. We would like to know if you would be interested in receiving some information from ASRA via email, so please tick the box on the membership form to indicate your preference. If you tick “yes” make sure you include your email address on the form.

 

Vale Leon Becker

I am sure most of you have heard the sad news about the passing of our dear friend Leon Becker.  I was sad but honored to attend Leon's funeral, along with James McCarthy and Simon Drake, on ASRA's behalf.  Leon’s generous commitment to community work was a natural consequence of his deep regard for people and his fascination with their stories. He bought the wisdom accrued from his involvement with Rotary and a lifetime of achievement in his media career to the ASRA board for many years.  His leadership of the "Once Upon A Wireless" Oral History program ensured that a generation of the Australian radio industry's corporate memory was captured on tape, and deposited with the NFSA where it is nearly all now digitised. But Leon's contribution to ASRA is not just about what he did for the organisation, it's also about his influence and support for ASRA's members and officers as individuals.  I'm sure many of you have stories about Leon that we can share as we celebrate his memory into the future.

 

 

I hope that I will see you all in Melbourne at the Outside The Circle conference in September.

‘Til next time.

Matthew Davies
President – Australasian Sound Recordings Associatio

June 2010