C2C Care Course: Planning and Managing Magnetic Media Preservation Projects

Are piles of VHS tapes and audio cassettes tapes found on the shelves of your collections storage areas? Lack the confidence to jump-start and carry through the preservation of an endangered audio and/or video tape collection?

Through demos, case studies, and practice with hands on activities and discussions, participants in this 5 week course will learn how to:

  • analyze information contained in inventories to develop a project scope;
  • decide on preservation file types; 
  • calculate both digitization and storage costs;
  • adopt recommended practices for safeguarding the files and metadata; 
  • evaluate their institutional capacity to carry out audio or video tape preservation in-house.

Participants will also be introduced to finding a vendor and preparing for/managing an outsourced project, along with post-digitization quality assurance to make sure you got what you paid for.

*This is a self-study course originally offered in a live format between March 4th and April 1st, 2021. Please note that any assignments are designed for enrichment only and will not be reviewed.

Course Schedule

Webinar 1:Introduction: Evaluating organizational readiness
Date: March 4, 2021 1pm-2:30pm ET

Webinar 2:Preparing for digitization
Date:March 11, 2021 1pm-2:30pm ET

Webinar 3: Working with a Vendor Part 1
Date:  March 18, 2021 1pm-2:30pm ET

Webinar 4: Working with a Vendor Part 2
Date: March 25, 2021 1pm-2:30pm ET

Webinar 5: Creating a digitization program “in-house”
Date: April 1, 2021 1pm-2:30pm ET

Registration Fee: $89

Our Course Coordinators are Kristin MacDonough (she/her), Assistant Conservator of Media, Art Institute of Chicago and Mona Jimenez (she/her), Media Arts Consultant, Materia Media

Connecting to Collections Care courses are made possible in part by generous support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.