The People’s Media Record (PMR) is planning a series of workshops about preserving time-based content for community media-makers and community archivists in the Philadelphia area, and is looking for instructors for three workshops on digital preservation and a two-part workshop on digitization. The workshops will take place in July and August 2023, with dates tentatively scheduled. Instructors will be paid. The content, form, and structure of the workshops aren’t complete and PMR would like to work with instructors to finalize them. Drafts of the workshop descriptions are below. The workshops will be about two hours long and could be done face-to-face or remotely.
PMR is a Philadelphia-based community organization that is an archive of community-produced media, particularly of social justice movements.

Questions and applications should be sent to [log in to unmask]

Preservation Planning for Community Media Collections

In this workshop, participants will learn how to approach digital preservation planning for their collections. We will explore best practices for planning, including documentation and metadata, and we will reflect on how to develop effective strategies for preservation planning in community-based settings with limited capacity. Participants will leave with the ability to assess their preservation practices and to start designing their own preservation plan.

Digital Preservation for Community Media Collections [might merge with the first workshop]

You have gathered and digitized your materials, but now what? This workshop will guide you through the next steps of archiving your collection, including digital storage & metadata management, forensic technologies,
documentation, and maintenance. Participants will leave with a general
understanding of digital preservation fundamentals and with a roadmap for
preserving their collection in a sustainable way.

Metadata for Community Media Preservation [looking for a co-facilitator with experience with audiovisual metadata]

This workshop will prepare you to understand the process of creating and enriching metadata–the “data about your data” such as date, creator, file format, and cataloger–for cataloging and preserving digital collections. Among the topics that will be explored are the different types of metadata, metadata standards, best practices for metadata creation and management, possible tools, and critical community-based approaches to metadata work.

Digitizing Community Media Collections – 2 Parts

Workflows for Preparing to Digitize
This workshop will offer users a general overview of the media digitization process. You will learn the essential steps that are needed to digitize media effectively: how to appropriately identify your media for digitization, how to determine the necessary software and hardware for digitization, and how to think about and set up storage and file management in order to ensure the successful preservation of your materials

Workshop – Digitizing Media Collections
This hands-on session (or all-day drop-in or appointment style) will guide participants through the process of digitizing an artifact from their collections. You will have the opportunity to test out the lessons about digitization from the previous workshop. In addition, you will have the option of submitting some of your digitized materials as part of a group screening.

Tentative dates:

Preservation Planning for Community Media Collections: 7/14, 7pm-9pm EST (virtual)
Digital Preservation for Community Media Collections: 7/21, 7pm-9pm EST (virtual) — possibly integrated with the former
Digitizing Community Media Collections Part 1: 8/10, 7pm-9pm EST (virtual)
Digitizing Community Media Collections Part 2: 8/17 (TBD) (in-person)
Metadata for Community Media Preservation: 8/31, 7pm-9pm EST (virtual)