Please note that the PARADISEC website has been redesigned.
The new website can be found at http://www.paradisec.org.au/
STAFF TRAINING
Report on PARADISEC Team Training Week
(including trip to Canberra 1-3 April 2003)
BACKGROUND:
The University of Sydney is lead institution in an ARC Large Equipment Infrastructure Fund grant for 2003 to establish a Quadriga digital audio archiving facility for the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures, an online digital archive. This is a collaborative exercise across three institutions (the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and ANU): the equipment and two full-time technical staff are housed in the School of Society, Culture and Performance, University of Sydney (rooms 238-240, Transient Building); the project manager, Nick Thieberger, is located in the Linguistics Department, University of Melbourne; and the project website is hosted at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at ANU. The project has also been supported by the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC), Grangenet and the ANU Internet Futures Group, who have been assisting us with technical issues to do with cross-institutional networking and data transfer and streaming.
Having taken delivery of the equipment and recruited the Sydney technical staff in March 2003, we planned the Team Training Week to brief the new team members, establish work practices, and take advantage of the training generously offered to us by Screensound Australia, one of several national institutions that uses the Quadriga audio archiving system.
PROJECT TEAM: Linda Barwick (PARADISEC Director), Nick Thieberger (PARADISEC Project Manager, Melbourne), Frank Davey (PARADISEC Audio Preservation Officer, Sydney), Amanda Harris (PARADISEC Project Administration Officer, Sydney), Russell Emerson (Technical Director, Performance Studies SSCP, Sydney),
TIMETABLE:
Monday 31 March (University of Sydney) Nick Thieberger arrives from Melbourne, Frank Davey starts work. Team training and orientation, including advice and assistance from Matthew Geier, Arts Faculty Network manager.
Tuesday 1 April
9am Drive to Canberra
2pm Planning and briefing meeting with PARADISEC project participants (Andy Pawley, John Bowden, Malcolm Ross, Doug Marmion, Alan Rumsey, Wayan Arka) at Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, ANU
4pm Meeting with Stuart Hungerford, APAC and ANU Internet Futures Programme, who is assisting us with networking and mirroring of our archive at APAC National Supercomputing Facility.
Wednesday 2 April
Training day at Screensound
Including
- Meetings with Screensound technical and planning personnel (David Boden, Nick Weare, Greg Moss, Michael Tuite, Meg Labrum, Pam Saunders)
- Tour of Screensound Quadriga facilities
- Training on tape preservation issues
- Technical personnel observe Quadriga facility in operation
- Meetings with Screensound project personnel for planning future joint projects (Pam Saunders, Meg Labrum, Michael Tuite)
Thursday 3 April
9.30 Tour of National Library Quadriga facilities (Kevin Bradley and NLA Quadriga team)
11 Visit to AIATSIS Quadriga team (Mark Denbow, Adam Chapman, Paddy Naughton)
12 Collect tapes from RSPAS to be transported back to Sydney for ingestion
1pm Drive back to Sydney
5pm Secure tapes in PARADISEC office, University of Sydney
Friday 4 April
(Sydney) Continued team training. Presentation on PARADISEC project to the Linguistics Department Research Seminar (Nick Thieberger and Linda Barwick)
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Photo 1: Laycock, Voorhoeve and McElhanon tape collections packed in the back of Russell's van for transport from RSPAS, ANU, back to Sydney. Photo taken at the front of Screensound building, Canberra, by Russell Emerson, 3/4/2003. |
COMMENTS BY PARTICIPANTS
Linda Barwick, PARADISEC Director The training week enabled us to - clarify and/or solve a number of practical issues in the establishment and running of the new Sydney Quadriga digitisation facility; - introduce our team to contributing researchers, collaborators and technical experts with whom they will be liaising in future via email and phone; - obtain advice on strategic planning matters (e.g. cost recovery policy); - show early results of our project to advisers and collaborators; - collect the first batch of tapes from ANU for digitisation in Sydney (the Laycock, Voorhoeve and Dutton collections, mostly relating to endangered languages of PNG). We are very grateful to the University of Sydney for the financial support that allowed this trip to take place. |
Nick Thieberger, PARADISEC Project Manager The project team's trip to Canberra allowed us to see that our work is highly regarded and supported by major national institutions such as Screensound and the National Library. Their willingness to provide training and advice was most welcome. The visit gave me a good understanding of the process we will be undertaking and how the cataloguing information being developed in Melbourne will be combined with the audio files in Sydney. It was also important to present the project to the Linguistics Department at RSPAS, ANU and to get advice from them about directions for our work. During my time in Sydney I gave a seminar in the Linguistics Department and was able to meet the project team and to establish a work flow with them that we continue to refine. |
Frank Davey, Audio Preservation Officer This visit to Canberra was very important for two reasons: the opening of vital lines of communication, and the knowledge and resources gained from that contact.As well as being a team-building exercise in its own right, this trip enabled us to meet a number of people who a) will be accessing and/or supporting the Quadriga project, and b) are able to supply us with technical and archiving knowledge and materials. I learned a great deal from staff at a variety of institutions who generously gave us their time and skills. For example, one Screensound staff member instructed us in the preservation and protection of old reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes - invaluable information, as I will be handling and archiving a lot of ageing reel-to-reel material, much of which is in a decayed condition.I plan to contact him again in the near future regarding some reels recorded in the mid-1960s which appear to need baking.As a result of contacts made during this visit, Screensound have recently lent us a high-quality Studer reel-to-reel machine for archiving purposes. |
Amanda Harris, Project Administration Officer The meetings and training in Canberra were an excellent introduction to the workings of the project and to the people involved. I have a far better understanding of the scope of the project and my position after meetings with the depositors of archival material and technical experts. I found the training in tape conservation at Screensound particularly interesting and useful for assessing the condition of the tapes that I will be processing. |
Russell Emerson, Technical Director,Performance Studies SSCP The field trip to Canberra provided a face to face opportunity to establish professional networks with leading experts in the field of audio and video conservation. The knowledge and skills transfer that took place over the three days of meetings has provided the team with a clear perception of best practice in relation to the practicalities of audio and video conservation as well as identifyingkey issues in determining future strategies for the direction of the work. In particular, the day spent with staff from Sceensound provided an intense learning experience inconservation methods for audio as well as a clear overview of conservation strategies and realities for video. The sharing of these experiences has provided an effective team building environment for the PARADISEC team and an appropriate starting point for the project's work. |
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The project team (Russell Emerson, Frank Davey, Linda Barwick, Amanda Harris, Nick Thieberger) outside the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, home of one of the Quadriga systems we inspected. Photo by Russell Emerson, 3/4/2003. |
