Archived decisions

WESSEX FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE : REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

1. The Executive Member has received a report which drew attention to a recently published South East Audio Visual Mapping Project and Strategy report produced by the South East Museums Libraries and Archives Council (SEMLAC). The key recommendation arising from the strategy has implications for the future development of a regional role for Wessex Film and Sound Archive which is administered through the Hampshire Archives Trust and receives its core funding from the County Council Recreation and Heritage Department.

2. The Archive was established in 1987 and is based in Hampshire Record Office; its collections include film and sound material mainly from historic Hampshire, including Portsmouth and Southampton. When the Archive was established in 1987, no other body in the south east existed to undertake this vital work of preservation and access but in 1992, following the Archive's example, the South East Film and Video Archive was established at the University of Brighton. No comparable body exists in the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

3. The key recommendation of the SEMLAC Strategy proposes the creation of a South East Audio Visual Archive Service which would function as a virtual hub and have regional responsibility, inter alia, for audio visual archive policy and strategy and would be guided by an advisory board composed of representatives from film, sound and broadcasting stakeholders and archive users. The Wessex Film and Sound Archive would have responsibility for film and video archives in the western side of the region (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) and it would take responsibility for sound archives across the whole region, providing mainly advice and support. Widening its regional remit will strengthen the service and enhance it regional and national reputation as a centre of excellence in audio-visual archives and it could benefit from a new audio-visual archive store which is needed in the region, although this may not be located in Hampshire.

4. The Executive Member has welcomed the report as a step towards the better preservation, management and public accessibility of film and sound archives across the region and has endorsed the recommendations in this strategy.

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