Collection development strategies for audiovisual archives

Malaysia Government Agencies perspectives

Background of the study: The necessity for effective audiovisual (AV) record management nowadays is gaining precedence in most agencies, especially the government sector.  Besides that, AV records are also being demanded to be retrieved and analyzed by researchers who come to the National Archives of Malaysia (NAM). Even though, NAM has found that most government agencies which act as depositor to these records are not actively depositing their valuable government AV records.

Purpose: This study aims to identify the issues in depositing AV records to the archives repository and to suggest a significant collection management strategy for encouraging government agencies to deposit their valuable government AV records to NAM for future generation references.

Method: The qualitative research method has used by contrivance case study approach. five (5) selected government agencies through the interview of five (5) officers who deal with AV records.

Findings: The findings of the study have proposed six (6) strategies to be applied by government agencies to overcome the issues.

Conclusion: This study is significant to government agencies, for Records Manager and NAM in increasing and enriching valuable AV archives collection as national heritage.

Introduction

Regularly audiovisual materials can be used as reference materials in education research, the production of video documentaries, and radio programs, or training materials. Audio-visual information holds a unique dimension that the written word cannot replace(Davidson & Reid, 2022);(Rachmat et al., 2018). Written words cannot show gestures, personality traits or tone of voice. To support this statement,(Yap & Barsaga, 2018)have mentioned that video documentation contains revealing speeches, techniques, or interviews which are valuable to a researcher. They noted that information rapidly transmitted through visuals is much more meaningful than printed words. In interpreting selected images, the researcher needs to discover new primary data, both written and visual, especially in underpinning their study as mentioned(Witkowski, 2018). To support this statement,(Lund, 2020)stated that in the information and digital era, we can easily find audio- visual records or materials through social media such as Facebook.

Moreover, the usage of audiovisual records and archives in government agencies has also been emphasized because of the ease of this technological advancement that makes it easier for agencies to record all daily transactions and activities from conventional into audiovisual collection mediums. Every public office or government agency that produces audio-visual records is responsible for managing these records throughout their life cycle from their creation, use, and maintenance until disposition(Ngoasheng et al., 2022). For this purpose, the National Archives of Malaysia (NAM) has the authority to govern the rule in records and archives management in the public office and act as the custodian of the public records (NAM Act, 2003). Following this matter, AV records also need to be deposited to NAM to be managed in NAM. Although NAM provides an audio- visual source of national heritage value, however many government agencies did not transfer their valuable audio-visual records to NAM. In addition,(Rakemane & Mosweu, 2020)also found that this situation might happened because of a lack of awareness in depositing AV records and also a lack of specified procedures, guidelines and implementation policies.

This practice will lead to failure in filling in the gap in the acquisition of audio-visual records that have many demands from researchers. This is to ensure audio-visual records are ready and accessible as a reference for researchers.(Komba et al., 2017)claimed that to ensure archival knowledge and heritage can be transferred from generation to generation, preservation needs to be done adequately. Once again, the preservation of AV records is another valid reason why AV records need to be deposited to NAM. The International Association of Sound and Audio-visual Archives (IASA) states that there are three principal activities in managing audio-visual materials namely developing and managing collection, preservation, and dissemination. Valuable AV records from government agencies are in high demand by researchers, unfortunately, gaps in collection occur(Ngoasheng et al., 2022). Therefore, to safeguard valuable AV government records, government agencies and archival institutions need to collaborate in managing the collection development of AV records, their expertise and records preservation. Thus, the study on the collection development in NAM should be conducted to identify issues faced by government agencies and to propose strategies to overcome the issues.

Literature Review

According to(Ghalib & Rubina, 2021), Collection Management is an umbrella term which involves a wide range of interrelated activities, including Collection Development, Stock Management, Marketing Management, Fiscal Management, Risk Management, Access Management, and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Management. All these elements have their characteristics which are very well explained. Therefore, an AV archive which is well known as an organization or department of an organization has a statutory or other mandate for providing access to a collection of AV documents and the AV heritage by collecting, managing, preserving, and promoting(Ray, 2016).

Collection development is considered an essential element of the information life cycle. It is the most significant process in the effective performance of any unit of information(Vignau & Meneses, 2005). Collection development includes all activities involved in assessing the users’ needs, evaluating the present collection, determining the selection policy, coordinating the selection of items, re-evaluating and storing parts of the collection and planning for resource sharing, as written by(Okogwu & Ekere, 2018). Collection Development can be defined as the systematic intellectual activity of deciding what items will be acquired by trusted institutions of information regarding a well-defined mission or strategic programs.

The process includes the selection and deselection of current and retrospective materials, the planning of strategies for continuing acquisition, and the evaluation of collections to determine how well they serve user needs. Therefore, the Collection Development Procedure should be developed to ensure the collection management will be well organized. Four (4) important elements to be implemented in the Collection Development Procedure have been gathered from(Ray, 2016)Acquisition, Selection, Deselection and Disposal.

To strengthen the procedure's importance, the issue of rapid developments in ICT caused(Malliari et al., 2022)to discuss the collection development with the aid of the Open Audio-Visual Archives (OAVA) project. AV providers including libraries, archives, museums, colleges, mass media companies, and government and non-government organisations can manage their AV collections online and compile their reference of materials.

In addition to the enormous changes caused by ICT,(Kumar, 2017), mentioned that there are challenges to be faced in managing digital collection development. For example, oral history as one of the types of AV records, is also found