Assessment and Plan for Chicago Film Archive's Digital Collections

FAIN: PG-233600-16

Chicago Film Archives, NFP (Chicago, IL 60616-1120)
Anne Wells (Project Director: May 2015 to September 2017)

hiring a consultant to assess the archives’ digital collections and to provide recommendations for their care. Chicago Film Archives’ audiovisual collections total 25,000 items including film and prints, videotapes, audiotapes, and ephemera reflecting life in the Midwest. Spanning almost the entire 20th century, they were produced between 1903 and the late 1990s. The visual materials encompass various genres, including documentaries, travelogues, educational and industrial films, dance, experimental films, student and art films as well as feature, foreign, and silent films, and home movies. At present, the collections are used for scholarly research and exhibitions and for educational and public programing in institutions across the United States.

CFA believes its staff and its ever-growing digital collections will benefit from a Digital Collections Assessment that addresses the production, workflow, and maintenance of CFA's valuable digital files. CFA completed a Facilities and Collections Assessment in 2007 that addressed general care and sustainability of CFA's film collections and its facility. Since then, CFA has generated thousands of digital files from the films, videotapes and audiotapes in its over 100 collections that it must store and track. These digital collections contain both access files (created at CFA for streaming and reference) and preservation files (high resolution files created at laboratories off-site to replace rapidly deteriorating tapes). CFA seeks funding to hire a Digital Collections Management consultant for: an assessment, workflow recommendations, planning for growth, and staff training in "best practices" pertaining to digital collections.