Clifden Arts Festival Archive@UCD: Building a Digital Archive...more

Creating this digital archive is time consuming, detail orientated, and requires commitment and dedication. As many festival events are filmed as possible. Here are some of the activities involved:

Before the festival :

Preparatory meetings/ talks; Placing technical equipment in festival venues; Checking projectors, etc.; Setting up infrastructure (notebooks / NAS server / backup); Installing projector in festival gallery window; Creating slides with event notes for this projection based on annual programme; Further communication with various participants, photographers, Connemara radio, etc.

During the festival: 

Before each event: Seek artists permission to film/photograph event and include in archive; Setup/preparation of film camera, still camera and audio recorders. Capture additional photos of artists (group photos, book signings etc.).

After last event (about midnight): Download files from film / photo cameras / audio recorders to hard disk; Check data for consistency; Distribute files to folders within temporary structure; Coarse visual inspection of data with an image viewer to assess image quality and identify camera-related errors; Backup files to other devices (HDD / NAS); visual inspection of cameras / lenses; Format memory cards; Charge batteries / reserve batteries; collect ‘Best of the Day’ pictures to integrate into daily slideshow and last slide show in Foyles Hotel during final "one for the road" event on last Sunday afternoon.

Daily:

Visit festival locations, meet participants; Communicate with other photographers; Install projectors etc. for other events, changing day -to -day projection slides; Select and transfer photos to press / PR agency.

After the festival: 

Meet participants; Collect, archive and backup materials; Collect pictures from photographers; Take audio files provided by Connemara Community Radio; Create final folder structure; Move photos into appropriate folders; Rename all files; Continuous verification of consistency and completeness; Copy preliminary result of unedited media in final folder structure; renamed backup filenames to several HDD / NAS, secure on 3-4 security HDD which remain in Clifden.

Over the winter months: 

Evaluate, sort and final processing of photographs, film editing, backing up content in various formats, distributing to archives; Send photos / footage after completion to artists; Distribute files to different locations / HDD / NAS; After 6 months all copies on consistency checker (bitwise comparison); All other works.