STHC-L: The Science, Technology and Health Care Archives Forum

Re: Grand rounds tapes

• Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 16:22:03 -0700 (PDT)
• To: sthc-l@library.ucla.edu, lufte@hscsyr.edu
• From: Jean Deken <jmdeken@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>
• Subject: Re: Grand rounds tapes
• Message-ID: Pine.GSO.3.96.990722161041.7647F-100000@flora01.SLAC.Stanford.EDU

We have a similar situation here at SLAC.  Almost every lecture given in
our main Auditorium is videotaped, and the videotapes are cataloged by our
Library and kept for x years (usually 3-5).  A master tape is turned over
to the Archives within a week of the lecture, and we have been keeping
these master videotapes, which are currently accumulating at the rate of
around 2 cu. ft. boxes-full/year.  How long we will ultimately keep them,
and which we will keep are still to be determined.... 

My general feeling is that we should retain the lectures of famous
visitors, and representative lectures of non- or not-yet-famous staff for
10 years or so, and then re-visit the retention decisions after the 10
years have passed. If the tapes are not readable/playable at that point,
well, then our retention decision will have been made very easy for us.

Since the library is already cataloging the videos (albeit minimally) we
have access to a ready-made finding aid, so processing has not been a
major issue so far.

(I, too, am interested to hear what others are doing in this area.)

Cheers!


Jean Marie Deken, Archivist         650.926.3091/Fax 650.926.5371
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center  e-mail: jmdeken@slac.stanford.edu 
PO Box 4349 MS 82                   http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history
Stanford CA 94309	"Nothing is really work unless you would rather 
		            be doing something else."     James Barrie