The Film Archive Forum - Publications

The downloadable documents below are in PDF format, requiring the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The Moving Image Archive Framework: Policies, Standards and Guidelines

There exists a range of national and international policies, standards and guidelines that are relevant to the development of the UK moving image archive sector. This document (a work in progress) brings together a selection of 'standards' for moving image archives in nationally and internationally-produced documents, generated by the film/audiovisual archive community, the wider archive and heritage community, and national and international bodies and governments. The Film Archive Forum advocates that future work on standards by the UK moving image archive sector needs to be informed by (i) this framework of documents, (ii) a good understanding of sectoral practice, and (iii) the wider archive community.

This document is Version 1 (July 2005). Revisions will be published on this web site in due course.

Download here (201KB)

Hidden Treasures: The UK Audiovisual Archive Strategic Framework

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council has published Hidden Treasures: The UK Audiovisual Archives Strategic Framework. The document provides a blueprint for the future development of audiovisual archives across the UK. The document was commissioned by MLA and produced by a steering group comprising members of the British Library Sound Archive and the Film Archive Forum.

Hidden Treasures argues that the lack of a strategic focus for national and regional planning in the audiovisual archives sector has led to insufficient levels of funding and investment for core activities, and a very real concern that a significant amount of the UK's moving image and sound archive heritage could be lost. The document proposes that the national strategic and funding bodies should work with the audfiovisual archives to develop a national framework of institutional provision in which national, regional and local responsbilities are respectively understood and well resourced, with the aim of ensuring comprehensive coverage for audiovisual archive activity across the UK.

Download here (332KB)

Printed copies are available from the Film Archive Forum

Moving Image Collections - Guidance Notes

These guidance notes for moving image collection were produced by the BFI National Archive. They were written in support of a mapping survey questionnaire for archives, libraries and museums in London conducted in 2004. They provide some general principles for the care of film and video materials in collections. The film gauge identification chart at the end of this guide is reproduced by kind permission of the Scottish Screen Archive.

The guidance notes (minus the film identification chart) are also available as a page on this website, under the Guidance section.

Download here (154KB)

The Dangers of Cellulose Nitrate Film

The Health and Safety Executive has issued a new leaflet, The Dangers of Cellulose Nitrate Film. The leaflet is aimed at private individuals and voluntary groups who have or find old film in domestic or other non-workplace premises. It gives advice on how to identify cellulose nitrate films, why such films are hazardous, how to recognise signs of decomposition, and what to do if you have cellulose nitrate film, with contact points for information and advice. The leaflet is available from the HSE, tel. 0151 951 3214, and can be downloaded from this site.

Download here (732KB)

Moving History: Towards a Policy for the UK Moving Image Archives

In 2000 the Film Archive Forum published a statement of principles, entitled Moving History: Towards a Policy for the UK Moving Image Archives. The document sets out ten principles as the basis of a policy for the public sector moving image archives in the UK. The principles are concerned with the care of cinefilm, video and other moving image archives as a specialist activity within the wider archival community; the co-ordination of policy between such archives; the need for supportive legislation; standards for acquisition, preservation, documentation and access; the use of these archives in teaching, learning and research; the archival qualifications and experience of those managing the archives; funding; and ethics. The document was drafted to complement An Archives Policy for the United Kingdom (National Council on Archives), which articulates the need for a network of regional film archives, and A Scottish National Archives Policy, from which the overall structure derives.

Download part one here (186KB)
Download part two here (390KB)

Printed copies are available from the Film Archive Forum

This Film is Dangerous: A Celebration of Nitrate Film

This Film is Dangerous is an anthology published by the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) to examine and to celebrate the life, the death, the afterlife and the mythology of nitrate film. It incorporates the papers given at the symposium The Last Nitrate Picture Show during the FIAF Congress in London in June 2000, as well as a wealth of original contributions by historians, archivists, veterans, and enthusiasts around the world. The book is 720 pages long, with more than 100 contributors from 35 different countries, and has 350 illustrations. This Film is Dangerous is edited by Roger Smither, Keeper of the Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive and Associate Editor Catherine A. Suroweic.

Published by FIAF (Brussels, 2002), ISBN 2-9600296-0-7, 60 € + mailing costs.
Available only through FIAF Brussels office - for further details, visit FIAF Publications.