Pamela Vizner Oyarce, NYPL for the Performing Arts, Special Formats Processing–Audiovisual, IMLS
Pamela Vizner Oyarce interned at the New York Public Library’s Special Formats Processing-AV Group under the supervision of Tom Christie. The primary goal of her internship was to analyze and articulate how preservation workflows are implemented in the context of a large non-profit library. Specific tasks included assessing and inventorying two film collections: Bert Stern’s Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Ken Dewey’s film collection, and the William Greaves collection housed at NYPL’s Schomburg Center. As part of her internship, Oyarce conducted interviews with five directors and staff members from other NYPL departments such as the Dance Division and the Preservation office. Her analysis combined her observations and experiences, the feedback from other staff, and other documentation like organization and preservation workflow charts. She learned about the challenges of re-organizing and managing audiovisual materials in an institution as large as NYPL, particularly when it comes to communication, the working cultures of different departments, metadata collection, and differences in budget allocation.
