Caitlin Hammer, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Spring 2011, Hollywood Foreign Press Association
As an intern at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, I gained valuable hands-on experience in the assessment and management of moving image and audio collections. Over the course of the semester I inventoried all media elements in the AADA collection, assessed content value and physical condition, and created recommendations for the reformatting and preservation of the collection. This experience has taught me that that one of the most crucial aspects of media preservation is being able to clearly communicate the importance of our work and ensure that non-specialists have all the tools they need to effectively pass that knowledge on to other stakeholders. With this in mind, I supplemented my assessment work with extensive format stability and obsolescence research as well as preliminary grant writing work to ensure that by the end of the semester, the AADA had all the tools it needed to make the preservation of its media collection a reality.
Caitlin Hammer at AADA
