Aparna Subramanian, Summer 2020

Aparna Subramanian, Regional Media Legacies (RML) Project, Summer 2020, RDLGF

I interned and collaborated with Marie Lascu and Robert Anen in Summer 2020, on the Regional Media Legacies (RML) project at NYU-MIAP, funded by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. Regional recordings capture local history and culture that the mainstream media does not. The project focuses on researching and identifying existing undermined audiovisual collections in archives, museums, historical societies, television studios. 

I worked in outreach to organizations in the Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens region of New York. We were able to put together seven survey interviews this summer with new partners and had a couple of more institutions drawn to the project but were closed due to Covid19. I researched and gathered components for a portable compact audio digitization kit. It helped me to understand how to do wired diagrams to represent workflows for the digitization of audio. I helped Marie and Rob create general recommendations for the collection assessment report of LTV Archive. The challenging and fun part of this internship was to host a Zoom webinar on 'Basics of Audiovisual Archiving' for the community, and 16 people attended it. It was a first-time webinar-hosting experience for me, Marie, and Rob, adding to the world's subsisting Zoom fatigue. They both gave me the backing to craft the content. Based on the interviews with partner institutions and understanding the knowledge levels and gaps of preserving audiovisual assets, I was able to educate them about the factors affecting their materials' long-term posterity. The community was ecstatic and eager to know more about digital preservation and inquired for focused sessions. I am sure the Second Fellow of the RML project in Fall 2020, Claire Fox, will do justice to it.

As an international student, I acquired a wealth of information on the Long Island region's history. The internship also gave me the exposure to understand project management and strategies where multiple institutions are involved. There is scope for networked stake-holding and an opportunity to create a centralized repository for audiovisual assets, both analog and digital. The institutions in one region can always learn from each other and assist each other with concerns in preserving their audiovisual heritage.