CLIR the Air with BAVC Media Preservation

dance magic, dance. Our 1/2″ Open Reel decks have long been identified by their Bowie incarnations.

Our January depression, sparked by the death of famous U-matic user, David Bowie*, was relieved only by the announcement that the Hidden Collections unit of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is accepting applications for its 2016 cycle. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CLIR has distributed millions of dollars to organizations with historical collections in the hopes of increasing access to scholars of all stripes.

The mission of the grant is marvelous, offsetting the maddening expense of digitizing physical collections and encouraging rigorous scholarship free from one’s geographical positioning. But it is competitive, and it does favor institutions with an infrastructure already in place for supporting digital material. Many of our clients and partners are small arts organizations who may have incredible collections but lack the resources to support digital collections for the long term.

The deadline is soon: April 5th. If you are considering applying for a collection comprised of magnetic media, we can help! Our at-hand knowledge on the preservation and digitization process can help you guide technical portions of your application as needed. You can also make use of our collection assessment services to discover those numbers and stats that funders love.

Wanna chat more about funding opportunities? Great, Ben loves to talk on the phone, and Kelly loves emails. Get in touch: 415-558-2158, preservation@bavc.org.

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*”We were one of the only people that had a pirated copy of Stars Wars on U-matic tapes.” – Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones, in 2009 [Chron].