Montreux Jazz Digital Project: From a Patrimony to an Innovation Platform, Alain Dufaux, EPFL Metamedia Center (Switzerland)

Since 1967, audiovisual recordings of the Montreux Jazz Festival bring together the greatest musicians of the 20th century. The collection was inscribed on the 2013 UNESCO memory of the world register. Over 5,000 hours of ‘live’ concerts were recorded in state-of-the-art broadcast quality for both video and audio, of which a large part exists as multi-tracks. The collection was digitized in a collaboration between EPFL and the Claude Nobs Foundation. The Montreux Jazz Digital Project aims to preserve and transform this heritage into a unique archive of "raw material" for researchers to innovate in the field of music technology, signal processing, acoustics, multimedia, design and even architecture. Adding value to the collection, a substantial metadata enrichment program will be devised for schools, musicians and musicologists. In the recently built Montreux Jazz Café at EPFL, innovative user-interaction tools are placed at the archive’s disposal to transform it into a living collection.

After obtaining a Ph.D. thesis dedicated to Automatic Sound Recognition (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 2001), Alain Dufaux steered his activities to signal processing technologies for audio and video. From 2001 to 2011, he acquired a deeper experience in such fields, working first in a company developing ultra low-power processors and real-time algorithms for hearing aid devices. Then he moved in 2006 to a research lab of EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), for managing projects and coaching students in the development of image and video processing algorithms applied to vision systems. 

With this dual experience in both industrial and academic worlds, Alain moved in 2011 to the Metamedia Center of EPFL, the competence center responsible for digitization and preservation of the Montreux Jazz Festival archive. In collaboation with labs and startups of the school, Alain’s main role was dedicated to the definition and development of innovation projects adding value to the archive. Since 2014, Alain acts as manager for Operations and Development of the Metamedia Center.

30 Years of 3D – Next Steps for Archiving a Disappearing World, Alonzo Addison (USA)

It has been almost 3 decades since the advent of 3D digital documentation in the heritage domain. From photogrammetry to laser scanning and more, today’s high-tech sensors allow us to rapidly record everything from great monuments to museum masterpieces, and precious manuscripts to intangible traditions. Across the globe, institutions, researchers, and even the public are adding terabytes of 3D data to archives and collections by the day. Yet capturing reality in digital form is only one step in a complex process. Sadly the majority of this data will not outlive the heritage it seeks to help conserve. In the rush to digitally preserve the past in 3D, we lack a coordinated plan and strategy. With examples from the advent of terrestrial lidar, to international initiatives in heritage policy, we will explore the pitfalls and potential for archiving a disappearing world.

Alonzo C. Addison is a consultant, author, professor and former United Nations official.  An advisor to cultural institutions, tech ventures, non-profits, and governments, he has guided new media research as Director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Design Visualization, served as VP of 3D laser scanning pioneer Cyra Technologies (Leica Geosystems), and reformed online knowledge and communications as Director in External Relations and Information at the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural arm.  For over a decade as Special Advisor for World Heritage at UNESCO he built heritage archives and alliances, and led field conservation and documentation at sites from Cambodia to Peru, Egypt to Myanmar, and Belize to Bhutan.  He has authored 50+ books/papers including Disappearing World in 9 languages.  In addition to serving on the boards of multiple NGOs, societies, and non-profits, he is currently planning the 3rd Int’l DigitalHeritage Congress, coming to San Francisco in fall 2018.

Enhancing Access to Collections, Partnering with the Public and Enriching the Museum and Archives Fields: The Robert F. Smith Fund at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Doretha Williams, National Museum of African American History and Culture (USA)

This talk discusses the implications and implementation of the Robert F. Smith Fund at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The Fund makes historical collections accessible through digitization, public programming and interaction, and support of educational development in the museum and archives fields. Through the community curation project, professional curation program, interns and fellowships opportunities, and the Explore Your Family History Center, the Smith Fund serves as a major public outreach component for NMAAHC.

Doretha Williams is the Smith Fund program manager at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She received her PhD in American Studies from the Univeristy of Kansas. 

Sound Preservation: Not Fast-Enough-Forward, Sam Brylawski , University of California, Santa Barbara (USA)

Most sound archives in the United States are relatively new, barely more than 50 years old. This talk reviews the history of institutional sound collections, assesses their current state, and considers the future of the field of acquiring, preserving, and providing access to recorded sound. The talk includes the findings of the National Recording Preservation Board’s study of the state of recorded sound preservation and the resultant Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan, both of which were co-authored by the speaker. This overview of where we've been and where we're going is strongly colored by the personal views, priorities, and prejudices of the speaker, and his 40-plus years working with audio collections.

Sam Brylawski is editor of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Discography of American Historical Recordings (adp.library.ucsb.edu). He was the head of the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Section from 1996 to 2005 and served as chair of the National Recording Preservation Board from 2013 to 2015. Sam is the co-author of both the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board study on audio preservation, The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States : A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age, and the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan, as well as co-editor of the ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, recently published by the Council on Library and Information Resources.