FAUK’S latest quarterly meeting took place at the University of Lincoln on Tuesday 4th June 2019 alongside ‘Heritage Dot’, the two day, inaugural conference exploring digital horizons in relation to cultural heritage.

The University’s Centre for Culture & Creativity co-hosted Heritage Dot with the Imperial War Museum and the Heritage Fund, with the aim to create a platform for sharing, challenging, disrupting, and interrogating what digital heritage is and does across professional, academic and community sectors with interests in heritage.

The packed programme of Keynote speeches, Presentations and Workshops across 3rd and 4th June 2019 was well attended by delegates from across the UK. For FAUK members and colleagues from their archives it was a great opportunity to network and facilitate discussions with people about the work of the archives and the scope for using archive film to support and complement modules, projects, exhibitions, research etc.

Speakers included Diane Lees CBE, Director-General of the Imperial War Museum, Tom Steinberg, Digital Lead, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Professor Mary Stuart CBE, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lincoln and Panel lead discussions by academics and representatives from for eg. heritage game specialists, museums, Trusts and a wide host of organisations with an interest in our digital heritage.

FAUK Member Matt Lee, Head of Film at IWM was also on the bill as a Keynote Speaker “Going Over the Top: What does the super-enhancement of First World War footage mean for film archives” offering a fascinating insight into the production of Peter Jackson’s film “They Shall Not Grow Old” released to great acclaim last year, and working with the filmmaker.

On 4th June, FAUK provided their Member archives specialist Workshops and brainstorming sessions on Understanding Training Needs and more technical issues such as an Introduction to FFmpeg & open-source workflows presented by Joanna White, Developer Archivist at MACE (Media Archive for Central England) who was delighted to share her specialist research and work. Archivists and Technicians from across the archives attended and found the event very informative, as Jack Reichhold of London’s Screen Archives explains:

“As someone completely new to FFMPEG the workshops were a really useful introduction. The practical element particularly has given me the confidence to experiment with command lines within terminal and I can start to see what micro services I could potentially introduce into our current workflows. It was also great to be in company of technicians and to get together and share ideas as well as practical skills”

and Lenka Sucha of LSA : “I think the workshop was pitched at the right level and I found it very informative. I particularly enjoyed the practical aspect and was rather impressed by how much ground we were able to cover in the limited time we had. …….Bringing together technical staff from RNAs also seems like a great idea to enable exchange of information and skills, and is something I’d like to see continue.”

As well as workshops, FAUK Members had the opportunity to attend a number of the Heritage Dot conference sessions punctuated by lunch and FAUK’s 132nd Quarterly Meeting where they also welcomed BFI Colette McFadden, Head of BFI Heritage Programmes and Heather Smart, Head of Library and Mediatech.
FAUK Chair, Dr Clare Watson hosted Panel discussions on “Digital Transformations: screen heritage and impact” by Colette McFadden (BFI), Frank Gray, (Screen Archive South East), Chris O’Rourke & Christine Grandy (University of Lincoln) ahead of the Heritage Dot Closing Plenary which concluded the Heritage Dot conference had been beneficial to all concerned and reflected a strong appetite for the event to return.

FAUK’s next meeting will again take place around another event , this time at Bournemouth University 19-20 September 2019 – “Digitising and accessing cultural heritage: legal challenges and opportunities”