NYPR ARCHIVES COLLECTION & PRESERVATION POLICY

NYPR ARCHIVES COLLECTION & PRESERVATION POLICY (June 2017)

This policy will be reviewed regularly as priorities and resources shift due to technological advancements, and changes in copyright law and status.

0. Mission

The New York Public Radio Archives supports the mission and goals of New York Public Radio (NYPR) by preserving its organizational and programming legacy for future generations of producers, researchers and listeners. The Archives collects, organizes, documents, showcases and makes available work generated by, and produced in association with, all NYPR entities: WNYC Radio, WQXR Radio (and its predecessor, W2XR), The Greene Space, and New Jersey Public Radio.

This document outlines policies related to ingest, management, and delivery of archival materials. It draws on some of the principles stated in ISO 14721:2012 for Open Archival Information Systems (OAIS): namely, defining the archives’ designated producers, consumers, and management, as well as describing which materials are accepted, how they are managed within the archives, and how they are delivered to consumers. This document  also draws from Mary Kidd’s Digital Preservation Roadmap Report, available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ulB8B5YDbl-gihs7PylccIkTByYqHscaOBrKgJi8fZg/edit?usp=sharing.

The NYPR Archives acquires materials of long-term value in accordance with NYPR’s purposes, policies and resources. The Archives seeks to protect the integrity of materials in its custody, guarding them against physical damage, alteration, or theft, and seeks to ensure that their value is not impaired during the archival work of arrangement, description, and preservation. The Archives aims to deliver digital surrogates of their materials at the required fidelity standard. It is our intent to acquire all NYPR national programming, provided that NYPR is the executive producer or production partner.

1.  Ingest

1. 1. Materials accepted

New York Public Radio Archives accepts non-duplicate materials for preservation that primarily support company production needs and requests. The Archives will not accept acquisitions or donations from non-NYPR entities without release, legal transfer of ownership, deed of gift, or other official acknowledgment. No programming material will be accepted that is closed to NYPR Radio or NYPR affiliate airplay or production use.

The NYPR Archives accepts, in all physical and digital formats, the following materials, in order of priority:

1.  NYPR exclusive and joint productions that are finished local, national, and international broadcasts and podcasts delivered to the archives via the DAVID production system.  If a finished production cannot be saved via the DAVID system, the NYPR Archives must be informed so that arrangements for its retention can be made.

2.  NYPR-produced and finished video productions made in the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space and by station producers for distribution via wnyc.org,YouTube or other digital distribution platforms..

3. NYPR concert recordings: Both raw (mix minus) and produced (mix plus).

4. All addresses, statements, events, hearings, and news conferences by government officials as fed through DAVID by the MCEOD (Master Control Engineer on Duty). This includes, but is not limited to: the POTUS, VPOTUS, the Governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the Mayor of New York City, and members of Congress. The NYPR Archives acknowledges that some of this material, while historically important, may not be copyrighted byNYPR.

5. Low resolution copies (MP3) of complete weekday news cycles during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

6. Preservation files resulting from transfers of physical assets from the NYPR collections.

7. Raw or unedited audio and/or video of Community Advisory Board Meetings (CAB), fund raising dinners (the semi-annual gala), and institutional NYPR ‘milestone events’ that are historically important (e. g. the opening of a new facility, wing or service).

8.  NYPR-produced audiovisual production elements such as raw interviews or footage on media prior to flash recording, or when specifically requested and organized by a producer.

9. NYPR-produced (finished) promotional materials (posters, photos, program guides, advertising, brochures, and fundraising premiums in available formats (digital and analog)

10. Outside materials about NYPR (media reports in the form of newspaper and magazine clippings)

11. Outside production materials, deemed potentially useful, that can be legally used in NYPR productions.  (These include raw and/or unpublished interviews from journalists and production companies or their estates that are deeded to us. i.e. Eleanor Fischer  and Cinema Sound Collections)

12.  NYPR awards deposited with the NYPR Archives for addition to the award information at: http://www.wnyc.org/awards/

13.  Photographs, graphics, scripts, blueprints, scores, books, academic theses, engineering documents and equipment (analog and digital) tied to the institutional/organizational history of both WNYC and WQXR that may be useful for NYPR anniversary productions and for telling the story of these pioneering radio stations.

14. Annual reports

15. Listener letters (e.g. conveyed to us by the Listener Services Department)

16. Receptionist and engineering log books.

17. NYPR oral histories (e.g. current or former staff discussing past WNYC and/or WQXR programming & station operations)

1.2.1. Preferred formats

  1. Audio: highest-resolution available WAV or BWF (audio) of final distribution copy. (If a concert: Mix + and Mix -); earliest-generation physical format possible.
  2. Video: HDCam, DVCam, MPEG4, H.264/ACC, Apple ProRes422HD
  3. Metadata: Digital files, at a minimum, must have a title, date, source producer, and a verified slug or theme as entered in DAVID.
  4. Still images: TIFF when possible. JPEG.
  5. Memorabilia: Original artifact when possible.

To accomplish proper ingest, the Archives:

  • establishes a digital ingest procedure within the organization’s asset management systems, e.g. via automated scripts for regularly scheduled material;
  • works with end-of-production staff (e.g. master control engineers and producers) to ensure ingest of digital material not regularly scheduled;
  • instructs and reminds content producers to deposit appropriate materials as outlined in this document; and
  • actively seeks and acquires historic NYPR materials for repatriation and inclusion in the Archives’ collections.

 1.2.2 Materials Not Accepted

  1. Reporter and producer notebooks, paper files, and photographs tied to productions
  2. Raw or unedited interview recordings made in the NYPR studios
  3. Raw or unedited field recordings made outside the NYPR studios after the introduction of digital flash recording.
  4. Raw or unedited telephone interviews made in the NYPR studios
  5. Web Assets (other than the previously mentioned finished NYPR audio/video productions)
  6. Personnel Records
  7. Contracts (Those in custody will be orderly conveyed to the Legal Department)
  8. Financial Records (except those specifically related to the NYPR Archives)
  9. Press Releases after April 2008
  10. Social media files
  11. Board minutes (Those in custody will be orderly conveyed to the office of President & CEO)
  12. Digital newsletters (except those specifically produced by the NYPR Archives)
  13. Commercial recordings without NYPR content unless specifically approved by the Director of Archives.

2.  Preservation (management)

As of 2017, The New York Public Radio Archives collection comprises some 67,000 cataloged entries (including physical and digital files), more than 45 TB of WAVE files (most with a minimal amount of metadata), and an estimated 7,000 un-cataloged items composed largely of photos, program guides and other paper documents.

Overall, formats represented in the archives include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Digital audio files
  • Sound Recording discs, cartridges, cassettes, and reels
  • Negatives, photographs, and graphics
  • Digital video files and video tapes
  • Books, manuscripts, publicity materials
  • Digital image files
  • Memorabilia
  • Computer files and electronic resources

The NYPR Archives seeks to provide long-term access to its assets while ensuring that their value is not impaired in the archival work of arrangement, description, preservation and use. The Archives aims to:

  • preserve the digital and physical integrity of its holdings, and
  • exert intellectual control over them by describing them in catalogs, finding aids and guides.

It does so by the following processes:

  • Working with the Engineering and IT Departments to follow established digital preservation guidelines for all digital files, as outlined in IASA TC-04 and elsewhere; for example, by promoting the automation of file fixity scans into the digital storage maintenance and migration with a process that includes checksum values within the DAVID record and its accompanying DBX metadata file.
  • cataloging materials in its own PBCore internal database;
  • guarding materials in its care against defacement, alteration, theft and physical damage. This is done by controlling the environmental parameters in its own vaults and in off-site storage according to principles outlined in the publications such as Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers (IASA TC-05), reformatting endangered, unique or obsolete materials to digital files, always controlling the replay process according to principles outlined in publications such as Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects (IASA TC-04);
  • actively seeking funding for specialized reformatting work on certain materials;
  • promoting awareness of preservation issues, both internally and publicly;
  • learning about archival developments from other archives, organizations and professional conferences.

The Archives prioritizes digital and physical preservation according to the outline listed in Section 1.1. Ingest. The Archives reserves the right to de-accession materials at any time if, upon appraisal, they no longer reflect the collecting areas of the NYPR Archives.

3. Access

Although materials in the New York Public Radio Archives collection are non-circulating, the Archives provides access (usually via a digital surrogate) to its collections to three different user groups:

  • NYPR staff, via the station’s production systems (e.g. DAVID and if needed WeTransfer or Dropbox.com)
  • the general public, through wnyc.org, wqxr.org, and other sites (sometimes following specific grants or gift agreements);
  • non-NYPR researchers with specific requests, when time and resources permit. All for-profit requests, after researching the availability of the requested materials and processing estimates, are passed along to the NYPR Business Development Office for licensing. The NYPR Archives reserves the right to charge fees to outside requestors for research, scanning or duplication services.

For physical-format audio materials, the Archives endeavors to ensure that, in the replay process, the recorded signals can be retrieved to the same, or a better, fidelity standard as was possible when they were recorded. Some of the analog audio holdings retained in the Archives are not original recordings, but transfers, duplicates, or second generation copies. In these cases, the transfer is regarded as the original.

Please note: Station policy prohibits the release of unedited and/or unpublished NYPR materials. Additionally, no original materials will leave the archives unless special arrangements are made for a loan that will insure the undamaged return of materials. Archives staff aims to retrieve recorded signals with the same, or better, fidelity standard as was possible when they were recorded, although deterioration of materials may prevent this.

The NYPR Archives showcases the station’s archival content and archival endeavors to its constituents through the following avenues:

  • weekly newsletters;
  • social-media presence;
  • Listing of assets in external web sites such as the American Archive;
  • articles and blogs on wnyc.org, wqxr.org, and others;
  • Internal NYPR meetings and events;
  • Direct contacts to interested researchers and institutions;
  • Presence in professional organizations, events and conferences

The NYPR Archives reserves the right to charge fees for outside requests for the following services:

  • Research
  • Scanning
  • Duplication

 The Archives is not equipped for on-site research, although tours of the facility are available upon request.

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