FRAME Community “We are all there to inspire each other”
The FRAME training programme celebrates its 10th birthday in 2020. On this occasion, we wanted to give voices to some people who keep the programme running since the beginning, to say a few words about FRAME, in the form of joint interviews. We called this series of interviews: “the FRAME Community”.
The same questions were asked to the interviewees, with a personalized question for each, according to its status. The interviews were about to be filmed but the lockdown has decided otherwise...
Maria Drabczyk is Chief international projects expert at the National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA, Poland), in charge of initiating and coordinating initiatives with special focus on research and innovative use of digital cultural heritage (mostly by creative industries and for educational purposes). She is also a board member of the EUscreen Foundation, chair of the FIAT-IFTA Value, Use and Copyright Commission. She is a speaker on FRAME, focusing on topics related to access and use strategies of AV archives.
Virginia Bazán-Gil is Project Manager at RTVE Archive (Spain). She is in charge of innovation projects connected with automatic metadata generating and image recognition tools. As a member of the Cátedra RTVE Universidad de Zaragoza she is also involved with Speech Technologies. She has been an assistant professor at Universidad Carlos III (Madrid). She is a former trainee and FRAME speaker, about implementation of AI tools for archive indexing.
What does FRAME represent for you?
Maria Drabczyk: When I joined the archival community six years ago I was immediately overflown with all the new names of people, institutions, events and training programmes that everyone kept telling me I just had to know as they were relevant for the international audiovisual archival world. FRAME has always been in the core of that list as ”the” training programme for AV professionals. Today, after all the years spent on ‘sending’ my colleagues to the programme and now, with me also being one of the tutors in FRAME Access I fully understand what stood behind all the recommendations. First and foremost, FRAME means quality and opportunity. It’s a well-thought programme for anyone willing to dive into the specificities of audiovisual archiving. Moreover, it is also a unique experience allowing to build a professional network, exchange views, learn from one's peers and spend a week in a creative and supportive ambience in the most friendly atmosphere created by the INA FRAME team.
Virginia Bazán-Gil: FRAME is a great opportunity to engage with professionals all over Europe, a high quality training course focused on the most relevant topics for broadcaster’s archives. FRAME is not only about the quality of the speakers, which is excellent, but also about the professional profile of the participants. FRAME training allows you to learn from colleagues all around the world and to be part of a network of archivists you can openly ask for advice when you are facing new projects.
How would you describe the role of FRAME over those last 10 years?
Maria Drabczyk: FRAME has played a relevant part in shaping the international community of professionals working in the audiovisual archival sector. A community of people who are eager to learn and are open to new knowledge and experiences. It creates a space for that and thus contributes to professionalization of the sector.
Virginia Bazán-Gil: FRAME has played a key role over the past 10 years by providing specialized training to audiovisual archives where most of the professionals are trained in their daily work.
What do you think is the added value of a training like FRAME, in the current environment where everyone can self-train online? As a speaker on FRAME training, what do you think is the most important/essential to share?
Maria Drabczyk: Thanks to the topical approach one can either focuses on mastering his or her preservation and digitization skills, concentrate on the access side or complete the full training. This flexible approach broadens your professional horizon, no doubt here. On top of that, you are also offered a week with an amazing group of people from all over Europe and beyond - both participants, speakers, local hosts and organizers. And this is something the online environment will never beat - the opportunity to informally chat, talk access strategies over coffee and lunch and to learn from each other.
This interaction and the fact of being in constant dialogue with the participants is what I also appreciate most as a speaker. We are all colleagues, struggling with similar challenges, trying to find a way to overcome them and to give to our work the value it deserves. We are all there to inspire each other.
As a former participant and occasional speaker on FRAME, how do you think the training fits to the current challenges of audiovisual archivists?
Virginia Bazán-Gil: You believe in the power of networks only when you feel you are part of one. The main achievement of FRAME is engaging enthusiastic and constant learning professionals allowing them to exchange knowledge and projects not only during the training but also after it. FRAME is always scanning for new trends, innovative ideas and good practices in the audiovisual archive area, and it engages the professionals working on those topics to join its training team.
Becoming a FRAME speaker was such a big responsibility. Every time I face a training session I try to do it from the point of view of the audience, what they would expect to hear concerning what we have learned from a particular project or how we faced it, trying to make my personal experience relevant for other professionals. I believe that is the attitude of every single expert participating in the training. This is not about theory but practice; this is about learning from others and being supportive.
According to you, how the professional training in the archive sector will evolve in the next few years?
Maria Drabczyk: The COVID-19 crisis showed us that we are capable of moving many of our professional activities to the online, including some of the training and knowledge exchange. And as much as I support that digital shift, I believe we all long for a proper offline experience. Therefore, I want to believe that in the future there will still be room for onsite training programmes that will serve to empower the audiovisual archival community. This is about the format. Topic-wise? Undoubtedly, the programme focus has to be adjusted to the needs of the time. It will probably have a solid dose of knowledge on AI, smart preservation technologies, etc. I hope there will be even more focus on the end users - people of various professions and interests who are the beneficiaries of our work. How can we consciously build our relationship with our audiences so that they see the value of the archives? It is time to rethink our access and use strategies, create new collaboration opportunities, etc. And I do hope that we will have the chance to discuss these and many more topics during the upcoming editions of FRAME.
Virginia Bazán-Gil: Artificial Intelligence, audiovisual collections valorization and reuse, opening up archives, copyright issues...As archivists we are used to moving and learning constantly. No matter how the sector evolves in the next few years, FRAME will be on track!
FRAME in one word?
Maria Drabczyk: Window
Virginia Bazán-Gil: Networking
About FRAME
Since 2010, INA organise the professional training programme FRAME, co-funded by the Creative Europe – MEDIA programme of the European Union, and supported by FIAT/IFTA (International Federation of Television Archives) and EBU Academy (European Broadcasting Union). FRAME is dedicated to international audiovisual archives professionals.
