This course WILL count towards the synchronous-course requirement for the certificate programs. A minimum of two courses must be synchronous (in person or virtual).
This course will count towards the A&D certificate program (Tactical and Strategic tier).
Course will run two half days---February 11, 2026 (11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. U.S. central time) and February 12, 2026 (11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. U.S. central time).
Learn how to arrange and describe analog sound, video, and film materials found in mixed-media archival collections over two 4-hour sessions. Day 1 will focus on understanding analog audiovisual media with sections on understanding the lifecycle of different types of audiovisual records, pre-processing assessment, and physical and intellectual arrangement. On Day 2 we will focus primarily on description of audiovisual materials in finding aids, using EAD and DACS. Throughout the workshop we will virtually process a case study collection for a concrete application of skills discussed in the lectures.
Note: This course does NOT cover born-digital sound and video, audiovisual preservation, or digitization.
Instructors:
Ari Negovschi Regalado (CalArts ’14, UIUC MS/LIS ’22) is the Technical Director at Texas Archive of the Moving Image, a nonprofit media archive located in Austin, TX. She leads audiovisual digitization and preservation efforts and has collaborated with archives across the state to safeguard Texas’s moving image heritage through workshops, knowledge sharing, and free digitization via the organization’s Texas Film Round-Up program. Interested in blending community engagement with hands-on archival experience, she has worked with ENTRE Film Center, Project Row Houses, and WeLuvVideo to digitize their collections; allowing volunteers, students, and interns to gain real-world experience through hands-on training in preserving moving image materials. Prior to her work at Texas Archive, she preserved the collection of award-winning documentarian Perry Miller Adato while in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, worked as an audiovisual technician at a digitization vendor, and served as an Exhibition Media Production Assistant at the Autry Museum. You can find her on Instagram @media_archivista.
Upon completion of this course, you'll be able to:
- Plan and implement processing of archival collections with audiovisual media
- Identify and assess content and generation of archival audiovisual materials
- Arrange audiovisual media physically and intellectually
- Describe audiovisual media effectively according to DACS and EAD
- Apply strategies for arrangement and description of media when processing at minimal, intermediate, and full levels
What You Should Already Know:
Participants should have working knowledge of the fundamentals of arrangement and description, as well as prior experience with Encoded Archival Description and Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), and basic knowledge of analog audiovisual media carriers. A pre-recorded lecture on audiovisual formats will be provided in the course portal prior to the workshop for those interested.
A&D Tier: Tactical and Strategic
A&D Core Competency:
1. Arrangement: Understand the process of organizing materials with respect to their provenance and original order to protect their context and facilitate access.
2. Description: Analyze and describe details about the attributes of a record or collection of records to facilitate identification, management, and understanding of the work.
3. Descriptive Standards: Apply rules and practices that codify the content of information used to represent archival materials in discovery tools according to published structural guidelines.
4. Management: Demonstrate ability to manage physical and intellectual control over archival materials.
5. Discovery: Create tools to facilitate access and disseminate descriptive records of archival materials.
Registration Fee: Early-Bird / Regular
SAA Member: $299 / $349
Employee of SAA Member Institution: $359 / $419
Nonmember: $419 / $479
Testimonials:
- I thought this class was very practical and useful.
- Being able to share established standards and known challenges to resource providers, so they have increased confidence about the science as well as the art of what we must do to truly archive AV.