Since always, part of the archival work consisted in an activity of selection. In order to do so, the «traditional» archives have set fairly clear rules; however, these rules were originated at a time when archives were made of «hard copies», especially paper material.
In the world of audiovisual archives these rules are no more applicable. The issue of making a selection has to be faced in two ways: on one hand, we still have to deal with physical documents that are always produced and collected and have now to be digitized, which is a very expensive procedure. One the other hand, we have digital born documents. The ever increasing quantity of these ones is such that it forcibly demands to apply a selection mainly for cost reasons (e.g. safeguarding, storage). But... what should be preserved and what eliminated? What is going to become important in the future and can become an appropriate witness of our society and our culture? Does this kind of selection in the digital age still makes sense? Storing files becomes increasingly affordable and quantity is not an issue anymore.
Our tutorial is going to discuss these questions, analyzing all issues involved in “selecting”, also taking into account other aspects such as public or private documents, their quality, context and so on.