Re: national archives cataloguing of DVD

From: ben d (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2008 - 21:29:38 PDT


Hello Flick and other Frameworkers,

With the Canadian National Archive and Library things are always up in the air. I'm familiar with submitting books for legal deposit, with films and videos everything should be the same.

If Flick wants to change the catagory for his video I will send him the contact for the key Film and Video person off-list.

The issues of library classification are always oblique, however I think more interest would be generated for Marie Tyrell is it was listed as a prison film instead of as an "experimental narrative".

Ben

"It is a society, and not a technique, which has made the cinema like this. It could have been historical examinations, theory, essay, memoirs. It could have been the film I am making at this moment." - Guy Debord

> Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:56:26 -0700
> From: email suppressed
> Subject: national archives cataloguing of DVD
> To: email suppressed
>
> Hey there frameworkers;
>
> I've sent my short film / interactive DVD Marie Tyrell into the
> national archives of canada. They've categorized it as a prison
> film, which I think is a bad way to list it (I don't think that's the
> target audience, if you know what I mean) and wonder if anyone has
> experience / thoughts on this question? Is it worth worrying about,
> is it something that matters much?
>
> Here's the entry:
>
> http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?
> sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&lvl=1&v=0&itm=33566168&rt=1&bill=1
>
> Here's what the cataloguing officer wrote when I questioned the
> "prison films" category:
>
> > The subject heading 'Prison films' is used for individual films
> > that depict prison life in any way. From a quick look at your
> > website it seems that your film is based on the short story which
> > depicts the story of someone on death row? If this is the case,
> > the subject heading applied does seem appropriate. Subject
> > headings are applied to cataloguing records based on a controlled
> > list of vocabulary -- this controlled vocabulary is used by
> > libraries worldwide to group and retrieve similar materials.
> > Please let me know if you would like us to look again at the
> > subject headings applied to your work.
>
> And here's what I was going to write back to her:
>
> > I suppose prison films is a suitable category in one sense, but the
> > work is actually an interactive DVD whose main focus is on a
> > political breakdown / analysis of the filmmaking process itself
> > through hyper-video documentaries. The short film is a fictional
> > story of an activist on death row, and although she is a prisoner,
> > that forms only part of the narrative - she is also a psych
> > patient, teenage diarist, lover, organizer, and protester. The
> > documentary tesseracts (hyper-video clips that emerge when buttons
> > on the fictional video get clicked) are non-fiction.
> >
> > It is, in my opinion, a literary, documentary, experimental,
> > activist, political science work, with prison / incarceration as
> > one element, but even that is in the context of criminalization of
> > dissent - not crime or prison per se.
> >
> > I suppose you always have decisions to make when experimental /
> > crossover work comes you way.
>
>
> They sent me a request for the DVD some time ago, and I was feeling
> all honoured to be requested by the national archives... until I read
> the literature and found out it was required by law to submit 2
> copies of all videos published in Canada! Har har.
>
> Any thoughts are appreciated.
>
> -FLick
>
>
>
> * FLICK's WEBSITE:
> http://www.flickharrison.com
> * FACEBOOK
> http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=860700553
> * BLOG / NEWS:
> http://zeroforconduct.blogspot.com
> * MYSPACE:
> http://myspace.com/flickharrison
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.

_________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.