While rich in culture and history, there is little to no formal infrastructure for documenting regional culture in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia. Many collections are in homes, in storage, are actively destroyed, or passively abandoned. While there is little to no formal training in digitization and preservation of media and audiovisual materials available, there is a movement toward grassroots and regional preservation.
Starting in 2022, several AMIA members worked on the planning, fundraising, and teaching of intensive, introductory media archiving workshops held in Zaječar. These events, called Timok Digital, were organized and hosted by Zaječar regional archive SKVER, with attendees from several cultural heritage organizations in the Timok Valley Region of Serbia, including public libraries, historical museums, and the Yugoslav Film Archive.The workshops utilized aspects of the Community Archiving Workshop model to focus on inventorying and assessing SKVER’s collections, while training participants in identification, metadata, care and handling, and digitization of 16mm, 8mm, MiniDV, photos, slides, negatives, and audiotapes.
It is now more important than ever to continue building support networks for community memory workers in the Balkans. We are currently in the planning stages for the next phase of our project. Please check back soon for more updates!
The many individual grassroots donors who contributed to our previous campaigns, and Myriad Consulting and VHS is Life!