What is a Moving Image Archivist?

Anyone responsible for preserving, restoring, and making accessible our audiovisual heritage, including, film, television, video, and digital formats.  As a profession, we advocate for the acknowledgement that this media heritage is an important educational, historical and cultural resource.

You may already be working as a media archivist, but if you’re deciding if this is the career for you, here are some of the basics that you should know about the field, such as the current professional climate, educational expectations, and how the profession is expected to develop.

Graduate and Undergraduate Programs

Listed below are graduate, undergraduate, and certification programs specifically designed for audiovisual archiving. This is not a definitive list, so please let us know of more programs to add. Inclusion on the list does not equal an endorsement of the program.

US PROGRAMS

New York University (NYU)

Moving Image Archive Program

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

MLIS with specialization in Media Archival Studies

University of Rochester

The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS

French National Audiovisual Institute School (INAsup), Paris, France 

Masters of Audiovisual Heritage Management

Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin

Conservation and Restoration of Audio-visual and Photographic Artefacts

• 18 month MA Program
• BA Program
• Taught in German

Ryerson University-Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Masters of Arts in Film and Photography Preservation and Collection Management

• Specialization in Film Preservation

Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Germany

Conservation of New Media and Digital Information

• 2 year MA Program
• The  program is organized into four modules: conservation, media, computer science and supporting studies. The media module focuses on three main areas: photography, video and digital information.
• Taught in German and English

Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan

Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary & Film Archiving

• MA Program
• Taught in Mandarin Chinese

University of Amsterdam

Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image

• 18 month MA Program
• Blog post “Getting to Know You: The University of Amsterdam’s MA in Heritage Studies – Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image”
• Taught in English

Université de Lausanne/Cinémathèque Suisse, Switzerland

Film Studies With Archive Option at the Cinémathèque Suisse

• 2 year MA Program
• Taught in French

AV Specific Certifications

University of Rochester, NY

The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation

• 1 year certificate program

Charles Sturt University, Australia

Graduate Certificate in Audiovisual Archiving

• 1 year distance learning certificate program
• Created in consultation with the National Film and Sound Archive

Creative Skillset, United Kingdom

Media Archive Trainee Certificate

• 6 month certificate program
• Created in partnership with FOCAL International and Film London
• Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Skills for the Future Programme, and BFI Film Skills Fund

Diploma in Audiovisual Preservation and Restoration (DiPRA), Argentina

• Certificate Program
• Taught in Spanish

• Three Modules: Professional Certification, Certificate, and Masters
• Created in collaboration with the Latin American Institute of Educational Communication (ILCE) and Ibermemoria
• Taught in Spanish

General Archiving and Library Science Certifications

SAA: Society of American Archivists

Digital Archive Specialist (DAS)

• A mixture of online and in-person courses to be completed within 2 years
• A comprehensive exam is offered through SAA at their annual meeting (August) and at various sites across the country in February and November.

Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA)

• A comprehensive 100 question exam offered annually at the SAA meeting.