Taxonomy in Action: International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives-Association of Moving Image Archivists Annual Conference (review)

For millennia, the travelogue has been the primary means of experiencing another place and culture. Even in this fuel-fueled age of frequent long-distance travel enabled by efficient transportation mechanisms, we still heavily rely on the spatial compression performed and expressed by others.

On the basis of my own readings, before attending the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA)-Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) annual conference 2010, I knew three things about Philadelphia:

1. 1. When arriving in town via boat, one should contribute to rowing both happily and vigorously.

2. 2. The local monetary unit is undervalued compared to specie distributed in Boston; three penny can buy three great puffy rolls rather than a simple bisket or loaf.

3. 3. MotownPhilly's back again.

Seeing as how I was traveling via locomotive, and inflation being what it has been over the past two and a half centuries (aided by William McKinley's shortsighted rejection of transitioning to a silver standard), I reckoned on a more advantageous transportation situation but a less advantageous position with regard to baked goods.

The persistence of MotownPhilly's level of backness was, however, an unknown factor with a rather low degree of quantifiability. To say I entered Philadelphia with not a little trepidation would be an expression of neither under- nor overstatement.

But in the hour of my darkest need (not to be confused with the hour of my dark needs), I recalled my great forebears, such as Benjamin Franklin and Charles Wilson Peale, who had come to this great city oh so many years ago, stealing away from their hometowns with barely a Dutch dollar and a shilling to rub together in their pockets, arriving on the banks of the Schuylkill without prospects or letters of introduction. They defined themselves anew and carved out success from the Wissahickon schist bedrock of their adopted city.

Thus, as with the excavation and reconstruction of Peale's mastodon, I feel emboldened to perform the selfsame tasks on Iasamias Philladelphius Rangerian.

Signs

The species tends toward isolation or small groupings known as departments. A larger gathering is known as a conference. Considering what seems to be the extreme specialization of the moving image and sound archiving field, there are surprisingly few identifiable similarities across practitioners. Audiovisual collections are everywhere—studios, state and national archives, stock houses, universities, news organizations, artist collectives, museums, independent producers, and private collectors—and the associated careers touch on a range of skill sets: technicians, catalogers, filmmakers, collection managers, academicians, lawyers, collectors, conservators, and so on.

The only sure signs of a conference are a line of people at the airport or train station all waiting for a cab to the same hotel and an article in the local rag about the influx of oddballs descending on the town.

Nesting

Primary nesting zones are typically defined by a conference committee, a small group selected from the larger conference based on an intricate dance not dissimilar from that of the blue-footed booby, which competition is then augmented by a comparison of the amount of footage aspirants can wind through in an hour's time.

The primary zone tends to be centralized in the chosen city, offering easy access to dining, entertainment, and historical sites. In 2010, the zone also happened to be historic itself, offering early-twentieth-century charms such as corded telephones, grand vistas of the Aramark building, and an at times Escherian conflagration of hidden stairwells and roundabout transverses.

Individuals are not required to nest in the primary zone and can often enjoy interesting experiences in secondary zones. While observing the Minneapolis conference, the author decamped an hour's walk away from the primary nesting site. The morning rambles to the conference locus included fording the head of the Mississippi River and offered numerous insights into the history and development of that grand American city, from the solidity of early industrial brick factories...