Community Copies: Exploring Preservation Policies for Video Submissions

"Community copies" are audiovisual duplications that weren't made for preservation, but usually for better access or sharing. Though they might not be high-quality copied, they are sometimes the only copies in existence or give much-needed context to the original. This term, "Community copies" comes from the research of this session's chair, Martin Johnson, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. - he gave it that name since he couldn't find a descriptive term to discuss these fascinating materials. In my discussion, I focus on the adjacent issue of submission videos in collections - like community copies, works submitted in application for awards are often not of preservation quality, but may be the only accessible copy. The purpose of this presentation is to introduce audience members some of the complexities of these items, and question how we leverage resources for the preservation of these materials with such complicated rights issues that may preclude access.