Quoting from http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/research/survey-audiovisual-archiving-papua-new-guinea/
Surveying the state of audiovisual archiving in Papua New Guinea
Mick Newnham, Senior Researcher
One of the directions the NFSA is actively pursuing is further developing our relationship with the audiovisual archiving community within the SE Asia and Pacific region. For over a decade the NFSA has supported individual archives and organisations through projects sponsored by the Australian Government, UNESCO, ASEAN and the South East Asia Pacific Audio Visual Archives Association (SEAPAVAA).
The work of the NFSA with archives in the SE Asia and Pacific has given us a unique view of the problems facing audiovisual archives in the tropics and the more innovative ways archives have solved some of these problems. From this view we have been able to refine the information and techniques and act as an agent for the dispersion of information through, not only the local region, but also as far afield as Africa and Latin America. This work has cemented NFSA as one of the most active audiovisual archiving organisations in the world and the pre-eminent provider of training in audiovisual archiving.
The most recent example of the work of the NFSA in the local region was in July this year when Ray Edmondson, Curator Emeritus NFSA, and I travelled to Papua New Guinea. Our brief was broad, to visit known audiovisual collections and locate other significant collections and assess ways in which the NFSA could potentially assist the people responsible for these collections in improving their preservation practices.
Papua New Guinea has an immensely rich and vibrant culture, however there is an unfortunately low resource base with which to effectively preserve the remaining audiovisual recordings that document this culture. The organisations responsible for the collections in Papua New Guinea have very limited opportunities to obtain assistance, especially an on-the-ground assessment of their work practices and scoping of potential improvements.
Prior to leaving Canberra we had made tentative arrangements to visit the major collecting institutions such as the National Library and the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, both in Port Moresby and the National Film Institute in Goroka. We were also aware of potentially significant collections in places such as the Divine Word University in Madang and hoped to find other similar less high profile collections.
Travel in Papua New Guinea is often complex and air travel is the only effective way to reach some locations. The visits had to be arranged around airline schedules which, due to rapid changes in weather, can change without notice. Consequently the trip was limited to Madang, Goroka and Port Moresby. As these are major centres with known collections we felt that these locations would give a good perspective of the state of audiovisual preservation.
Lae, although a major centre, was not known to have any major collections and so was omitted from this survey.
'Raskol’ proof perimeter at the National Archives in Port Moresby
The other constraint for this trip was the issue of personal safety. 'Raskols’ or gangs are a major concern for locals and travellers alike. Raskols are such a problem that all the collections we visited required significant security. Perimeter defences of strong steel fences capped with razor wire were ubiquitous and often armed security guards were present as well. The response to this security threat extended to lengths that I have not seen anywhere in the world, the need for a 'Raskol proof’ construction.
The ultimate expression of this construction is the walls of the work room at the vaults at the National Film Institute in Goroka. The wall studs are placed at half the normal spacing and razor wire is built into the wall cavity to prevent Raskols breaking through the walls! Consequently much of the organisation’s funding is spent on security as a necessary priority over other, more usual, preservation activities.
The contrast that Ray and I both commented on frequently was the difference between the omnipresent Raskol threat and the outgoing nature and genuine friendliness of the rest of the people of Papua New Guinea we met in our travels.
Wendy Paulus, the Archivist at Radio Madang working on the collection
Starting in Madang Ray and I followed a hunch and discovered that the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) had archives in each of the 19 regional radio stations. These local archives had live recordings, often made in the field, of performers and performances dating back to pre-independence days. The earliest recording we noted was 1971, and despite the tropical climate the recording looked quite playable. Even more interesting was the project that NBC had embarked upon to duplicate these recordings digitally and send copies of the digital recordings to the NBC head office in Port Moresby for archiving.
The project was vast in its scale as each archive we estimated to hold between 2-3,000 ¼’ tapes, or somewhere around 1,500 hours of audio recording. Multiply this by the 19 regional stations and an estimated 10,000 hours held at the NBC offices in Port Moresby gives somewhere between 48,000-50,000 hours of recordings to duplicated! The initial funding and set up for this project was part of an AusAID project, the Media Development Initiative (MDI). However it appears the audio archiving was not a major component of the MDI and sufficient funding to complete the preservation appears uncertain.
In comparison with collections I have surveyed in other tropical regions the audio tapes held by two local NBC stations we visited were in good condition. Even mould, the perennial enemy of audiovisual objects, was comparatively rare. This is very surprising, especially in coastal Madang where the ambient high relative humidity creates ideal conditions for mould growth. Air conditioning does not control relative humidity to a level that will prevent mould and, as there were no other steps taken to inhibit mould that we could ascertain, the reason for the rarity of mould in these collections remains undetermined.
The next location to visit on our schedule was the highland city of Goroka. In Goroka there was not only the National Film Institute but other collections unknown to us at the outset. The Melanesian Institute, a research and study centre run collaboratively by several churches, held a small collection containing some unique material and a private collection of original video recordings of life in the Goroka district. We heard about several small privately run recording studios located around Goroka but time prevented us from visiting any of these.
The National Film Institute in Goroka
The National Film Institute (NFI) in Goroka is managed by the acclaimed film maker Chris Owen. Chris generously spent a lot of time with us, covering the history of film making in Papua New Guinea over the past 30 years.
While we were talking with Chris he explained his vision for the major redevelopment of the NFI in Goroka that is expanding the Institute to take on the role of the National Film Archive.
While Goroka has some issues in terms of accessibility, the highland climate is far more conducive to successfully running a film storage facility. The temperature and relative humidity are more temperate than the coastal cities meaning less energy is required to maintain an acceptable environment for a film collection.
At the NFI Ray and I conducted a full preservation survey of the collection and training needs for the organisation. These full surveys would form the basis of the report we were to write on our return.
The trip ended in Port Moresby where most of the national institutions are located. Moving around Port Moresby held some concerns as there is no public transport system, including taxis, that is considered safe for travellers. Regardless we visited the major national institutions and were able to conduct a full survey of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS).
Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies Director, Don Niles, with the oldest part of the IPNGS collection.
Over 12,000 hours of audio recordings covering the full gamut of musical styles from traditional to contemporary are held by the Institute. The IPNGS is considered to hold the best collection of the traditional music of Papua New Guinea anywhere in the world.
The staff of IPNGS are justifiably proud of their collection and are keen to ensure it survives into the future. The steps taken by the institute so far are good, but the resource support necessary for a collection of this size and nature are realistically beyond the resources available to the institute at this stage.
This was my first visit to Papua New Guinea despite over 12 years of visiting and working with audiovisual archives in the SE Asia and Pacific region. Until this visit I had only anecdotal information about the state of collections in Papua New Guinea and the story was not good. Tales of vaults so contaminated by mould and decomposing materials that people were not allowed inside for their own safety had led me to believe that we would be unlikely to find anything that could be salvaged.
The truth, happily, was far different. There are amazing collections still in a viable condition documenting the rich culture of Papua New Guinea, however time is running out. Not just from the tropical climate but also the march of technology that leaves in its wake the legacy of analogue collections. Without support for playback and transfer to contemporary formats these legacy collections are unlikely to have a working life far into the future.
The audiovisual collections of Papua New Guinea are trapped like so many other audiovisual collections around the world. These vast collections contain unique recordings of fading and lost traditions that now only survive in a form that will also finally succumb to the massive rate of change taking place in the world. The NFSA is taking a major role in assisting where we can.
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