Organization of storage of audiovisual documents in the archives of Russia at the present stage

Abstract

The article considers the theoretical and practical issues of organizing the storage of cinema, photo and video documents within funds of personal origin and archival collections acquired by Russian archives from private property as well as the issues of searching, attributing and studying audio-visual documents separated from the main body of relevant written documents on the strength of the current domestic specific practice of working with such documents. Based on the experience of the major Russian archives in working with documents author analyzes the meaning of debatable definition “audiovisual documents of personal origin” which in practice covers a wider range of documents than is commonly considered. The author considers the actual consequences of the fragmentation of archival funds containing audiovisual documents, the main of which is the loss of information about the content of documents. By the example of collections of photographers and filmmakers also the problem of improvement of archives’ finding aids is examined. As a result studying the fragmented complexes of documents of personal origin and the comparative analysis in written and audiovisual documents the author succeeded in correcting an attribution for some photos and sound records within collections of federal archives. The article offers some ways of overcoming the consequences of fragmentation of personal collections of documents and separate storage of written and audiovisual documents of personal origin in Russian archives, among them the way of performing an interdisciplinary research based on a multiple source base in the history, theory and practice of audiovisual communications.