Following the success of the joint FIAF/ACE Workshop Metadata Management in Film Archives (Potsdam, March 29-30, 2017), it was very clear that most of us share a common set of questions and problems that are worth discussing as a community.
At the ACE we thought that the yearly ACE Workshop traditionally organized in Bologna was the perfect occasion to continue this discussion and to delve deeper into some of the issues.
For many decades, the range of choices was limited: our databases were all more or less relational databases, simple, basic tools we developed painfully for years… Metadata rules were simple: follow FIAF’s Cataloguing Rules and be happy! If you were big and rich, there was one collection management software available for purchase, used everywhere… But now, all this is gone, leaving us with more questions and fewer answers… What should a management tool for our film and non-film collections look like in the 21st century? What should it be able to do? Now that our collections are a combination of analog and digital? Now, after decades of ‘nothing new on metadata’, suddenly new standards are in use everywhere (like CWS or the new FIAF Rules)? Now that relational databases are as dead as papyrus? Now that we are in the era of Google? Now that access is increasingly digital as well as our conservation tools?
So we ask ourselves: is there life after relational databases? And if so, what does it look like? What’s the buzz about Linked Open Data? What is it exactly? What can it do for us? Should we really care? How can we get what we need? What should we buy? Is there anything we can buy that does what we need? Can we afford it? Shouldn’t we, as a community, find a way to create the tools we need? Wouldn’t it be more affordable if we work together? Can we do that? How?
Workshop attendance is free, but registration is required. Places are limited, so preference is given to ACE members.

For more information and to register please visit
www.ace-film.eu

or contact: ace@deutsches-filminstitut.de