Film and audiovisual archives in libraries: the stakes in the access to content

Film libraries and their archives, built up by cinema buffs, have privileged film as an art form, mainly of fiction, whereas libraries have first built documentary collections. The techniques of conservation and restoration developed from the middle of the 1970s have benefited rapidly from the private market, which has progressively multiplied distribution channels. Unable anymore to pretend to cover the whole of film and the audiovisual, film libraries, archives and libraries must now define their own objectives and acquisition policies, as well as their methods of working and skills which will permit a backup for an identified offer, concentrated on the task to contextualize the works.
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