Saturday, March 31, 2012

Almost done with my MJDC work

I am nearing the end of my work with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (MJDC).  I have completed the inventory of their papers, photos, videos, audio, costumes and other materials.  I spent the most time working with the videos as this was the largest part of their collection.  Most of them were in good shape, but there were several that MJDC cannot access because they no longer have the equipment to play certain formats like, for example, U-Matic tapes, Beta and half-inch open reel tapes.  


MJDC identified eight works by Margaret Jenkins which will be digitized and placed in the Dance Heritage coalition's Secure Media Network.  Because there is a loss of quality when videos are copied, I worked with MJDC to sort through their videos and find the most original recording of these performances, the master copy or archival original, to ensure that the digitized version will be of the highest quality.  These recordings will be digitized by the Bay Area Video Coalition.  Below are photos of some of the reel to reel video and audio formats that I found in the MJDC collection.