AMIA 2024

Over the years many individuals and institutions have speculated on how much time is left before it’s “too late” to save our cultural heritage recorded on magnetic media that is not yet digitized. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia predicts magnetic media will be unsalvageable after 2025! Over the past 5 years magnetic media’s progressive degradation has required modified conservation treatments that are more intensive for tapes to be successfully transferred. Examples of this include needing to bake tapes longer at higher temperatures or multiple times and that the removal of contaminants is becoming more difficult. However, instead of discussing “degralescence” as the impending doom of our profession, we want to come to terms with the reality that it may have arrived, but there is still action that can be taken — if we collaborate and think of this as a “human problem” with human solutions. To do this, this forum seeks to re-establish conversations and community building that were a part of AMIA’s Magnetic Media Crisis Committee.