Will Prentice
British Library

Archival skills in caring for and preserving audio collections can be difficult to gain and maintain. Is this simply a case of attending training courses and workshops, or are there other considerations in developing a training strategy?

This presentation will consider what it means to plan long-term provision of skills in this area, and will look at the British Library’s Unloc­king Our Sound Heritage project, which is funded by the UK Heritage Lottery Fund to directly address these issues.

Will Prentice has worked for the British Library sound archive since 1999, where he is currently Training & Dissemination Manager on the HLF Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

He is Vice Chair of the International Association of Sound & Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Training & Education Committee, and a member of the IASA Technical Committee, for whom he recently co-edited the recently republished The Safeguarding of the Audiovisual Heritage: Ethics, Principles & Preservation Strategy (2017), aka IASA-TC 03.

He was the founding convenor of British & Irish Sound Archives (BISA), and sat on its Committee from 2006 – 2018. He holds a Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from Goldsmiths, University of London.