| International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts Société Internationale des Bibliothèque et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle |  |
Information AND documentationA step into the 21st centuryJürgen Kirschner Documents et Temoignages des Arts du Spectacle: Pourquoi et Comment? / Collecting and Recording the Performing Arts: Why and How? Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle / International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts 20ème Congrès International / 20th International Congress Antwerp 4-7 September 1994. Acta. Antwerp : 1995, pp. 55-56 The capital letters stand for three crucial points in the field of information and documentation - Activity, Network, Distribution. They were explained by the field of information and documentation of the "Children's and Young People's Theatre Centre in the Federal Republic of Germany". Distribution To begin with the end, the aim of "information and documentation" should be to connect a number of people with knowledge, history and - other people. And - in this case - to bring forward art and cultural development. For this reason the Centre has built up an extensive supply of information and documentation in combination with other fields of activity. This includes special AND general information. On the one hand the Centre publishes books and a media package (book and two videos), is organizing exhibitions, conferences and a national festival. On the other hand the Centre provides the clients with basic information in the library and the archives in Frankfurt am Main and - especially about the history of the GDR - in Berlin. (For further information see the outline in the program of the Centre for 1994.) Network The structure of the supply is related to the practical and scientific interests of the user. They legitimate the work of the Centre, but didn't finance it. Besides the Federal Ministry for Women and Youth the Centre is supported by the Ministry of Science and Arts of the Federal State of Hesse and the Municipality of Frankfurt am Main. In addition to this basic financing a growing part of the money comes from other sources. Funds and foundations are more important than the private sponsoring by industrial companies. Nevertheless the responsibility of different departments of the administration shows the contemporary challenge of the children's and young people's theatre itself. The theatre for children and young people gains to arise art without ignoring the imbedding of art in the current changing of the society. In this context information and documentation in the Centre has to provide a complex assistance to theatre groups and scientists, for production, documentation and publishing. Therefore between 1990 and 1992 the library and the archives have been set up with the support of Stiftung Jugendmarke and a following two-year-project 1994-1996 is now proposed. To reach the described aims it was necessary to keep in touch with a large number of specialists and to cooperate with groups or institutions. For example the success of the collection of plays and theatrical documents depends on the goodwill of the publishers and the theatres. It is inevitable to build bridges to "undiscovered continents". The Centre is seeking to integrate this special library into the world of books, the international collection of children's and youth literature. The archives are defined as a nucleus of an dezentralized archive of the German theatre for children and young people. And the collection of audiovisual media will be a part of a world-videothek of arts for the children and young people. Therefore the Centre is in contact with world organizations like ASSITEJ, ITI, EUNETART and last but not least SIBMAS. This international association of libraries and museums for performing arts should be a platform for coordination and standardisation. That doesn't mean to even up all differences, but to find a common language for the problems to be solved. In the future acting in partnership will bring a pattern of solutions on national, continental or world-level to overcome the isolation and failure of the present. (For further information see the proposal about electronic documentation.) Activity Activity means active documentation. Collection is often restricted to secure what is already there. But it is necessary to produce new documents. For example between 1991 and 1993 the Centre carried out a project entitled "Documentation and Reception of Heleen Verburg's Drama "Winterslaap" in Two Productions" with grants from the Federal Ministry for Women and Youth. Without the interest of the Centre in those productions of the same play by a Dutch autor, only the regular documents would have been transmitted. Within the frame of this project - in cooperation with the "Zentrum Theaterdokumentation Berlin" - an exemplary documentation could be raised. In a final publication original records AND specifically compiled documents were combined to describe the planning and implementation process of the productions and the performances themselves. Rehearsal notations, photo and slide series, programes, posters and reviews are enhanced by interviews and specialized journalists' descriptions of the performances. Moreover the Centre planned and organized two video documentations of the performances, which were carried out by the "Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie" in Berlin, and the "Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film" in Munich. The Centre claimed to produce recordings on a middle level between the adaption in a television studio - e.g. the recordings of the festival "Traumspiele" by the ZDF - and the documentation for the purposes of the staging process from the theatres themselves. This aim could be described as "documentation on video" which is suitable for a public performance and preserve also important aspects of the theatrical event. (For further information see the English summary of the publication "Kinder im Theater".) 20th Congress URL: http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas94/antw_16.html |
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