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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
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Bibliography
The Great Little Hunter
Pinspired Philippines, 2022
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
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Recent Crumbs
Blogs I Read
© 2002-2021
IAN ROSALES CASOCOT
Monday, August 29, 2016
7:37 PM |
Archiving and Preservation
This [
"The Race to Save the Films We Love"] is a fantastic, if sobering, article by Manohla Dargis for
The New York Times on film archiving and preservation. The article tackles for the most part the race to save old silent American films, a significant percentage of which are now gone or lost -- often destroyed by their own creators who never found value in storing them. That rejoinder is also something the article touches on, and provokes a look at our very own present circumstances. What are the things you are throwing away now that might in fact have historical value in the future?
The article reads: "The studios can afford to safeguard their new and old titles, but an estimated 75 percent of movies in American theaters are made by independents. A few years ago, the Library of Congress and the academy released 'Digital Dilemma 2,' a report on the digital preservation issues facing independent filmmakers and nonprofit audiovisual archives. 'Most of the filmmakers surveyed for this report have given little thought to what happens to their work once it is completed,' the study found. Most were also not aware of 'the perishable nature of digital content.'”
My own awakening regarding the value of archiving happened in 2013 during a consolidated research to chronicle the history of the culture and the arts in Silliman University. We found the subject sorely unchronicled, with many of the relevant documents and materials lost, thrown away, or destroyed. It became for the most part a chronicling of oral history, because that was what was left -- although we were also aware that many of the principals have died. (We interviewed Eddie Romero only a few months before he passed away.) The one bright spot in our search was the archival collection of Rudy Juan who made an effort to collect every single program of university shows since 1975. In a sense, a well-organised "pack rat" saved us and gave us invaluable material for our research. In my current research on Negros Oriental literature, I am dismayed to find out for example that the entire collection of The Sillimanian from the 1930s -- a decade that saw the editorships of Edilberto K. Tiempo and Ricardo Demetillo -- is missing, perhaps destroyed by World War II. I shudder at the idea of what we've lost.
Labels: archiving, film, history, life, research
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