Which risks and threats are AV archives facing in the current geopolitical moment? And how can AV archives learn from global best practices for contending with climate risk, political instability and military conflict? These concerns have been central in a recent collaborative project with the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision (NISV) for which more than 25 AV archivists from 15 European countries were interviewed in 2025. The resulting report, “Future-Proofing the AV Archive: Pathways to Resilient Heritage in Uncertain Times,” draws attention to the precautions that archives are currently taking against diverse risks and threats, and outlines the potential to further improve their disaster preparedness.
This presentation will first identify examples of how AV archives in Europe are currently learning from their peers about maintaining archival services in the context of war (e.g.
Ukraine’s Suspilne broadcaster) and from the emergency response/recovery protocols developed by institutions exposed to severe storms, floods, bushfires, and earthquakes (
e.g. across the Asia-Pacific region). It will then outline how – in collaboration with NISV – we together developed an interactive digital story “
Heritage under threat” that uses the Dutch history of radio archivists protecting at-risk collections during German military occupation (1940-45) in order to frame the topic of threats faced by AV archives today. The presentation will end with a critical reflection on how such digital formats can be used to engage the broader public and archive professionals in the ‘story’ of AV archives as well as the critical need to protect AV collections in uncertain times.
