2020 IASA - FIAT/IFTA Joint Conference

The pronouncement made by the French National Audiovisual Institute in 2004, known as "The Call of Paris", alerted about the critical state of the world's sound and audiovisual memory. It is based on the FIAT/IFTA study that observed that, especially in developing countries, 80% of these files were at risk of being lost. In addition, emphasis was placed on the responsibility of the States to implement preservation policies in order to safeguard their sound and audiovisual heritage.

The Mexican Government responded by creating the National Sound Archive in 2008 and, eleven years after its creation, it has greatly contributed to establish national regulations for the preservation of sound documental heritage, as well as to generate a corpus of policies and guidelines based on national and international standards, and has prepared a team of specialists who have allowed it to establish itself as an authority on the subject.

It is with this background that the National Sound Archive celebrated in October 2019 the First National Meeting of Sound Archives and Sound Collections, and created the National System of Sound Archives with the double purpose of identifying the sound collections that exist already in the country, and of gathering information and data to plan and implement public policies focused on preserving the sound memory of Mexico. Its objectives are:

a) To establish a network of collaboration and support to the entities that had work, in isolation and with different criteria, in the country's sound collections.
b) To contribute to the training of specialized personnel in the processes involved in the preservation of sound documents.
c)    To share experiences and knowledge among librarians, sound archive professionals, specialists and researchers.