RSRT 2016-2017 Election Nominee Biographies

SAA Recorded Sound Roundtable 2016/2017 Elections

Nominee Bios and Statements

Vice Chair/Chair Elect 

Tre Berney: Tre is the Director of Digitization and Conservation Services at Cornell University Library, overseeing the Digital Media Group and the Conservation Lab. I designed and created Cornell’s AV Digitization Lab and help develop preservation and access workflows and policy for digital content across the library. I have an extensive background in audiovisual production, digitization, and preservation. I’ve worked on production, post, and reformatting projects for cable television clients (Discovery, A&E, Biography, The History Channel), The Smithsonian Institution, The Howard Baker Center on Public Policy, the University of Memphis, and others. I am currently the lead on a campus-wide AV census, as part of Cornell’s AV Preservation Initiative at Cornell University with hopes to publish our recommendations in the Fall of 2016. 

Rebecca Chandler:  Rebecca is currently a Consultant with AVPreserve in New York City where I support archives, museums, and other organizations in their efforts to preserve and make accessible audiovisual collections. I specialize in reformatting setups, workflows, and preservation planning. I have a strong technical background in recorded sound, having received my BM in Music Technology from New York University and worked for years in television post-production as an audio engineer. A trip to the library at Sony Music Studios early in my career piqued my interest in archives and legacy materials, prompting me to earn my MSLIS with an archives certificate from Pratt Institute. My education and background in both television post-production and archives has made me flexible, as well as appreciative of and open to diverse approaches or viewpoints that impact the creation and care of recorded sound and moving image materials. 

Newsletter

Rebecca Chandler: Rebecca is currently a Consultant with AVPreserve in New York City where I support archives, museums, and other organizations in their efforts to preserve and make accessible audiovisual collections. I specialize in reformatting setups, workflows, and preservation planning. I have a strong technical background in recorded sound, having received my BM in Music Technology from New York University and worked for years in television post-production as an audio engineer. A trip to the library at Sony Music Studios early in my career piqued my interest in archives and legacy materials, prompting me to earn my MSLIS with an archives certificate from Pratt Institute. My education and background in both television post-production and archives has made me flexible, as well as appreciative of and open to diverse approaches or viewpoints that impact the creation and care of recorded sound and moving image materials. 

Web Liaison 

Jolene Beiser: Jolene Beiser has been working as an Archivist at the Pacifica Radio Archives since November 2010. Her primary responsibility is as the Project Archivist on Pacifica’s two-year NHPRC-funded grant project American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982. For this project she is coordinating the digitization of nearly 1,700 reel-to-reel tapes, and updating legacy catalog records through two levels of cataloging–editing item-level descriptions with standardized metadata, and creating a searchable online finding aid available at the Online Archive of California.  In 2012-2013 she led the development of a new Drupal-based content management system for the Pacifica Radio Archives, updating legacy records to up-to-date metadata standards, and allowing for easy sharing of content with web users. She has served SAA Recorded Sound Roundtable as Chair (2013-2014) and as Web Liaison (2014-2016). She has presented her work at SAA Annual Meetings (2009, 2013-2015) and ARSC Conference (2013 and 2015). 

Steering Committee 

Sarah Cunningham: Sarah Cunningham is the Audiovisual Archivist at the LBJ Presidential Library branch of the National Archives (2003 – present) and is on the faculty at the Graduate School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches the Introductory and an Advanced classes in Audio Preservation. Cunningham’s work revolves around digitization projects, the preservation and transfer of vintage audiotapes, system upgrades, and storage of information and digital delivery of audiovisual recordings. Her areas of expertise are the preservation of archival analog media and digital solutions for the preservation of audio and video recordings on unstable media. Interests include forensics for digital audio recordings, media archeology and the tools needed to keep digitized recordings connected to their analog existence. 

Ben Houtman: Ben is currently an Assistant Archivist at New York Public Radio, where he helps preserve WNYC's storied broadcast radio legacy. Prior to his time at WNYC, he was employed at the Historical Music Recordings Collection in the Fine Arts Library at the University of Texas at Austin and worked on several music and audiovisual collections for the Briscoe Center for American History. He holds an M.S. in Information Studies from the iSchool at UT, where he focused on archives, copyright, and audio preservation. 

Calvin Rydbom: Currently Calvin Rydbom is the Vice-President of Pursue Posterity, a freelance Archiving firm in Cleveland, Ohio.  He also serves as the Archivist and Contributing Author for the "Akron Sound" Museum in Akron, Ohio. The Museum focuses on the Punk Era of Akron and the Music which was labeled  the "Akron Sound" by Village Voice Critic Robert Christgau in 1978, but does cover the entire sound history of Akron, Ohio and the surrounding suburbs.