Archive Associates - Voluntary Involvements

Ray Edmondson maintains a range of voluntary commitments in professional organisations and UNESCO programs.

AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVING

• Archive Forum is an independent, expert advocacy group committed to the sound development of Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive and its establishment as an autonomous statutory authority. Ray has served as honorary Secretary to the Forum since its inauguration in 2002. The Forum’s work and its position papers are internationally known and highly regarded.
• The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), based in Los Angeles, USA, is the largest professional society in the audiovisual archiving field. Ray is chair of both its International Outreach Task Force and its Advocacy Task Force, both of which he was instrumental in setting up (in 1999 and 2005 respectively.) He is also a member of the Education Committee.
• The South East Asia-Pacific AudioVisual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA) was established in 1996 and Ray served as its inaugural president (1996-2002). He has since continued to serve on its Executive Council ex officio as Immediate Past President.
• Ray is a member of the National Film and Sound Archive Advisory Committee and is also a committee member of the Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive Inc. In addition, he serves in the honorary role of the Archive’s first Curator Emeritus, which means that his corporate memory and advice is always freely available to the Archive’s staff.
• He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the Center for Home Movies, Los Angeles, the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, at George Eastman House, Rochester NY, USA and the Asian Film Archive, Singapore.
• As part of his contribution to the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) he prepared the “issues paper” which points towards a new UNESCO instrument to give expanded support to the preservation of the world’s audiovisual heritage http://www.ccaaa.org/paper_heritage.shtml

UNESCO Memory of the World Program

• Ray has been involved in various capacities with the Memory of the World program since 1996, serving a 4 year term as member and rapporteur of its International Advisory Committee and authoring the current (2002) edition of its core document, General Guidelines to Safeguard Documentary Heritage. Currently he serves on committees at the national, regional and international level.
• He has been Deputy Chair of the Australian Memory of the World Committee since its establishment in 2000.
• In December 2005 he was elected Chair of the Memory of the World Regional Committee for Asia-Pacific for a 4-year term.
• He has served on the Register Subcommittee of the International Advisory Committee since its establishment in 2002, and was recently reappointed for a 4 year term as the nominee of the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA).