IASA 2019 Annual Conference

We have reported on the situation of Czech Audio in the international field many times. We have given presentations relating to this topic regularly across the last four years at IASA conferences. We gave talks about the history of sound in our country, from the beginning through to an environment where we have begun to see rising interest in it, as well as about our volunteer work, about surveys we have carried out, about the problems with educating our younger generation and about some of our successes as well. We would like to introduce our biggest and the most visible achievement - the national Czech sound aggregator - in this year’s presentation. The portal, called the Virtual National Phonotheque, was already briefly mentioned in presentations abroad, but now it is time to present it in more detail. We will introduce the content and services, as well as our plans for it, both in regards to the technological solution and the content. VNF is not only a traditional library union catalogue. It brings added value and begins to fulfill other important functionalities, such as linking recordings to other repositories while allowing access to them from anywhere, restructuring metadata to suit environments other than a traditional library catalogue, and involving the public in the design and implementation of the portal and its enrichment. It is a solution which could be of interest and inspiration for other countries who are faced with reviving old technology to meet new demands, as present in audiovisual media.