Presenting Mapping the Magnetic Media Landscape

Research & Development Manager, Kailen Sallander, reflects on presenting Mapping the Magnetic Media Landscape at archivist conferences around the world, a fitting culmination of years of research, collaboration, and community knowledge-sharing. Today is Kailen’s last day after five years at BAVC Media. We’re honored to have supported this work alongside her and are excited to share her reflections as her time with us comes to a close.

Her work has strengthened BAVC Media’s impact and relationships across the media preservation landscape, and we’re excited to see her step into her next role as Grants/Institutional Funding Manager at Women’s Audio Mission (WAM).

In the fall of 2025, our team of authors had the chance to present Mapping the Magnetic Media Landscape at several archivist conferences. Thank you to IASA-SEAPAVAA, ASRA, and AMIA for providing us with the platform to share the findings from our years-long research.

In early September, I presented the Mapping the Magnetic Media Landscape report I authored for Bay Area Video Coalition for the first time in Honolulu, HI at the International Association Of Sound and Audiovisual Archives annual conference. It was an exceptional opportunity to share an overview of the findings and the ways they intersect with the conference focus on how climate change transforms landscapes and challenges cultural identities.

The chance to learn from my peers working across the world on AV archives was something I certainly didn’t take for granted! Meeting in person with my wonderful co-authors Shay Hix and Moriah Unlinskas was fulfilling after spending nearly three years working together to make this project happen. And it was also a full-circle moment to have Morgan Morel, the original ideator of the project, moderate the panel after conceptualizing the study’s research questions back in 2022.

In October, I had the opportunity to present the study for the second time, at the Australasian Sound Recordings Association in Sydney! The conference centered on the urgent calls to action in 2015 by UNESCO/IASA and Australia’s National Film & Sound Archive to prioritize at-risk magnetic tape. The impetus for our study directly aligned with the motivation for ASRA’s 2025 conference theme: we aimed to investigate the state of magnetic media preservation in the United States after the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan altered us to similar deadlines around the decay of collections in 2012. Our study fit right in as it sought to reflect on our progress toward this effort here in the US. The team at ASRA was incredibly welcoming and I had such a wonderful time learning from them and sharing some US perspective.

Lastly, the author team presented at the Association of Moving Image Archivists conference in Baltimore this December alongside BAVC Media Preservation team members, Chris Castro and Victoria Fajardo. Although I couldn’t be there myself, I know the team was able to share more of the study’s findings with a local audience of US based audiovisual archivists. They brought back stories of how much their community was utilizing the report in classrooms, archives, and institutional conversations.

Over the last three months the team was able to present the findings at a variety of conferences and highlight a different Case Study from the project each time. Featuring each organization that opened their doors to our team and let us dive deep into their workflows and the unique ways they serve their communities. You can now find each of the case studies to read on our website here!

Getting the chance to participate in international knowledge exchange has truly been one of the highlights of my career so far! If you or anyone in your network would benefit from a presentation of our work please reach out to us! We are still seeking opportunities to present the work and share with the broader community. We’d love to expand beyond presenting in archivist circles and share this information with broader communities of museum staff, filmmakers, university librarians, community media, and more.

Read the report here.

If you have any questions about the report or would like to talk to the team about presenting findings, please contact us at preservation@bavc.org.