A Case of Mistaken Identity: Governance, Guardianship and the ScreenSound Saga

By Ray Edmonson

This article explores some issues of perception, presentation, governance and guardianship for cultural institutions, and in particular the crucial importance of a custodial institution's name, by using the National Film and Sound Archive experience as a case study which illustrates the risks of radical renaming. For consistency, I refer to the institution throughout by the name adopted in 1984 - and by its diminutives, NFSA or the Archive. Anything else would be too confusing. In particular it considers:

• implications of the change for the dependant and politically vulnerable status of the Archive, hence the need for legislation to give it an independent legal identity
  
• the possible covert significance of change from a name appropriate to national institutions to one which has the ring of a commercial brand, and whether this signals future subordination of its archival and research functions to those of commercial exploitation
  
• the unsatisfactory process of change, especially the paucity of consultation and the absence of transparency and accountability

Other dimensions apart, these are professional issues with implications for all custodial institutions. Further, the national and international stature of the NFSA as an exemplar means its policy decisions are influential, so they merit study and scrutiny.

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