Project Overview

Integrated Solutions for Preservation, Archiving and Conservation of Endangered Magnetic Tapes and Cylinders (ILKAR)

The ILKAR project aims at improving conservation, archiving and the restoration of magnetic tapes and cylinder collections in audiovisual archives. The project combines

• basic research on risk factors to identify especially endangered items (tape and cylinders)
• integrated solutions: applying the results for the requirements of research archives
• promoting the results through various outreach activities (exhibits, publications etc.)

The project is carried out by two institutions of the National Museums in Berlin: the Rathgen Research Laboratory and the music archive of the Ethnological Museum.

ILKAR is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung der Länder und des Bundes) in the framework of KUR, the Programme to Preserve and Restore Mobile Cultural Assets. The project runs from December 2008 to December 2011. The project acronym "ILKAR" is German and reads as "integrated solutions for preservation, archiving and conservation" in English.

Find out more about why ILKAR is necessary (click on "motivation"), what the main topics of ILKAR are  (click on "focus") and who participates in ILKAR (click on "partners").