Are we there yet? North American roadmaps to recovery

This article explores the ongoing impact of covid on working practices in key film archives abroad. Focusing on North America, I reflect on the conversations I held with Mike Mashon, Head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress (LoC), and Haden Guest, Director of the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) in early 2021. My aim was to hear testimony about how American collections were weathering COVID through a major health pandemic as well as political change. I was also interested in learning about the experience of two quite different film archives within a single country. I asked: What archival work was undertaken from home? How was this determined, organised and actioned? I was also curious to know how a smaller (and what I consider a more bespoke, ‘artisanal’), university archive like the HFA responded to the pandemic. Was pedagogy, curating, and collecting differently negotiated in this period of change? What initiatives, if any, have been adopted and introduced to support the archive when the curatorial programs, that so shape and identify its Cinematheque, are forced closed? My discussions helped me appreciate the ‘can do’ attitude of archivists. Most significantly, I newly came to appreciate the backend, invisible work that archivists selflessly undertake.