Sights and sounds of the Commission

Meet Bert Musial, the man responsible for bringing EU history to your screens.

Rather like the regions of the human brain, there is a distinct part of the European Commission where the visual memory is located. You can find it at the lowest level of the Berlaymont building, level minus four, in a series of temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms. This is the Audiovisual Library, containing prints, negatives and slides, plus film, video and audio recordings about the institution and its work going back to the beginning of the 1960s. 

Happily for the people who look after the collection, and feed it with new material, they also have offices up in the daylight levels, away from the continuous gurgling of the Berlaymont’s plumbing. Bert Musial knows both areas well, having recently taken over as head of the library after several years managing the archive and its associated documentation.

He came to the Commission from a similar library job at German public broadcaster WDR in North Rhine-Westphalia. He says there is not much difference between the two workplaces. “You have to archive, you have to distribute, you have to respond quickly to demands from outside. In a TV station you have to respond to demands from different producers; here at the Commission you respond to producers on the outside, but the demand is more or less the same.”

Archive material

The library makes material available to the media, from the latest news reports shot by the Commission’s audiovisual service to the thousands of images and hours of film stored in the archive. These can be downloaded from the library’s website, or ordered over the phone or in person at a ‘front desk’ in the Berlaymont. With everything supplied at no cost, there is a strong public-service ethos. “We don’t work just for our own purposes and for the history of the institution,” Musial says. “Everything that we keep is ultimately for the media and EU citizens.”

As well as responding to specific requests, the library puts together packages of material on particular themes. ‘Infoclips’ lasting around five minutes illustrate forthcoming news events, while ‘memoclips’ delve into the archive to the same end. Longer packages of around 45 minutes, called stockshots, address longer-term issues. Popular recent titles have dealt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and climate change. Another frequent download looks at the history of the Commission from 1958 to 2008.

Journalists can pick and choose what they use from these packages and there is no calculated editorial spin, although Musial concedes that some people are suspicious of the library’s role. “Of course, we try to show positive things, that’s normal; but it’s not propaganda in the negative sense. In any case, that’s not our objective.” And, where possible, the library tries to respond to broadcasters’ requests. “They want information about the policies of the Commission and not just heads of state shaking hands with the commissioners.”

Copyright questions

As head of the library, Musial’s job involves a good deal of administration, as well as thinking about the preservation of the archive and maintaining rules for documenting and indexing the material. The library is also the central repository for film and video produced by other Commission directorates, and is the in-house authority on questions of copyright.

Despite this wide range of activities, Musial remains a librarian at heart. “I like to organise the collection. I’m happy when my database is up to date and I can find everything I’ve put in.”

He refuses to be drawn on whether there are untold stories hidden on level minus four. “For me, as a librarian, one document has the same value as all the others.”

A dusty image clings to librarians, but in the audiovisual library, Musial says, “you are really close to the news, you have a lot of contact with journalists and the outside world. You see what you are working for, it’s not just papers that you have in front of you. The things you produce are used”.

Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

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