No, we're not making this up. In 1949—long before anyone had even dreamt of the term "New Media"—the UN adopted an agreement on "the international circulation of visual and auditory materials of an educational, scientific and cultural character."

  Now you might have a sudden respect for the A-V Squad, thinking it's really the media equivalent of UN peacekeeping troops, but this agreement is basically concerned with customs and importation.

  The Convention covers all the standard materials you'd expect to find in the A-V room: films, filmstrips, microfilms, sound recordings, slides, charts, maps and posters—but not to say how the devices are to be used, or what should be shown to whom, and when.

The agreement says that if these materials are educational, scientific or cultural in nature, they are exempted from customs and other taxes when they're imported.

  But that doesn't mean you shouldn't respect the stalwart members of the A-V squad.