Visualizing television archives

Abstract

All three authors are affiliated with WGBH in Boston. Courtney Michael is project manager and can be reached at courtney_michael<at>wgbh.org. Mayo Todorovic is an interactive designer and can be reached at mayo_todorovic<at>wgbh.org. Chris Beer is web developer and can be reached at chris_beer<at>wgbh.org.T his article will outline efforts by the WGBH Media Library and Archives (MLA) and the WGBH Interactive team to create online access points into our multimedia archive using innovative visualization techniques that create visual alternatives to traditional search, browse and faceted navigation and that highlight WGBH's rich media collections. The main objective in this effort is to allow scholarly researchers to access the collections, search and pinpoint useful records and discover related items they may want to explore. It has been an interesting challenge to strike a careful balance between allowing for targeted search and passive browse while also providing for serendipitous discovery opportunities. The depth of metadata essential for our expert audience led to our use of linked data in our cataloging processes, which enabled further experimentation with visualization.

A consumer perspective on moving images: The design and adoption of public audiovisual heritage services in the Netherlands

“…The material in the archive can be meaningful and useful for a variety of user groups (Oomen et al, 2009). The material that is stored in the archive is valuable to for example media professionals (Huurnink et al, 2010), educational institutions (Michael et al, 2009), and broadcasters themselves. This research focuses on services aimed at a residential user.…”

Crowdsourcing the indexing of film and television media

“…Although not focused on narrative film, a current project at Boston's PBS station, WGBH, serves scholars by providing online access to their in‐house generated media content (Michael, Todorovic, & Beer, 2009). They have found that scholars working with media have different needs than educators or the general public, and seek an “intense level” of information about resources (p. 22).…”

Digital Archiving Practices in Audiovisual Archives: An Exploration of the Use of Media Asset Management Systems in Television Broadcasting Organizations

“…One tangible consequence of this recognition is the increased demand by academics wanting access to television programmes for research purposes (Bergeron, 1986;Michael, Todorovic, & Beer, 2009;Smeaton et al, 2004). For an example of a request for archival news footage for academic research see Appendix I.…”

“…Moreover the proliferation of digital content necessitates a high standard of search precision in order to isolate the desired material (M. Addis, Lowe, & Middleton, 2009;Viana & Alves, 2009). In addition, there is an increasing expectation that access is greatly improved when audio-visual content is digital (Bergeron, 2007;Rubin, 2011;Sandom & Enser, 2003) especially among members of the public (Wylie, 2007), academics (Auffret & Prié, 1999;Gray & Sheppard, 2004;Kirkegaard Lunn, 2009;Michael et al, 2009) and professional users of images (Jörgensen & Jörgensen, 2005;McCay-Peet & Toms, 2009). While these three user groups feature prominently in the research there is much less research that focuses on how archivists search their collections.…”