Traits and trajectories of audiovisual documentation: achievements, challenges and chimeras

Abstract

Although many analogic audiovisual archives are still awaiting a digitization project that guarantees their preservation and public access, a massive generation of audiovisual content is taking place, once the source has completed the transition to digital production and distribution. The demand for an increasingly diversified production at TV stations is leading to the need to prioritize image retrieval from the archives for reuse. Efficient alternatives for automatic metadata extraction, indexing and searching are sought, and text information to describe images continues to be necessary. The documentary image processing is extremely costly in human resources, with dedication times of two, three or even more times the length of the treated material. In parallel, part of the audiovisual production is indexed during the production process by people other than archivists, librarians or information scientists. Therefore, a transformation of the traditional tasks carried out by the above mentioned professionals is becoming more evident; on the other hand, these professionals continue to be isolated and less hybridized than expected with other labor profiles.