Media collections on the World Wide Web

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Universal Preservation Format: User Survey

1. One of the issues involved with container initiatives is how might a specific technical specification impact access to media collections through the World Wide Web. Already one may observe a trend in the software industry in which middleware or intranet products are being adapted for more general use. The latest versions of popular database software are also providing built-in HTML tools and translators. Archival media files and/or information about those files might be available through both database applications and web browsers.

How do you envision using the World Wide Web in respect to your media collections?

We plan to use an intranet and/or the internet via a browser as The method for searching the index and retrieving audio (both linear audio and reduced bandwidth versions for browsing) from our digital archive. - Baker

As a research library, we are responsible for using whatever method is most appropriate for giving our patrons access to the material they need in a timely fashion. - Carli

Downloadable data in multiple formats -- not just video. - Conrad

The Web is a wonderful way to help researchers find out about collection materials, and can feature materials as exhibits, but it is not a substitute for the reading room. - Hadley

Our image library is on the intranet and to get it there we must go from Access through Cold Fusion to make it Web Happy. We are looking into products (like Cumulus) to find a one-stepper which will still meet all of our database needs and successfully support our web site. - Hamal

...making a robust, viable UPF would be a major contribution and that making UPF "web smart" might not be worth the trouble. In other words: once you get a UPF up and running, let www software engineers figure out how to best leverage the format. - Messier

The Web for our organization will probably be used as a catalog for our picture collection, providing access to low resolution versions of our images. - Pollock

It's a question of time. As the infrastructure becomes able to handle it (the "information highway" as opposed to the Web) it will be possible to have more and more layers available on line, and I feel it is desirable to have them all. - Turner

We are currently constrained by legal, ethical and technology issues that make it hard to predict how we will use WWW for both our sound and multi-media collections. For example, the oral history collection contains a majority of material for which networked transmission has not been approved - this is a significant ethical issue even when we overcome the technological difficulties of passing huge sound files through the network. Likewise, for multi-media publications we face copyright and licencing constraints which may or may not be addressed with technology-based security devices.
Of course, for our archive of online publications, the Web is the means of providing access, both to the bibliographic information and to the publication itself. - Webb

I would like to "deliver" some video images so that text alone does not describe the item. But I do intend to put the finding aids on the Web as well. - Wilson

We are part of the EC-sponsored Euromedia project, developing automated indexing and retrieval tools to support online, realtime video delivery in `preview' quality. We expect to have LIMITED amounts of video online; we already have approx 70k online stills, delivered via intranet to registered users of the system. - Wright

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