Introduction to Audiovisual Archives

Today, audiovisual archives and libraries have become very popular especially in the field of collecting, preserving and transmitting cultural heritage. However, the data from these archives or libraries – videos, images, sound tracks, etc. – constitute as such only potential cognitive resources for a given public (or “target community”). They have to undergo more or less significant qualitative transformations in order to become user- or community-relevant intellectual goods.<br> These qualitative transformations are performed through a series of concrete operations such as: audiovisual text segmentation, content description and indexing, pragmatic profiling, translation, etc. These and other operations constitute what we call the semiotic turn in dealing with digital (audiovisual) texts, corpora of texts or even entire (audiovisual) archives and libraries. They demonstrate practically and theoretically the well-known “from data to meta-data” or “from (simple) information to (relevant) knowledge” problem – a problem that obviously directly influences the effective use, the social impact and relevancy and therefore also the future of digital knowledge archives.<br> It constitutes, indeed, the heart of a diversity of important R&D programs and projects all over the world.Content: <br>Chapter 1 Context and Issues (pages 1–30): Peter Stockinger, Elisabeth De Pablo and Francis Lemaitre<br>Chapter 2 The Segmentation Workshop for Audiovisual Resources (pages 33–48): Elisabeth de Pablo<br>Chapter 3 Description Workshop for Audiovisual Corpora (pages 49–66): Muriel Chemouny<br>Chapter 4 Analysis of Audiovisual Expression (pages 67–86): Elisabeth de Pablo and Jirasri Deslis<br>Chapter 5 Analysis of the Audiovisual Content (pages 87–126): Peter Stockinger<br>Chapter 6 Uses of an Audiovisual Resource (pages 127–142): Muriel Chemouny and Primsuda Sakunthabai<br>Chapter 7 Model of an Audiovisual Publication in the form of a Web Portal (pages 143–168): Jirasri Deslis<br>Chapter 8 The ASW Digital Environment (pages 171–202): Francis Lemaitre<br>Chapter 9 The ASW Studio (pages 203–224): Francis Lemaitre<br>Chapter 10 The Technical Development of the “Web Portal” Publishing Model (pages 225–242): Richard Guerinet