Audiovisual and Multimedia Content in the Curriculum for Librarianship Studies at the University of LeÛn in Spain

Abstract

Within the framework of its programmes in Librarianship and Information Studies, the University of Leon offers the course ‘Analysis of Document Content’, which has as its aim the treatment of documentary messages with a view to their retrieval. The third module of the course concentrates on representation and retrieval of sound, visual, audiovisual and multimedia materials. Prior to undertaking documentary study of audiovisual materials, the peculiarities of the sound and iconic codes are explained. Students are then introduced to the analysis of audiovisual materials, which mix image and sound, have a time dimension and are not directly decodifiable by the senses. Finally, the specific characteristics of digital materials are covered, one of the chief of these being their multimedia nature, bringing together text, image and sound. The separation between contents and medium leads such materials to be both compound (different codes) and distributed (stored in several files), as well as dynamic (easily modifiable). These characteristics imply new requirements in handling them which are sketched out as a corollary of this subject.