Media asset retrieval systems. Sponsored by SIG CR, SIG USE, SIG DL, SIG HCI, SIG VIS

Abstract

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and public broadcasters consider Media Asset Management (MAM) of critical importance since without a concerted and cooperative plan to manage their vast library of content, broadcasters are unable to reach their potential for service in the digital age. The concerns for Media Asset Management, human and technical, are myriad. Media Asset Management is the framework upon which many of the largest technology projects will be built, including the future interconnection system between and among CPB member stations. It is CPB's hope that its licensees and their partners in university, museum, and library communities, will work together to contribute to Media Asset Management solutions. This panel will present some of the complex issues around Media Asset Management and possible solutions to the problems as well as show the breath of research projects in the area. The issues include metadata, indexing, controlled vocabularies, storage and access methods, rights management, technological infrastructure requirements, and interoperability. To highlight these issues we will use as an example the Media Asset Retrieval System (MARS) project. The goal of this project is to create a model for representing, organizing, storing, and facilitating access to public audio (radio) and audiovisual (television) broadcast material via the Internet. The immediate goal for MARS is to produce a digital online resource that will provide access to material produced by public broadcasters in the Puget Sound Region (KUOW and KCTS). The material will be made available to students, teachers, media, and the general public through the King County Library System and Seattle Public Library System. The mission of the Convergence Consortium guides the MARS project. The Convergence Consortium is a working collaborative between public broadcasters, public libraries, K-12 schools and the Information School of the University of Washington that meet to assess the needs of their constituents and propose solutions that will be developed to meet those needs. The MARS project is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Television Future Fund and it falls within the context of major decisions about Media Asset Management in public broadcasting. It is the intent that the MARS project will produce a reference document that will help public broadcast stations make decisions about media asset management as it relates to audio and audiovisual information retrieval. The MARS team will analyze the current systems and their contexts and design a retrieval system for the KUOW and KCTS broadcasters that will facilitate access to the broadcast material. The search system will support advanced knowledge organization techniques and search algorithms to facilitate retrieval of the broadcast material. The MARS project ties togther some of the critical issues in Media Asset Management and approaches these problems from an information science perspective.