Online Access to Advertising Films and TV-Commercials

Maria Hvid Stenalt

doi:10.18352/lq.7988

Abstract

The audiovisual cultural heritage is a valuable collection that both reflects contemporary developments in the 20th century and at the same time is a source material for research. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the State and University Library established a digital archive for Danish film and TV-commercials, why the collection is important, and how it became available online to students and researchers. The process presents a number of challenges including copyright and technical issues. The scalable and integrated service may be used for other audiovisual collections in the future.

Highlights

‘Audiovisual sources will play an increasingly pervasive role in our lives, and there will be a growing need to have these sources processed further’ (Manovich, 2009)
One of the audiovisual sources we need to preserve and process, is advertising films and TV-commercials, even if there is a discrepancy between these sources and those we may define as cultural products in general
It is a national library and among other things receives a copy of all Danish publications; it manages the collection of national newspapers and national media and is the national loan centre for public libraries

Summary

Introduction

‘Audiovisual sources will play an increasingly pervasive role in our lives, and there will be a growing need to have these sources processed further’ (Manovich, 2009). The Danish collection of advertising films and TV-commercials is preserved by the State and University Library in Denmark. The State and University Library is an institution of the Danish Ministry of Culture and has three important roles to play It is a national library and among other things receives a copy of all Danish publications (whether in printed or in digital form); it manages the collection of national newspapers and national media and is the national loan centre for public libraries. Long before 2004, the State and University Library began building a comprehensive collection of advertising films and TV-commercials to ensure the preservation of Danish media cultural heritage and to accommodate an increasing number of research projects dealing with commercials. Lack of national focus or policy typically results in loss of material and loss of national heritage (Wylie, 2006)

Commercials as Cultural Heritage and Documentation

Digitising an Audiovisual Collection

System Integration and Searching