Audiovisual materials - smith-special-collections/sc-documentation GitHub Wiki

This page provides guidance on describing audiovisual material in both analog and born-digital form. For information on physical handing (including labeling and housing), see the Media Labeling and housing procedures

There are two key fields we use to track A/V materials, and to clearly describe them to users: Titles and Extents

Title

Title should always include a word or brief phrase that identifies the form of communication (e.g., video recording) that the material takes, but not the exact carrier (e.g., VHS). It also should describe the content. For example:

Video recordings of episodes 1-210

"You and your mother" sound recording

The following are examples of a/v formats, which should be included in titles:

• video recording
• film recording
• sound recording

The why behind this practice: Users need to know the form of communication to understand whether a resource fits their research needs. Interacting with ArchivesSpace via the PUI rather than via a traditional finding aid can make users miss hierarchical context. Although repeating communication form through lower hierarchical levels is not required by DACS, it follows AMIA and FIAF descriptive standards. This allows finding aid metadata to be more easily repurposed for outsourced reformatting. The why behind using the term film recording rather than the AAT term motion picture: but we find that term too ambiguous. Laypeople understand that term mostly to mean feature films rather than anything recorded on film.

Formal titles should be italicized and capitalized.

The Sound of Music video recording

Creator devised, informal titles taken from item labels should be in quotation marks.

"Jane's dance recital" film recording

Extent

Extent should indicate the number of items being described, as well as a plain-English description of the carriers at a minimum. Examples:

Number: 2 Type: Items Container Summary: Two Beta-SP videocassettes

Number: 60 Type: Items Container Summary: 30 VHS cassette tapes and 30 DVDs

Optional information that may be included in a more detailed extent statement includes:

• transcription of the item's label
  • include in the Container Summary after the plain-English description of the carriers and preceded by a semicolon
• information on color content ("color" or "black and white"), sound content ("sound" or "silent"), film type (e.g. acetate), or sound type (e.g. fullcoat mag)
  • include in the Physical Details section of the extent statement, in the following order, with each piece of information separated by a space semicolon space: color content ; sound content ; film type ; sound type
• dimensions of the film gauge
  • include in the Dimensions section of the extent statement and spell out the dimension label (“inch” not “in.” or ‘). Note that "mm" is not considered an abbreviation.

Examples:

1 items (1 film reel; label reads "Introduction to the Enemy, 2B Head Cap") : color ; silent ; acetate ; 16mm

Add an extent for the runtime if known. Example:

Number: 00:32:46 Type: HH:MM:SS_duration

The following are examples of a/v carriers, which should be included in extent container summaries:

• VHS videocassettes
• Audiocassettes
• LPs

The why behind this practice: We can report out on number and carriers of our audiovisual content to better understand what we have and to know where material that may need reformatting is in our collections.

If all lower-level data follows current practices for extents, add aggregate higher level extent records (subseries, series, collection). To avoid misleading researchers, do not create aggregate extent statements if you are unsure whether all audiovisual material was given extent records.