Cinematographic Works: Standards for Cataloguing and Indexing

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global conferences and workshops, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices.

FIAF
Founded in Paris in 1938, FIAF is a collaborative association of the world's leading film archives whose purpose has always been to ensure the proper preservation and showing of motion pictures. Today, more than 120 archives in over 65 countries collect, restore, and exhibit films and cinema documentation spanning the entire history of film.
The FIAF Cataloguing Rules (1991) are available online.

IFLA - Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) Review Group
The IFLA Cataloging Section formed in 2002 a Working Group on FRBR, in order to provide a focal point within IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) for the ongoing support and development of the conceptual model, and to encourage the implementation of FRBR as a data model and a reference model for the bibliographic universe.

International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CIDOC)
The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation.
The CIDOC CRM is intended to promote a shared understanding of cultural heritage information by providing a common and extensible semantic framework that any cultural heritage information can be mapped to. It is intended to be a common language for domain experts and implementers to formulate requirements for information systems and to serve as a guide for good practice of conceptual modelling. In this way, it can provide the "semantic glue" needed to mediate between different sources of cultural heritage information, such as that published by museums, libraries and archives.
The CIDOC CRM is the culmination of over 10 years work by the CIDOC Documentation Standards Working Group and CIDOC CRM SIG which are working groups of CIDOC. It is currently being elaborated by the International Standards Organisation as Draft International Standard ISO/DIS 21127 and the CIDOC CRM Special Interest Group to become an ISO standard.

ISO - International Organization for Standardization
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer of standards. Although ISO's principal activity is the development of technical standards, ISO standards also have important economic and social repercussions. ISO standards make a positive difference, not just to engineers and manufacturers for whom they solve basic problems in production and distribution, but to society as a whole.

Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS)
The METS schema is a standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata regarding objects within a digital library, expressed using the XML schema language of the World Wide Web Consortium. The standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress, and is being developed as an initiative of the Digital Library Federation.

Moving Image Collections (MIC)
MIC provides a technology base and informational resources to support research, collaboration, preservation, and education for archivists, exhibitors, educators, and the general public. More information provides a short overview by Jane D. Johnson (2003) and the MIC Project Site.
There is also a comprehensive collection of content standards available.

MPEG - Moving Picture Experts Group
MPEG is a working group of ISO, the International Organisation for Standardisation. Its formal name is ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11. The title is: Coding of moving pictures and audio. The are of work assigned to it is: Development of international standards for compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of moving pictures, audio, and their combination, in order to satisfy a wide variety of applications.
Established in 1988, the group has produced MPEG-1, the standard on which such products as Video CD and MP3 are based, MPEG-2, the standard on which such products as Digital Television set top boxes and DVD are based, MPEG-4, the standard for multimedia for the fixed and mobile web, MPEG-7, the standard for description and search of audio and visual content and MPEG-21, the Multimedia Framework.

MXF and AAF
MXF is the Material eXchange Format – a streamable file format for audio-visual content with metadata. The format is being developed jointly by the Pro-MPEG Forum and the AAF Association. MXF is in the process of being standardised by the SMPTE.
The AAF Association, along with the Pro-MPEG Forum and the SMPTE, is a co-creator of MXF. AAF and MXF combine to offer a well-rounded, complementary solution to the complex problems involved in the interchange and movement of media throughout the post production and distribution processes. AAF is primarily intended for post production interchange and supports external content references and downstream processing (such as effect, fades, etc.); whereas, MXF is primarily intended for storage, broadcast and play-out interchange of complete programs.
Related Links: Wikipedia

OAIS Reference Model
ISO has encouraged the development of standards in support of the long term preservation of digital information obtained from observations of the terrestrial and space environments. ISO requested that the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Panel 2 coordinate the development of those standards. (CCSDS has subsequently reorganized and the work is now situated in the Data Archive Ingest (DAI) Working Group.)
The initial effort has been the development of a Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). The OAIS Reference Model has been reviewed and pending some editorial updates, It has been approved as an ISO Standard and as a CCSDS Recommendation.
The development history of this effort can be seen by surveying the many past US, French, British and International workshops. With the growing acceptance of the OAIS Reference Model, attention is turning to identifying and starting additional archival standardization efforts. This is reflected in the Digital Archive Directions (DADs) Workshop and the Archival Workshop on Ingest, Identification, and Certification Standards (AWIICS).

Pro-MPEG Forum
The Professional-MPEG Forum is an association of broadcasters and program-makers, equipment manufacturers and component suppliers with interests in realizing interoperability of professional television equipment, according to the implementation requirements of broadcasters and other end-users.
The Forum has been in existence for approximately 6 years and has over 130 members from all over the world.
Independence, openness and non commerciality are fiercely maintained to ensure all organizations and individuals can participate and contribute. The SMPTE and the EBU are two key partner organizations and the output of the Forum's work on operating ranges and file formats has been submitted to SMPTE for standardization.

Numbering systems

ISAN International Agency (International Standard Audiovisual Number)
The ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number) is a voluntary numbering system for the identification of audiovisual works. It provides a unique, internationally recognized and permanent reference number for each audiovisual work registered in the ISAN system.
The ISAN identifies works, not publications or broadcasts. The ISAN remains the same for an audiovisual work regardless of the various formats in which the work is distributed (e.g. DVD, video recording) or the uses to which it is put.

Certain Aspects:

TV
Datenmodell für Fernsehproduktionen (deutsch)

Die AG Multimediales Datenmodell wird Erfassungs- und Erschließungsregeln zu digitalen, mono- und multimedialen Produktionen von ARD und ZDF, die in den Bereichen Hörfunk, Fernsehen und Online erzeugt und verwendet werden, verbindlich festlegen.

Die Ergebnisse werden im Dezember 2005 der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert werden.

Digital Rights Management

Adelphi Charter on creativity, innovation and intellectual property
The Adelphi Charter was prepared by an International Commission of experts from the arts, creative industries, human rights, law, economics, science, R&D, technology, the public sector and education.

Creative-Common-Lizenz
Creative Commons offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. We have built upon the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright to create a voluntary "some rights reserved" copyright. We're a nonprofit. All of our tools are free.

Identifier systems and authority files

Digital Object Identifier System
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identifying content objects in the digital environment. DOIs are names assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about a digital object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI will not change.
The DOI system provides a framework for persistent identification, managing intellectual content, managing metadata, linking customers with content suppliers, facilitating electronic commerce, and enabling automated management of media. DOIs can be used for any form of management of any data, whether commercial or non-commercial.
The system is managed by the International DOI Foundation, an open membership consortium including both commercial and non-commercial partners, and has recently been accepted for standardisation within ISO. Several million DOIs have been assigned by DOI Registration Agencies in the US, Australasia, and Europe.
A DOI can be used to identify any resource involved in an intellectual property transaction. Intellectual property includes both physical and digital manifestations, performances and abstract works. An entity can be identified at any arbitrary level of granularity. DOIs can be used to identify, for example, text, audio, images, software, etc; and in future could be used to identify the agreements and parties involved

TGN (Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names)
The TGN is a structured vocabulary currently containing around 1,102,000 names and other information about places. Names for a place may include names in the vernacular language, English, other languages, historical names, names and in natural order and inverted order. Among these names, one is flagged as the preferred name.
The focus of each TGN record is a place. There are around 911,000 places in the TGN. In the database, each place record (also called a subject in this manual) is identified by a unique numeric ID. Linked to the record for the place are names, the place's parent or position in the hierarchy, other relationships, geographic coordinates, notes, sources for the data, and place types, which are terms describing the role of the place (e.g., inhabited place and state capital). The temporal coverage of the TGN ranges from prehistory to the present and the scope is global.

Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN)
The ULAN is a structured vocabulary currently containing around 259,000 names and other information about artists. Names in ULAN may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names). Among these names, one is flagged as the preferred name.
The focus of each ULAN record is an artist. Currently there are around 118,000 artists in the ULAN. In the database, each artist record (also called a subject in this manual) is identified by a unique numeric ID. Linked to each artist record are names, related artists, sources for the data, and notes. The temporal coverage of the ULAN ranges from Antiquity to the present and the scope is global.

LEAF (Linking and Exploring Authority Files)
LEAF (Linking and Exploring Authority Files) is a three year project that started in March 2001. It is co-funded within the Information Society Technologies Programme of the Fifth Framework of the European Commission. LEAF develops a model architecture for establishing links between distributed authority records and providing access to them. The system allows uploads of the distributed authorities to the central system and automatically links those authorities concerning the same entity.
Information which is retrieved as a result of a query will be stored in a pan-European "Central Name Authority File". This file will grow with each query and at the same time will reflect what data records are relevant to the LEAF users. Libraries and archives wanting to improve authority information will thus be able to prioritise their editing work. Registered users will be able to post annotations to particular data records in the LEAF system, to search for annotations, and to download records in various formats.

Standards - Modelling and Ontologies

Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) provides a good survey.

FRBR Review Group

6-Feb-2006, jk