Finding and Using Moving Images In Context

Northeast Historic Film is putting twenty years of Moving Image Review online. We are designing a structure for the public to find and use, in interactive form, Moving Image Review, all issues of our twice-yearly publication (1988-present). The online publication—intended to integrate past and future issues—will enrich understanding of the historical record of our region by providing access to records of people, places, and organizations related to moving images. Moving Image Review is a comprehensive account of twenty years of connecting scholars and the public with regional film and video.
LINK TO MAINE HUMANITIES COUNCIL FINAL REPORT MAY 2008

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Northeast Historic Film’s Moving Image Review Online
MIDPOINT REPORT, 10 JAN 2008
Karan Sheldon, Project Director
Teeter Bibber, Digital Projects Manager

“Northeast Historic Film’s Moving Image Review Online” was funded by the Maine Humanities Council for work between July 2007 and June 2008. This is the midpoint report for participants.

The report is structured in three parts: work completed, in progress, and to come.
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COMPLETED

Moving Image Review Digitization
All issues of Moving Image Review published between 1988 and 2007 have been digitized and are available online. Rick Prelinger arranged for 36 issues to be digitized and served at the Internet Archive. Copies may be viewed and searched in these versions: DjVu, PDF, B/W PDF, TXT, Full Text, Flip Book, FTP. Here is the raw digitized material.

The text created at the Internet Archive with optical character recognition has been manually cleaned and each individual issue exists as a text file in our project work server.

XML Markup
XML markup of the Summer 1998 MIR sample issue completed. Sample XML article shows further processing not necessary for quotes and apostrophes. We are considering whether it is useful to write a PERL script to streamline the markup of all issues.

Indexing
The indexing to be completed in the project has been defined as follows:

INDEX NAME / SOURCE / STATUS

Article types / new local list / complete
NHF Collections / names derived from ProCite in-house database / complete
Geographical names / New list coordinated with Maine Memory Network and Windows on Maine / in discussion

Personal names New local list / Karan create browse list Genre ProCite genre terms from LC Karan create browse list in January
Keywords / ProCite subject terms, mostly LCSH / Karan create browse list

The “Article Types” list is below. Indexing of all articles by article type is complete.

“NHF Collections” named throughout all issues of Moving Image Review have been identified in a table stored in the project server. Approximately 175 individual collections cited in a single sentence or longer passage are indexed; the most often cited is the Kattelle Collection with more than two dozen appearances.

In addition to the six types of indexing above, we have decided to identify and tag in two other ways:

1. “Special Topics,” subjects of significance that occur throughout Moving Image Review.
Amateur film
Community cinema
Early film (pre-1920)
Feature films
Immigration and travel
Independent films and filmmakers
Movie queens (itinerant film series)
Technology

2. “Outquotes,” coastal, rural, and environmental topics with a visual emphasis, such as Jean the Vitagraph dog digging clams.

Digital Video
The sample video from the Hackett Collection from film shot at the Western Maine Sanatorium in the 1930s, subject of article in the Summer 1998 Moving Image Review, is digitized and served from Windows on Maine at the University of Maine, Fogler Library. Marilyn Lutz, Director, Library Information Systems Planning at the University of Maine System Libraries, agrees to serve additional footage in QuickTime.

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IN PROGRESS

Indexing
Indexing questions in discussion with partners; discussing how to deal with geographical terms to take advantage of Maine Memory Network and Windows on Maine existing work.

Maine Memory Network
Meetings have discussed exhibit creation and inclusion of video in Maine Memory Network. Candace Kanes and Erik Jorgensen have met about the Hackett Collection tuberculosis sanatorium exhibit for MMN. Jorgensen will record an audio narration. Kanes and Jorgensen will confer with Sheldon and Gemma Perretta on clip selection for the exhibit. Perretta will coordinate MPEG4 changes or additions with Marilyn Lutz at Windows on Maine.
Maine Memory Network is anticipating Sitebuilder program delivery in January, one piece of the MMN album toolkit enabling easy display of pages with text, stills, audio and video. February discussion to be scheduled on how pieces fit together. [Sheldon and Bibber will visit MMN for demon on April 14, 2008]

Text Encoding Initiative
TEI, structured XML for issues and articles is in draft form. Corpus header and article markup will be used for transformable XML documents.

Design
Design meetings with Robert Denton, Bowdoin College Senior Media and Design Consultant, in the fall and meeting January 24 to define the MIR Online interface layout. See Page 7 for sketch of results page.

PBCore Metadata
Andrea Leigh, Metadata Librarian at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, is helping upgrade NHF moving-image metadata to contemporary standards. Her work prepares us for creating new records incorporating the PBCore metadata schema. Sean Savage, recent NHF staff member now in California, is working on the Hackett Collection record.

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TO COME

MIC
The Association of Moving Image Archivists and Library of Congress’s collaboratively-developed Moving Image Collections MIC initiative is in technology transfer to the Culpeper facility. Jane Otto has been talking with Library of Congress staff and administrators about MIC; AMIA board will discuss MIC in January conference call.

Announcements
Notify libraries and other institutions via our email list and the Maine Cultural Listserv as this grant is completed, directing their communities to the new service and its connection to our Online Collections Guide and videos in Windows on Maine.

Maine Public Broadcasting
We provide content to the Maine Public Broadcasting Network with clips now available as QuickTime and Windows Media in their Maine Experience series.
Meeting January 24 with Chris Sweet to discuss joint work on continuing education.

Advisor Jan-Christopher Horak, PhD. has been appointed Director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. He will review and comment on the initial interface.

Advisor Paige Lilly, Archivist, William S. Cohen Papers at Fogler Library, University of Maine. Member of the Maine Historical Records Advisory Board. Will review XML, indexing, and initial interface.

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SUSTAINABILITY AND NEXT PROJECTS

NEH Digital Startup
Received $28,000 for “Finding and Using Moving Images in Context,” September 2007 through August 2008. Project also using Greenstone digital library software and will build on digital library structure and metadata created in this project. Weekly project blog at http://movingimagereview.org/miic/

Metadata Structure
The final report will include recommendations for moving image metadata emerging from the work and discussions among NHF staff and project consultants Andrea Leigh and Sean Savage.
PBCore/ProCite OCG report and completed scoping for new project.

NEH Preservation and Access
Will talk to NEH staff about submitting an implementation proposal (proposal due July 2008 for May 2009-May 2011 implementation?)

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MIR ARTICLE TYPES (Oct 29 2007)
Access
Advisors (list)
Alamo Building
Big Caption [photo with long caption, no story]
Caption
Board of Directors (list)
Collections
Collections Use
Development & Campaign
Distribution
Education
Events & Exhibition
Executive Director’s Report
Field News
Further Reading
Grants in Action
In Memoriam
Interview
Letters & Poetry
Loan or Reference by Mail
Museum
Members (list)
Moviegoing History
NHF Essentials [to include Statement of Purpose?]
Outreach
Preservation
Staff (list) [Staff includes unpaid, i.e., Volunteers]
Storage
Symposium
Technical Services
Theme
Time Line