Management of Australian film collection is based on Tamino
XML database
Cinemedia, the film, television, and new media organization for
Australia's state of Victoria, is building an XML-based cataloging and
management system for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image
(ACMI).
When ACMI, opens in Melbourne's Federation Square in late 2001, it
will be home to the world's first screen gallery, which has been
purpose-built as a laboratory for presenting and researching digital
media. Cinemedia is testing Software AG's XML-based Tamino platform as
an integral part of its system to manage the collection for the screen
gallery, which is dedicated to presenting electronic and digital
screen arts, including virtual reality and three-dimensional spaces.
Visitors to ACMI will be able to experience moving images through
hundreds of screens using the latest in sight and sound technology. At
the click of a button, they will be able to discover more about any of
the film, video and digital screen art titles in the ACMI collection
via the Tamino platform. They could also call up clips or stills, or
other works by the creator.
While visitors will have to wait until ACMI opens to try out the
system, Cinemedia is already using Tamino to make available the
massive volume of information about each title, known as a title
record.
Every title record in the ACMI collection contains rich metadata,
or information about the title. The metadata content includes
information about the work such as date, creator and context, as well
as back of house documentation relating to its acquisition, such as
rights negotiation and price.
Cinemedia worked with Software AG on a pilot project to create an
online entry form to help generate these rich metadata sets contained
within the title records.
That tool was used as a basis for the online entry form they use
now. "Over the past year, we have been developing our
understanding of the role that XML can play in the delivery of our
collection management services," Cinemedia Collections Manager Dr
Simon Pockley said. While the metadata enables Cinemedia to see all
the information about each title "back of house" to enhance
its collection management, it is able to tailor the information the
public will see.
"Obviously we don't want the entire title record exposed to
public view. We will protect the intellectual property and
confidentiality of the title record by cherry picking the data
displayed to the public," Dr Pockley said.
The demands of Cinemedia's lending operations and legacy databases,
which span 90,000 moving image titles in five collections, meant it
had limited resources to apply to the ACMI development, which is
supported by Australia's Federal Government through the Federation
Fund and the State Government of Victoria. It sought a simple,
scalable, rapid, low cost development tool that would integrate its
legacy databases and systems.
It wanted a non-proprietary technical environment that it could
understand and manage. Software AG's Tamino, a comprehensive set of
products for building enterprise-scale, XML-based applications, met
all the criteria.
"Software AG helped to clarify our perceptions of what was
possible with XML," Dr Pockley said. "They showed us how
robust Tamino is; how we can make multiple calls on it in a screen
gallery where there are several hundred screens. That's important -
you need an XML server that can handle 100 people calling on it for
information about a work.
Following the success of the pilot, Cinemedia and Software AG are
looking at even more ways to use the data, including distributing the
information held in the metadata and other databases to the Web.
"Our intention is to explore a range of other delivery
systems, such as the footnote screens for exhibition displays, the use
of voice, and catalogs," Dr Pockley said. "This platform can
deliver much richer content. We could do cut down versions of data for
a catalog that we can generate on the fly.
Because the collection can change so quickly, Tamino will play a
key role in filling this real need to be able to generate things as we
go." The Tamino XML platform could eventually enable ACMI to
access works from other moving image collections around the world, Dr
Pockley added.
"If you have similar cultural institutions using the same
standard, you can start opening the doors to each other's
catalogs," he said. "Eventually, the world opens up beyond
the titles in our catalog. We can look at distributed collections,
exhibitions and programming. "This means we won't be restricted
by what we hold in our collections, and for researchers, curators and
visitors that's great. That's where we're heading and Software AG's
Tamino is flexible enough to accommodate these future
possibilities."
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