Today I had the chance to present on PBCore, the metadata schema we are using for the Inventory Project, as part of a workshop on Describing Moving Images. If you are interested in learning more about PBCore I’ve posted my slides here: NHF_PBCore_WGBH.pdf

If you are interested in learning about describing moving images on a larger scale, check out all of the presenters slides posted here on the web site of Northeast Historic Film, the workshop organizer. Thank you to Karan Sheldon for organizing the workshop as part of their CLIR Hidden Collections grant and to co-presenters Andrea Leigh from the Library of Congress and Northeast Historic Film’s own Brian Graney.

Most of the workshop attendees worked at libraries and archives and came to the workshop to learn what to do with their moving image collections. We find that often in “traditional” archives and libraries, the media materials fall to the bottom of the priority list because the standards and expertise needed for cataloging and preserving these materials are specialized and not necessarily part of existing staff knowledge. For example, Brian cited an Association of Research Libraries report, “Special Collections in ARL Libraries,” which found that in academic libraries, 35–37% of the audiovisual holdings are unprocessed or uncataloged and therefore inaccessible to users.

Inventory participants should know that I used the American Archive Inventory Project as an example of how PBCore is currently being used to create and exchange metadata about moving images (and radio!). As of yesterday we have gathered close to 700,000 records in the inventory and stations, libraries, producers and archives reported 3.2 million public media assets existing nationwide.

As the American Archive grows and matures, it is exciting to share our public media knowledge of our collections, of our broadcast and archives practices, and our lessons learned with the wider library and archive community of practice.

PS: There’s still time to register for the next PBCore Workshop coming up in November at the Association of Moving Image Archivists conference in Austin, Texas, taught by our public media colleagues Jack Brighton, Kara Van Malssen, Dave Rice and Brian Graney.