Report of the Library Technology Officer

May 2003

Vanderbilt Television News Archive

Off-air recording

Web server access

676 new customers registered on the website
67,592 total entries in activity log
13,282 views of the home page
3,930 views of the search page
6,225 searches executed
2,142 Calenadars viewed
20,940individual records viewed
6,528 program listings viewed

Abstracting and Database Maintenance

Visitors

The Archive had visitors from CBS News on May 29th.

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Loan Requests filled

View the Cumulative Table of Statistics for the Archive's activities.

Publicity

The Television News Archive is the subject of the "Vanderbilt Holdings" feature in the Spring 2003 issue of the Vanderbilt Magazine. Marshall Breeding and John Lynch are quoted.

Digitization Activities

In April, the Archive received a $68,599 grant from a local foundation to acquire the components needed to create an all-digital off-air recording system. This equipment would also be capable of converting videotapes from the retrospective collection to digital format. A major area of activity for May 2003 involved acquiring the equipment, installing the first phase of the off-air and digitizing system, and beginning to put this new system into operation.

In May, all the equipment ordered for the project arrived except for the computers. Dell indicated that the eight GX-260 computers would not be shipped until June 11. We decided to use some existing computers so that we could get at least in initial phase of the new system into operation. Through the use of existing computers and the new components, we were able to set up 5 computers for the new off-air system, allowing us to begin testing procedures and workflows.

Marshall spent about two days putting together these five digital video workstations. We were able to identify five computers that could be used, including the two Dell OptiPlex GX-260's purchased from the NSF grant, a GX-240 from the Archive reception desk, and the GX-240 used by Russ Mason and the digitizing workstation that that was in his office in the GLB. Other components installed in each system include the MPEG-2 encoding card, a TV reception card, a switch for selecting the digitizing function, the software and drivers for each card, and many cables and connectors.

During this interim period prior to the implementation of the full compliment of 10 workstations, we have started recording most programs digitally and have begun converting some material from the retrospective collection to digital form. Steve Davis began with the new equipment to refine the procedures for digitizing videotapes and to begin the process of converting the retrospective collection to the extent possible without additional staff.

The digitizing operation includes creating the initial digital file in MPEG-2 format, which becomes the primary preservation copy, using the Helix Producer Plus software to create a file in RealMedia format so that we will have a copy suitable for streaming, writing the files to DVD-R discs, labeling the discs and storing them. One of the main concerns involved in this set of tasks involves managing the storage space on the computers and the amount of processing time it takes to produce the RealMedia files from the MPEG-2 originals. An hour-long MPEG-2 file requires almost 3GB of storage and takes about two hours to transcoded into RealMedia format. Most of the transcoding can take place at night when the computers would otherwise be idle. We are learning that it takes a great deal of attention to workflow details to maintain high levels of productivity in the digitizing process.

The Archive also acquired and installed a Rimage thermal transfer printer for labeling the DVDs. As the Archive creates a large number of DVDs it is important to have a way to label them efficiently and clearly. This printer will eliminate hand-labeled discs and eliminate the need to print inserts for the jewel cases.

One of the issues related to the digital capture of the news involves the information that we superimpose on the video, that includes the network, a running display of the time, and the date. As we move to the new system, the opportunity exists to change the way that the running clock displays. The issue came up as to whether to change from the current 12-hour clock to a 24-hour clock. For some material in the collection, especially for special news programs and events, the time can be either AM or PM. On the other hand, the Archive has been using a 12-hour clock since its inception. After considerable discussion, the consensus was that we would keep the 12 hour clock, but at an "a" or "p" do make the times unambiguous.

Other digitization projects continued. Marshall has been working on digitizing the Archive's of news coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks. As of the end of May, 85 hours of CNN coverage between 9/11/2001 at 8:50 am through 9/15/2001 and 11am had been digitized. Steve continued his digitizing and logging of material from the Archive's collection of Watergate coverage. Once the new stations were installed, Steve has been working on digitizing recent evening news programs. Our general plan is to work backwards through the collection as we ramp up digitizing efforts.

Library Technology Officer Activities

Marshall and Jody met with Special Collections staff regarding their photographic archives digitization project. Issues that needed clarification included allocation of storage for their images, linking of the images into the database system, and procedures for creating the JPEG images used by the display and access system. Following the meeting Marshall made the adjustments in the database to link to the file system allocated for this project. He also worked with Special Collections staff to set up a macro in PhotoShop to create the jpeg images from the original scanned TIFF image.

Marshall has been in contact with Carl Flieschhaur, the Technical Coordinator, National Digital Library Program at Library of Congress, regarding the technical issues involved in transferring the MPEG-2 files. Marshall has been sending regular updates to Carl regarding the Archive's progress in implementing a digital off-air recording system and in converting existing videotapes.

Meetings and Committees

Marshall attended meetings of the Cooperative and Virtual Reference Task Force, the Web Development Task Force, Library Management Council, and attended the LMC Retreat.

Extra-curricular Activities

Marshall attended the InfoToday conference in New York, NY from May 5 - 8. He participated in a day-long pre-conference workshop on Library Automation A-Z and gave a conference presentation on the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Marshall gave a presentation at the Florida State Technology Conference on Portals and Search Engines on May 15th.