Digitising a multi-language, multi-length audiovisual collection: The National Film Board of Canada experience

Abstract

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has developed an innovative and ingenious approach to digitising its multi-language and multi-length audiovisual collection. This major institutional undertaking required organisational changes and met with various technological challenges. NFB’s technological solutions were based on two very important concepts: that of work and of composition. In addition, the implementation of these concepts had to be cost-effective and with minimum impact on daily operations. The NFB has thus developed a series of tools, from metadata schema to delivery application, in order to facilitate the digitisation of its collection with as much automation as possible.