A Service Oriented Approach to Online Digital Audiovisual Archives

Abstract

In many parts of the audiovisual community the boundaries between the environments used for content creation, distribution and archiving are becoming blurred. A transformation in the way that electronic media is created and consumed is being followed by a transformation in the way that this content is archived, repurposed and reused. Traditionally, archives sit at the tail end of the content lifecycle and provide a place where content ‘ends-up’ for safe keeping. However, digital audiovisual archives are now increasingly ‘embedded’ as active facilities within wider networked infrastructures and content-centric processes. The archive becomes an integrated repository of audiovisual assets which are under continuous development and reuse. This paper presents work done in the UK AVATAR-m project on service-oriented approaches to digital permanence and preservation of audiovisual content. In particular, we recognise that the business models and processes surrounding the storage, preservation and access to digital assets are evolving fast and transcend traditional organisational boundaries. Storage and access to archive content now takes place across organisational boundaries and there is a nascent but growing market for outsourced archive hosting. Our approach embraces this new world where archives can be both deployed in-house and as third-party services. Our specific focus is how to specify and then govern federated storage services in a way that ensures the long term safety, security and accessibility of audiovisual assets in a managed and cost effective way.

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