Visualizing television archives

All three authors are affiliated with WGBH in Boston. Courtney Michael is project manager and can be reached at courtney_michaelwgbh.org. Mayo Todorovic is an interactive designer and can be reached at mayo_todorovicwgbh.org. Chris Beer is web developer and can be reached at chris_beerwgbh.org. T his article will outline efforts by the WGBH Media Library and Archives (MLA) and the WGBH Interactive team to create online access points into our multimedia archive using innovative visualization techniques that create visual alternatives to traditional search, browse and faceted navigation and that highlight WGBH’s rich media collections. The main objective in this effort is to allow scholarly researchers to access the collections, search and pinpoint useful records and discover related items they may want to explore. It has been an interesting challenge to strike a careful balance between allowing for targeted search and passive browse while also providing for serendipitous discovery opportunities. The depth of metadata essential for our expert audience led to our use of linked data in our cataloging processes, which enabled further experimentation with visualization.