Laki Sideris, Manager, Product Development, RMIT Publishing [HREF1], Victoria, 3000. laki.sideris@rmit.edu.au
RMIT Publishing has developed Informit Media, a new collection of resources that will enable the academic and school communities to search, browse, be alerted to, and have access to television programs. They are hosted on the Informit service and are cross searchable with other resources in a library’s collection. The database TVNews, indexes the majority of TV news stories broadcast on Australian television. Individual stories may be dowloaded to the desktop in a compressed video format. A second database, RequestTV, is an index of all television programs and provides the facility to order a DVD for 48 hour delivery. Informit Media is a breakthrough service as it seamlessly integrates into a library’s electronic collection, and may be accessed via existing and familiar interfaces. A key feature is that all transcripts of all programs are fully searchable. Access to downloads to the media is available to institutions that have a Screenrights licence and participate in the sampling scheme. Other educational users will have access only to DVD orders. Informit Media facilitates more convenient and direct access to resources that the Institute already has rights to.
In its initial release Informit Media will consist of two databases TVNews and RequestTV. They index and provide access to television programs broadcast by Australian networks. The databases are hosted on the Informit service which the Australian research community has had access to for over 15 years. They are cross searchable with other databases in a library’s collection and may be included in federated search interfaces. Similar to the familiar full text databases, records contain links to media files which are either downloadable directly to the desktop, or can be ordered for 48 hour DVD delivery. The databases are continuously updated with programs being available the day after they are broadcast. Users can set up alert queries to be notified whenever a program or story of their interest is aired and is available for download or order.
More databases will eventually be added to Informit Media which will focus on specific subject areas or other media types like radio and podcasts.
The video is available in WMV format in a progressive download, allowing viewing to begin before the total video file is transferred. It may be used under the conditions outlined in the institutions' Screenrights licence.
The index is updated continuously, with stories appearing on an evening news broadcast being available for access the next morning. Items range from under 30 seconds for short stories, to over an hour for selected documentaries. DVDs of the content may also be ordered for 48 delivery.
Licensed Sampling Institutions will have unlimited access to the video content and be able to use it as outlined in their agreement with Screenrights. In the case of DVD delivered programs, only handling, media and postage costs will be invoiced. It will not have any impact on the fees payed to Screenrights. (The Australian Vice Chancellors’ Committee is due to re-negotiate the Remuneration Agreement with Screenrights in late 2009.)
RMIT Publishing will provide the appropriate usage records back to Screenrights to enable them to distribute fees back to the copyright holders. There will be no need for institutions to record usage during the sampling period as all record keeping is administered by RMIT Publishing.
The video files available through TVNews will be in the WMV format. This was selected as it is most compatible with the majority of browsers. The format allows for a progressive download, meaning that video may begin to be played before it is fully transferred. At this stage a bit rate of 440kb/s has been selected as an appropriate compromise between quality and file size. At this compression, the quality allows it to be very clearly viewed on computer desktops and projection systems. If higher quality files are required, then a DVD may be ordered. If demand is sufficient, other compressions may be provided in the future.
As schools and many TAFEs are not part of the AARNET network, downloads will be slower, but no slower than other comparable video downloads.
Version 3 of the Informit Interface will be released to coincide with Informit Media. The interface has been redesigned to not only give it an up-to-date look, but also to more seamlessly integrate the various content types available via Informit. This has been essential as the Informit service broadens to deliver diverse products such as index databases, directories, full-text journals, books, conference proceedings and now television programs. In addition to all content types being cross-searchable, publication titles (including television programs) can be seamlessly browsed under various groupings such as title and subjects, irrespective of the database source. Inexperienced users rarely know the specificities of databases. Extensive usability testing found that using a cross-database browse, specific items such as journals and television programs were intuitively located.
The following link is to a prototype that is intended to give an indication of how the service will function. Note that the video links will not be operative as the prototype will not authenticate Screenrights users.
http://www.informit.com.au/informitmedia_demo
For more information about the Informit Media, please contact RMIT Publishing via the following link [HREF2].