Media Records Centers: Database Indexing and Information Retrieval

Media Records Centers

This involves creating a computer database on chips containing every news item, which may be full or summarized. The choice of this system necessitates creating an appropriate documentary language for information recovery. Each record must be indexed by extracting descriptors: onomastic, thematic, geographic, and chronological.

Information Recovery Language

A program allowing free speech recovery (n, cn) would not require a thesaurus. Each story could be analyzed using the IPTC subject codes of the International Press Telecommunications Council.

Database Launch and Content Management

The launch of the first database for indexing information materials presupposes the news itself. In a database of summaries, hundreds of thousands of complete or summarized news items can be saved, digitized or entered using a scanner. However, if we do not design a good recovery tool, apart from a manual or automatic content analysis of this information, the news search will soon become inoperable.

Indexing Techniques

Indexing techniques using a controlled documentary language mean that part of the document's contents can be expressed through representative words or concepts that play a regulatory role. These words are independent of each document and have a direct connection to its content, characterizing the relationship of the entire content.

Documentary Analysis of TV News

All material ultimately decided to be retained must be analyzed. This involves defining the database format with which one will work, the fields that will compose the record, and the recovery methods. Additionally, it is necessary to define the documentary unit, each of which will be analyzed individually and reflected in a documentary record. We must define as many units as necessary, provided they facilitate the search and recovery of pertinent images and sounds. Thus, there would be documentary units for information, emission, and themes.

Photography as a Subject of Documentary Analysis

The original photograph is fragile; therefore, documentary analysis using photography is habitual for preservation. We must always be aware that a text will express what is sufficiently imagined; we must note that documentary records of photographs cannot replace the photos themselves. Nevertheless, they can provide a wealth of information describing the attributes of each photograph as a documentary unit.