End-to-end management of audiovisual and multimedia content and services - the NLB experience

Abstract

The National Library Board of Singapore (NLB) manages the National Library, the National Archives of Singapore (NAS) and the Public Libraries in Singapore. It holds a comprehensive collection of valuable Singapore content, including over 4,200 oral history interview recordings, 17,000 music tracks/scores/lyrics and 136,000 audiovisual and sound recordings.

The Sound and Moving Image Laboratory (SMIL) of NAS conserves, digitises and preserves audiovisual recordings for NLB. SMIL recently embarked on a major technology refresh. The capacity for off-air recording of public service broadcasts (such as news, current affairs and documentaries) has been significantly increased. It is also able to capture these recordings in HD, a critical new capability as Singapore will be going full HD by 2016. An automated file-based quality control (QC) system has also been implemented to meet compliance to formats and content quality requirements. A media asset management (MAM) system manages the workflow and other tasks such as transcoding and reproduction.

NLB has rolled out several innovative services for its audiovisual and multimedia collections. MusicSG is a digital archive set up to digitise, archive and provide access to all forms of published Singapore musical works. It assembles a collection of music composed or published by Singaporeans, music produced or published in Singapore, and music related to Singapore.

The Oral History Centre of NAS has been collecting stories, and building up Singapore’s...