Approach to audio

Due to the crossover between audio and video, we have as a starting point adapted the core fields for video and applied them here to audio cataloguing, to provide consistency within our approach, though we have taken out the image-specific fields that do not apply to audio. Many of the questions and issues highlighted in the previous document will also apply here, and we will consider these in turn when we start to consider the content and format of each of the fields in more detail in the next stage.

In researching standards for audio cataloguing, one key difference from video is that there is no agreed upon international standard for sound, as there is for video (in the FIAF Moving Image Cataloguing Manual).[1] The closest equivalent for audio is the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Cataloguing Rules, but these have not been updated since 1999; however, they draw on the original FIAF standards for film archives which we have used as the basis for our core fields for video cataloguing, and frequently form the basis for cataloguing guidelines developed and used by other institutions. So, our favoured approach is to similarly adapt the core fields from FIAF with reference to IASA, and then customise them to our requirements. This will give us a degree of consistency with both FIAF and IASA, and across our own core fields for audio and video. It will also provide a degree consistency with wider sectoral practice; during our initial research, including several training sessions during 2021, a key message we heard was that other institutions commonly customise audio cataloguing guidelines to fit their own individual requirements, and there is no ‘one size fits all’.[2]

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[1] https://www.fiafnet.org/pages/E-Resources/Cataloguing-Manual.html

[2] Unmute Your Sound Collections, Session 3, Cataloguing Audio, 06/07/2021.