Sue Terry, November 2003 Documentation at ScreenSound Australia: an update on using MAVIS to describe Documentation

Documentation Material acquired by ScreenSound Australia The Documentation Collection includes photographic, paper and artefact material that is related to film, television, radio and recorded sound productions and industries. Documentation materials are acquired to complement the audiovisual collection Materials include stills, transparencies, posters, lobby cards, scripts, publicity, scrapbooks, personal and production papers, costumes, animation cels and a range of equipment such as cameras and projectors.

Arrangement and description of Documentation material ScreenSound Australia uses two methods to arrange Documentation material: Artificial (by production or personality) (e.g. material related to the film Shine or actor Geoffrey Rush) Formed Collection (e.g. The Peter Yeldham Collection) From an access point of view, evidence suggests most users are more interested in production / personality arrangement.

Flexibility of MAVIS Archives traditionally document and store their collections at a collection level, with separate finding aids where possible MAVIS provides more flexibility, enabling us to track intellectual information (retaining its organisational integrity) about the collection, whilst storing physical items separately in appropriate facilities

MAVIS Documentation Structure

The Peter Yeldham Collection The Peter Yeldham Collection – comprises 31 boxes covering 1989 to MAVIS provides for description of the whole collection, the box, the folder within the box and, if needed, the letter within the folder. The way the collection has been entered in MAVIS demonstrates the potential for multi-layer hierarchical description providing multiple access points. Photo of Peter Yeldham with Ray Barrett and Roger Climpson during a segment of ‘This is Your Life’. Catalogue No

The Peter Yeldham Collection (Cover Record: Doc Work)

The Peter Yeldham Collection (Paper Work)

Rabbit Proof Fence Press Kit Combination of physical items – folder, pamphlet and CD-rom – and digital items (images from the CD-rom) Hierarchical display and relationship is recorded in MAVIS

Combining digital and physical content in MAVIS

Rabbit Proof Fence Paper Work (Press Kit) with Photo Works (Images) attached

Bad eggs : Separate vs Grouped images

Issues… Improving data display so that full flexibility of description can be implemented without confusing users regarding where elements of the description are stored Improving preset report formats so that a ‘finding aid’ can be generated Improving content display so that users can access it more easily Reviewing MAVIS overall model re applicability to complexity of digital content