Special & Area Studies Collections
AVID, an acronym for Audio-Visual and Image Database, is an MS Access based tool created at the University of Florida. Cathy Martyniak, Audiovisual and Image Archivist in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections ( SASC) at the George A. Smathers Libraries, created the desktop application in early 2013 to help manage and track audio, moving image and still images materials in SASC.
This tool is primarily designed to manage activities associated with physical objects stored in archival and library collections. Tasks that can be tracked within the database include but are not limited to:
- Track objects in the collection by physical format
- Relate physical objects with a ‘parent’ collection or series level record
- Associate physical originals to any surrogates, both analog and digital
- Support a complex, multi stage work flow
- Allow description of AVI materials at both collection and individual levels
- Import data into the tool from external sources such as archival data management software
- Export data for use in other systems, such as digital library applications
- Perform time tracking functions by collection, format and time period
- Help establish and track priorities for current and future digitization
There is a published article about AVID in Recorded Sound,
the newsletter of the Recorded Sound Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists, Spring 2013, page 8.
http://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/2013_Spring_RecordedSoundNewsletter.pdf
A poster about the tool was presented at the 2013 Association of Moving Image Archivists meeting in Richmond, VA.
Would you like to learn more? Please email Cathy Martyniak at cmook@ufl.edu or call her at 352 273 2832.
