Content-Based Video Retrieval in Historical Collections of the German Broadcasting Archive

The German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) maintains the cultural heritage of radio and television broadcasts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The uniqueness and importance of the video material stimulates a large scientific interest in the video content. In this paper, we present an automatic video analysis and retrieval system for searching in historical collections of GDR television recordings. It consists of video analysis algorithms for shot boundary detection, concept classification, person recognition, text recognition and similarity search. The performance of the system is evaluated from a technical and an archival perspective on 2,500 hours of GDR television recordings.Comment: TPDL 2016, Hannover, Germany. Final version is available at Springer via DO

Europeana: What Users Search For and Why

People use digital cultural heritage sites in different ways and for various purposes. In this paper we explore what information people search for and why when using Europeana, one of the world’s largest aggregators of cultural heritage. We gathered a probability sample of 240 search requests from users via an online survey and used qualitative content analysis complemented with Shatford-Panofsky’s mode/facet analysis for analysing requests to visual archives to investigate the following: (i) the broad type of search task; (ii) the subject content of searches; and (iii) motives for searching and uses of the information found. Results highlight the rich diversity of searches conducted using Europeana. Contributions include: collection and analysis of a comprehensive sample of Europeana search requests, a scheme for categorising information use, and deeper insights into the users and uses of Europeana

Defining and applying a language for discovery

In order to design better search experiences, we need to understand the complexities of human information-seeking behaviour. In this paper, we propose a model of information behaviour based on the needs of users across a range of search and discovery scenarios. The model consists of a set of modes that that users employ to satisfy their information goals. We discuss how these modes relate to existing models of human information seeking behaviour, and identify areas where they differ. We then examine how they can be applied in the design of interactive systems, and present examples where individual modes have been implemented in interesting or novel ways. Finally, we consider the ways in which modes combine to form distinct chains or patterns of behaviour, and explore the use of such patterns both as an analytical tool for understanding information behaviour and as a generative tool for designing search and discovery experiences

An Empirical Study of User Navigation during Document Triage

Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοDocument triage is the moment in the information seeking process when the user first decides the relevance of a document to their information need[17]. This paper reports a study of user behaviour during document triage. The study reveals two main findings: first, that there is a small set of common navigational patterns; second, that certain document features strongly influence users’ navigation