ACCESS TO MOVING IMAGE DOCUMENTS: BACKGROUND CONCEPTS AND PROPOSALS FOR SURROGATES FOR FILM AND VIDEO WORKS

This study examines the fashioning of a model for a surrogate to facilitate user selection of the most appropriate film or video work for a particular use. Such a surrogate is intended to enable a user to bring to a collection of moving image documents the habits of scrutiny characteristic of the selection and critical use of print linguistic works. Images bear a different relationship to objects and events than do words and the manner in which moving image documents generate meaning differs from the way strings of words communicate. A matrix of a time line and several characteristics of the film or video document is proposed as the primary aspect of the surrogate graphic record. Issues of description and sampling within the abstracting process are raised. The proposed surrogate is seen as a system for achieving an individual, more book‐like use of film and video documents.