Media Archive

Task and strategy

A digital forum for the arts


The Media Archive for the Arts is the platform for collaborative work with and sharing and archiving of media at ZHdK. It is available to students, faculty and staff members. The media archive is mainly used for teaching and research, but ZHdK's archive unit and University Communications Office also benefit from it. The media archive is able to manage a wide range of images and audiovisual content and supports collaborative forms of working.

As the specialist database of a university of the arts, the media archive's primary objective is to link media, users and subjects. The specialist contexts of media and their active use are brought to the fore. The artistic content of the media archive is handled with care in terms of access rights and licences, which can be determined by the authors themselves. Via the programming interface (API), content can also be used in external publication formats.


The media archive is closely linked to the institutional processes in all departments and incorporated into the university's archiving procedures.  Its product strategy is based on that of ZHdK.

The media archive supports collaborative work with media.

The media archive's most important task is to provide a central platform at ZHdK for working with various media. All members of the university can share content here and use it together. This is made possible thanks to different access rights that users can set for their own entries. In this way, media can be protected and used in a working group or released for use at ZHdK or even on the Internet. To find the right framework for collaborative working, individual working groups can be formed or ZHdK's institutional structure can be used.

All media in one archive

Images, videos, audio files and documents: the media archive makes all types of media equally easy to access. Users can choose which forms of representation are right for their work. The interface enables them to group media together in sets in any way they like and index them at the same level.

Diversity as a challenge and a strength

ZHdK offers education and conducts research in almost all genres and disciplines of art and design, as well as their teaching. Artistic traditions are diverse and forms of expression in media differ. The variety of users and content in the media archive is extremely wide. The media archive supports and promotes this very diversity. Keywords automatically create links among media – even across different years and fields of study. Various personal perspectives on the same content can be experienced with the aid of groupings. The media archive can be explored in various ways: either sorted according to an institutional structure of degree programmes and departments or intuitively on visual paths through individual content.

Programming interface

To enable users at ZHdK to select other display formats apart from the interface provided, a documented programming interface (API) is available. This allows artistic projects to build experimental players for their own media, for example, or individual departments to publish a year's results in the form of a "digital yearbook". The API guarantees that the media archive's content is published in exactly the right format for its authors and can still be stored reliably in a central location and indexed properly.
Madek API

Standards

The rapid development of technical document formats poses a major challenge for digital archiving. The media archive prefers open and documented standards. This increases the stability and reliability of our system. However, not all frequently used document formats are also standard, e.g. Photoshop files. It is particularly difficult to give lasting recommendations for digital videos.  
Media types and file formats

In our growing media pool, you can browse and find inspiration.

The media archive's holdings are increasing rapidly. There you can find both current projects and historical subjects which are being processed and made available again. To prevent the media archive's users and interested guests from losing their way, there are various methods for accessing the media pool. We support both targeted searching and filtering and intuitive browsing through the media archive. Another important difference in access methods is the personalized access to users' own content as opposed to the institutional ZHdK access. All these ways are intended to help meet the different requirements of users in the creative environment of a university of the arts.  

Searching and filtering

The combination of a quick search function and filter bar is available for targeted searching. The results of a search are displayed on an overview page and can then be narrowed down gradually using the filter bar.

Exploring content with the ZHdK catalogue

The media archive is an institutional database. The "ZHdK catalogue" therefore makes the most important content for ZHdK as an institution available in three categories: "ZHdK area" (departments, units, specializations), "genre" (design, dance, theatre, etc.) and "ZHdK project type" (graduation assignments, exhibitions, research, etc.). These three categories provide an initial guide and update the content displayed automatically. This means that the ZHdK catalogue always shows the most recent activity in the media archive according to its place in the institution.

Editor's selection

Apart from the ZHdK catalogue's automatically updated content, there is also an editor's selection of interesting content. It is chosen by the MAdeK team and showcases successful ways of using the media archive. Based on these examples, interested guests can get an impression of how the media archive can be used for teaching, research or documenting university life.

Personalised access

The personalized access is a particularly important function that enables active media archive users to display their own content. This page shows personal content and favourites to provide an overview and quick access to media. There are also links to "last imported" media and keywords assigned by the user. Collaborative working is aided through the "content shared with me" and "my working groups" features.

Browsing for similar content

You can also embark on a voyage of discovery through the media archive. Individual media entries can be used as a starting point for browsing. A set-up designed for exploration displays comparable media entries and invites users to browse for other similar entries. By offering this option, we are supporting visual, explorative access to our content and want to encourage our users to let themselves drift through the diverse and extensive content once in a while.

Illustrating connections

Media entries and sets can be grouped together in any way. This enables users to develop a flexible and personalized method for organizing their own media entries and entries shared with them. Entries can be arranged in a hierarchy or in a multidirectional manner. To quickly gain an overview of the connections created, we offer a range of layouts. This allows users to display the structure of their own sets and make the connections between an individual media entry and other entries visible.

Specialist database

The media archive provides a platform for creative, artistic and academic content. As ZHdK's specialist database, the media archive automatically makes connections between the content provided and other, similar works and documentation. The institutional background of this platform guarantees a certain level of quality and raises the profile of the individual content. To reinforce the specialist nature of the media archive, only a few social web elements are incorporated.

Making knowledge visible

The media archive enables project-related specialist vocabulary to be developed and used. Here experts can provide detailed information about their own research questions or specific work processes. This vocabulary can be defined freely and tailored to individual projects. The values for the vocabulary do not need to be specified at the start – they grow with the state of the knowledge in a project and become more precise. 

The media archive supports archiving at ZHdK.

Archiving at ZHdK is regulated by policies. The media archive plays an important role for artistic and academic works and their documentation (KWWDs) within the archiving structure. If they are available in digital formats, they are entered in the media archive for archiving purposes and transferred to long-term management by the ZHdK archive – a "bridge to the archive".
The name "Media Archive for the Arts" often creates confusion in relation to archiving issues. The media archive is not the ZHdK archive. However, the works and documentation to be archived are sent to the ZHdK archive from the media archive. The scope and form of delivery is specified by Rolf Wolfensberger, Head of the ZHdK archive.

Graduation assignments

Work produced to complete a course of study is recorded, presented and archived through the media archive. The media archive makes the graduation assignments available both within ZHdK and to the general public. Each specialization and field of study has someone who is responsible for ensuring that information and access rights are correct.

Research

The same conditions that apply to graduation assignments also apply to the results of research projects. However, as research projects can produce very different results, no binding form of archiving can be specified.  

Events, performances, projects

Of course, other forms of artistic and academic practice at ZHdK are documented and presented in the media archive too. Provided that the media are used for purposes such as documentation, annual reports, meetings and general reception, the media archive is the central location for storage and use. Transfer to the long-term archive, which involves a selection process (elimination), does not take place until several years later and is performed by the ZHdK archive.