DOD wants you ... to browse its visual library
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The Department of Defense aims to bring its entire declassified photo and media library online within the next five years with T3Media's enterprise-scale video management platform.
The Department of Defense manages a huge library of photographs and other media that has been declassified. But accessing that information, some of which dates back to World War II, isn't easy to do. That will change within the next five years as T3Media uses its enterprise-scale video management platform to bring the entire library online.
“By leveraging T3Media’s enterprise-scale video management platform and T3 Library Manager product, we’re able to open up the DOD archive for a wider range of uses and focus on our mission — to serve as the official DOD visual information records center,” said Michael Edrington, director of the Defense Imagery Management Operations Center.
DIMOC integrates and synchronizes DOD imagery and centrally manages its visual information media in support of the department and the National Archives and Records Administration.
The DOD library comprises over a million photos, videos, audio logs and documents. The variety of media ranges from wartime footage and photographs of personnel and military equipment to World War II audio communications and instructional military videos.
According to the original statement of objective, the government’s physical media holdings include:
- 30,000 unique images within the collection of the Chief of Naval Operations, which is primarily housed on compact disk.
- 600,000 unique images within the collection of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which contains multiple still formats, including 35mm negatives and positives, B&W and color negatives, and 3-by-5-inch and 8-by-10-inch prints.
- 1,775 unique productions (average running time 20 minutes).
- Approximately 1.2 million digital images from more recent operations.
The plan is to allow authorized users within government to be able to access the archives for free, with all the data safely stored in the cloud. Outside users, such as those working with production companies, will be able to license the footage stored there, providing revenue back to the government.
“Under this partnership, designated users within various government departments will be able to login to their T3 Library Manager accounts and search and download current and historic DOD multimedia with just a few clicks,” said Frank Cardello, general manager, platform services at T3Media. “In addition to providing the government with enhanced access to the archive, we are looking forward to sharing DOD videos, photographs, and audio with the global production community.”
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