Empirical work analysis of collaborative film indexing

The present study explores document indexing as a collaborative work activity in the case of the creation of a filmography at a national film archive. The study, which was conducted according to the framework for cognitive analysis, identified two prototypical collaborative task situations in collaborative film indexing at the archive: screening meetings, where the subjects of films are analyzed in a collective, synchronous work arrangement, and ongoing consultation among filmography staff on entering information in a filmography database. The focus of the study is on how the current common conceptual tools like databases and cataloging rules supported or failed to support the collaborating actors in contributing to the archive's overall priorities of mediating research to a diversity of user communities. A mean's-ends model for mapping the diverse perspectives is introduced. The paper contributes with ideas for the development of future common conceptual tools, based on the new means-ends model. Such common conceptual tools would provide a stable interpretive environment for collaborative film indexing, retaining the diversity of interpretive perspectives of films.