Standards & Tools
Cataloging Tools
This is a listing of tools to aid in cataloging moving images. For information about cataloging systems and utilities, click here.
Edge Codes for the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom
Edge codes were symbols printed on the edge of the film stock to indicate the year of manufacture. Several resources are available on the Web.
Eastman Kodak USA Film Stock Codes
efilmcenter. The Ultimate Table of Formats--Aspect Ratios
List of gauges including years produced, size of image, and aspect ratios.
Episode lists for over 2500 TV shows containing titles and broadcast dates. A more detailed episode guide with guest stars and plot summaries can be found at TV Tome
Film Tools: Footage Calculator & Charts.
Gartenberg, Jon. 1989. FIAF Glossary of Filmographic Terms. FIAF.
Crosswalk of film credit and other terms, with indexes in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian.
Glossarist's Film Dictionary, Film Glossary, and Film Terms Directory
Directory of film dictionaries and glossaries available on the Internet.
"This website is meant as a resource for conservators, curators, collections managers, and others who need to know the formats and types of audio materials in their collections. Since the first attempt to capture sound in a solid medium there has been a proliferation of media types and formats." NOTE: much of this site is currently under construction. While there are many useful images, many are missing identifying text.
Useful reference for titles, dates, and credit information for motion picture and television programs, but not always accurate.
Martin, Abigail Leab, ed. 2001. AMIA Compendium of Moving Image Cataloging Practice. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.
A snapshot in time of the cataloging practices of 27 diverse institutions, including historical societies, university archives, broadcast organizations, museums, and subject-specialized collections. The collections include television, film, and video, and utilize both MARC and non-MARC cataloging.
The Introduction and appendices are also available on the AMIA Web site:
Introduction [of AMIA Compendium]
Appendix A [of AMIA Compendium]
Fact sheets for participating institutions.
Appendix E [of AMIA Compendium]
Additional local guidelines and examples. A supplement to the printed volume and available online only.
More than One Hundred Years of Film Sizes
Well-illustrated chronology of film sizes including many obscure formats and projectors.
The Letterbox and Widescreen Advocacy Page. Aspect Ratios and Filming Techniques
A compilation of information about the variety of aspect ratios across film history.
UCLA Film and Television Archive. Cataloging Procedure Manual (CPM).
UCLA's local cataloging procedure manual, which utilizes a combination of AACR2R, AMIM2, LCSH, and MIM. The manual indicates which rules are applied in describing their collection of films and television programs. Contains local rules on uniform titles, supplied titles, local subject headings and genre/form terms, and terms used in the physical description of archival moving image materials, with an extensive glossary of the latter. Especially useful as a tool for institutions cataloging archival moving image materials in the MARC21 format.
Video Format Identification Guide
"This site is produced for archivists, librarians, curators and conservators who want to identify the videotapes in their collections."