Patrimoine et vidéodisque: situation actuelle

Abstract

In the last decade, some 60 videodiscs have been produced on aspects of the French cultural heritage. These represent nearly one-third of the total of videodiscs recorded in a national survey published in 1988. All types of collection, and every historical period, are represented. Videodiscs have been employed for the sake of their administrative benefits and to conserve visual material, but also to exploit that material more effectively and to make it more accessible to the public. Thus some videodiscs are available to the public while others are not. The requirements for producing a videodisc vary with the purpose which it is to serve; although there are several different methods of transferring images to videodisc, the quality of the image depends above all on the quality of the original; similarly, there are various ways of linking images to the supporting documentation without which a videodisc is as good as useless. Initiatives to date have explored the potential of this new technology in an innovative spirit; in so doing they have demonstrated, but have scarcely begun to fulfil, the variety of needs which, in this visual age, videodiscs have the capacity to meet.