This paper reports the results of a field study on journalists' practices in requesting, searching for and selecting photos in the course of their daily work. The study addresses different types of search topics common in journalistic illustration tasks, journalists' searching behaviour and the criteria they apply in selecting photos. Data were collected by observing journalists in their work and interviewing them. A sample of requests received by the archive was also analysed. The results indicate that specific needs dominate the use of newspaper photo archives. Photos of objects, themes, or abstract topics expressed in general terms were also needed, but finding them and formulating queries in these cases especially was considered problematic. The results suggest that browsing is an essential strategy in accessing digital photo archives. Journalists tend to browse but the present archive systems support browsing poorly. The paper concludes with suggestions for the improvement of end-user access to photo archives. The possible applications of current feature-based indexing and retrieval methods in the newspaper photo archive are discussed in the light of the results.

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Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) algorithms have been seen as a promising access method for digital photo collections, sooner or later replacing the traditional text-based methods. Unfortunately, we have very little evidence of the usefulness of these algorithms in real user needs and contexts. One problem is that appropriately designed test collections are not available even for the basic performance testing of the CBIR algorithms. This paper proposes a task-oriented evaluation framework and an efficient procedure for constructing test collections for CBIR algorithms. First, the paper defines a plausible function for these algorithms in general purpose photo retrieval systems. We believe that the CBIR algorithms could be applied effectively in conjunction with text-based photo retrieval. Text-based methods are powerful in retrieving topically related items but do not support browsing. The CBIR algorithms could help in identifying visually similar photos within (often large) result sets of textual queries. The proposed evaluation framework is based on the concept of perceived similarity and emphasises the role of expertise and realistic illustration tasks as a premise of similarity assessments. A major innovation of the proposed test collection is that it consists of an array of small test sets each built up of a tiny database, a query photo, and respective similarity assessments. The approach supports testing of prototype CBIR algorithms in short development cycles. The empirical part of the paper reports how journalists were judging the similarity of photos while searching in the course of simulated, but realistic illustration tasks. The goal of the study was to exercise the construction process of the test collection. The results show that the task-oriented evaluation framework and the proposed procedures for constructing the test collection can be successfully applied. The lessons learned from the simulated illustration tasks, collection of similarity assessments and construction of the test collection are discussed. 1 This work was funded by the Academy of Finland. We also thank the newspaper Aamulehti and the photo agency Lehtikuva for their cooperation. Special thanks also to the journalists taking part in the excercise.

The paper reports a field study on the needs for archive video in different stages of the television program making process. The work process typically consists of six basic stages: idea generation, planning, shooting, pre-selecting, script writing and editing. During the stages, the journalist gradually develops the program idea into a detailed script. The needs for archive video also evolve with the stages towards increasing specificity. The high level of uncertainty at the planning stage often leads to intense and unfocused searching of the archive and to a collection of a pile of textual listings of video material potentially useful in the task. The pile of materials at hand was consulted frequently especially in lengthy productions like documentaries. The perceived availability of archive and shot video obviously affected the content of the final script. A special limitation of the conventional archive and one reason for maintaining the pile of textual listings is that the journalist often sees the audiovisual contents of retrieved videos very late in the work process. The paper discusses the potential changes in the journalistic work process and the needs for archive video in the case of integrated video retrieval systems supporting instant access to audiovisual contents in addition to textual annotations.

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