Multimedia Categories and Branches

• Category answers "what kind"
• Branch answers "what group"
• Items and their viewers
• Official source
• Related reading

The archive's two organising levels do different work. A category is a broad division of media type or subject — the top level, the thing you pick first. A branch is a sub-collection inside a category, and it is where editorial judgement shows: a branch groups material because it belongs together, not merely because it shares a format. The distinction is worth internalising, because it changes what you should expect to find.

Category answers "what kind"#

Categories are stable and few, and they behave like a table of contents. They are the right level when you know the medium — visual work, music, video, interactive — but not the subject.

Branch answers "what group"#

Branches are where a series, a collection, a body of work by one artist or a themed set lives. Because they are curated, browsing a branch tends to be more rewarding than browsing its parent category: you are seeing something someone assembled rather than everything that matched.

Items and their viewers#

Below branches sit items. Generic items use the shared item route; books, video games, arcade games and episodes use their own viewers. An item can be reached from more than one branch when it genuinely belongs to more than one — which is common, since a piece of music can belong to an artist, an album and a venue.

Official source#

Canonical source for this subject: the Multimedia Archives. Checked 21 August 2026 — where this guide and the live service disagree, the service is right.

Related reading#

• Catalogue, Branches and Navigation — The route patterns behind the archive and the fastest way to reach a piece of media.
• Visual Art and Exhibitions — Artwork, imagery and curated visual presentations in the archive.
• Series, Movies and Episodes — Serialized video material and how episodes are presented and sequenced.