Here are 5 things for summer contemplation:
Here's a great tweet from Livia Labate:
"Metadata is the new art direction."
When I worked in the seedy underbelly of advertising, I envied art directors. They were celebrated as rock stars and lauded for new innovations. As such, a good art director could control and in fact, direct the course of many things. Some wielded that power mercilessly...
As metadata professionals, we should embrace the same power without being divas. With power comes responsibility and this takes a tad more self promotion savvy and confidence than information professionals sometimes possess. Own it. It's time. Otherwise, no one will ever be able to find anything relevant.
In other news, two Dublin Core Metadata element set reference documents have been updated. And, from my pals at JISC, here's a cool project on World War I. Finally, a reminder to be mindful as you add metadata or catalog an item. This article in the Atlantic talks about archival "discoveries" that were right there under our collective noses to begin with.
Here are five things to discuss on the beach.
Here is an amazing resource for anyone interested in photo metadata - Electric Lane. Electric Lane is a consultancy involved in every part of image production processes from metadata and keywording to workflow and processing.
The website contains links to myriad useful resources like the CEPIC/IPTC Metadata Handbook, a checklist for assessing images, image checking scripts, and copyright and contract information.
This week I found two very informative posts regarding video metadata. I know quite a lot about dealing with metadata for images, but I wanted to learn more about concerns unique to video assets.
First, on RealSEO there is an article titled Understanding the Life of Video Metadata From Production to Publishing and Why It's so Important. At the most basic, video metadata is important because the contents are not directly understandable by the computer.
Direct temporal or time-based metadata is a goldmine and includes such things as closed captioning, when music is played and where scenes begin and end. More subjective are things like themes and subtext. A computer just doesn't know that The Godfather is about the rise of a New York crime family unless someone tells it via metadata that this is the theme.
Since it is inefficient for users to watch each and every video returned in a search, the metadata had better be thorough and accurate. The article goes on to talk about technical metadata, editing, publishing and archiving video.
Also on RealSEO, there is a useful section on the types of metadata for videographers. This explains in more detail some of the concepts introduced in the first article including source metadata, added metadata and derived metadata. Then, there is the metadata you have no control over:
I have too much metadata information again this week, so there will be posts on Sunday, Monday and perhaps Tuesday.
This one is devoted to a fabulous behind the scenes look at the creation of a digital collection at The Huntington called Visions of Empire: The Quest for Railroad Across America, 1840-1880. On Huntington blogs, Mario Einaudi explains the process behind the digital collection wondering if people ever stop to think about metadata, especially when it is somewhat invisible to the end user.
No metadata elves were involved in the creation of the Hart images online. Metadata elves are mythical.
Digitization projects are not as simple as clicking a mouse. The preparation of this collection started with a professional conservator examining each stereo card to ensure it could withstand the scanning process. Then a librarian created the descriptive metadata and finally, a photographer scanned each image.
This blog post also details other projects and is generally very informative for anyone wondering how digital collections magically appear online.
Here are 5 things and change for reading and discussion:
BONUS: Is North Plains the first DAM Suite vendor?
Did you know that there is an independent organization that promotes communication, understanding, and sharing of ideas among all members of the serials information community? Well, there is and it is called The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG).
The NASIG annual conference just wrapped up and the Eclectic Librarian, Anna Creech, did a fabulous job of encapsulating the high points on her blog. Touching upon citation analysis, whether the journal is dead and exploring a model for electronic resources assessment are prime topics. Really, anyone interested in cataloging and metadata related to serials collections would be well served by reviewing this blog regularly.
However, the NASIG item that caught my eye was about NISO, the National Information Standards Organization. NISO creates standards so that library systems can work more seamlessly. NISO fosters consensus and manages disparate stakeholders, all with a staff of five.
An area where this is of primary importance is in library search where federated search and consoloidated discovery interfaces spawn a confusing chaotic marketplace. Enter the NISO Open Discovery Initiative. The aim is to define standards and best practices so that the content provided by a wide range of information providers gains consistency and in turn, promote similarity in discovery search experiences.
Here are five more things plus a little extra:
BONUS: What does a DAM API do?
BONUS BONUS: Another DAM Podcast interviews Suzanne Smagala, Digital Media Analyst for Ripley Entertainment.
This week there has been too much good stuff related to metadata to confine this blog post to one measly topic. Here are some of my picks:
Harvard University has many digital collections. One that is very interesting is called The Human Factor. The images “reveal the courage, industry and intelligence required of the American working man.”
Created in the years between world wars, the photographs in the collection depict the intersection between industry and art.
One of my favorites is this shot of radiator shells circa 1937 at Pontiac Motors.
