Metadata Monday: Automatic Metadata Extraction

Cataloging Futures explored this resounding question last week "What happens to cataloging when the majority of the library's books (and other resources) already come with metadata?"

I recently had the opportunity to consider automatic metadata extraction and embedded metadata and I feel compelled to voice some of the same skepticism about certain interoperability and consistency issues that I have with metadata creation in general. While a smart computer like IBM's Watson could take some of the subjectivity out of applying metadata, is anyone ever going to agree on a consistent format, scheme and standards?

If the entire world of objects could be cataloged only using Dublin Core, for instance, automation would be perfectly fine. Coupled with XML and some extended controlled vocabulary standards, a system could be developed that would standardize the world. But, has that ever happened yet even in analog? No.

Someone, a person, still needs to do the thinking behind the automation of creation or extraction. Decisions will be required and people will have to make these determinations. And, those people will still disagree and tinker and innovate and discuss metadata and cataloging.

 

E-Books: And Now for Even More Limitations

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time trying to figure out the best model for my new company's floating libraries for eBook lending. In a sense, we are lucky as a for profit corporation because we can explore cross-promotional partnerships and other such avenues in addition to traditional non-profit licensing and DRM situations.

However, I was still flabbergasted by some really devastating news brought to light by both Librarian by Day and Go the Hellman.

To me, two big things stand out on the Overdrive update:

• OverDrive will communicate a licensing change from a publisher that, while still operating under the one-copy/one-user model, will include a checkout limit for each eBook licensed.
• OverDrive wants library partners to cooperate to honor geographic and territorial rights for digital book lending, as well as to review and audit policies regarding an eBook borrower’s relationship to the library.

So, simply put, you can pay for a book that can only be checked out a certain number of times and only by patrons with a particular relationship to the library.

All of this stems from changes to Harper Collins policies and the Hellman blog refers to this as the "Pretend It's Print" model which is an easy way to put it. Pretend your library owns a print copy of an item that is popular. Well, it gets worn out, doesn't it?

Wear and tear prompts the library to purchase a new item to replace the worn copy. Thus, the library spends more money on a print copy anyway and the necessity of replacement yields even more profit. Paper is not eternal, after all.

Perhaps Watson the IBM wunder-computer can figure out the solution for us all?

 

 

5 Things Thursday : Fascinating LIS Topics

What are you going to talk about this weekend? Here are five conversation starters:

1. Who knew there were so many cool vintage bookmobiles?
2. Want to act like a creative director? Simply apply design-thinking to solve library issues.
3. Do you believe in serendipity when browsing or searching collections?
4. Did you know you can tour some collections from the National Gallery of Art online as well as perform research on collection materials?
5. What are some barriers to digital ingest?

Metadata Monday: Controlled Vocabulary Versus Tagging

Andromeda Yelton has covered one of my favorite topics on her blog. In Controlled Vocabulary vs. Tagging: Three Fallacies, she raises some valid and important points. For one thing, she readily admits that when information professionals debate the taxonomy/folksonomy issue they are mostly concerned with how academic researchers will locate material.

Also, in coming up with hybrid solutions that incorporate control and freedom, librarians are often hampered by the pie in the sky dream of a single search (probably a single Google-like search). This idea of unified perfection, that if things are arranged just so, we will realized optimal, nirvana-like findability just does not work in practical application with real world systems and those pesky imperfect humans creating metadata and tags.

Finally, library and information professionals seem to like certainty. Andromeda addresses this idea of guarantees with this astute comment, "I think librarians often assume that, because they are based in rules, controlled vocabulary offers guarantees about metadata completeness or correctness, and tagging cannot."

There are no guarantees in life, even with controlled vocabulary. In my humble opinion, we should stop fantasizing and start realizing the richness of combining the two methods, mining user generated data and continuing to employ standards for a baseline of control. See more at InfoCamp Berkeley March 5th in my session called You Say Tomato, I Say Aardvark: Taxonomy/Folksonomy Throwdown.

Clowns are Scary: the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

Don't worry. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art online collections contain much more than just posters featuring terrifying demonic clowns. Although there are some fascintating artifacts of circus history, the Ringlings were collectors of a plethora of art treasures. In fact, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art has an internationally recognized collection of more than 10,000 objects, dating from ancient to contemporary times.

The metadata is minimal, but effectively credits the artist, provides a data and some context. The collection site is well organized by category as well. And, if you happen to find yourself in Sarastoa, Florida you can visit in person to see it all.

Take Time to Read

I want to rave about another local library system - the King County Library System. KCLS has a really cool program right now called "Take Time to Read." With clever incentives like Starbucks gift cards and other prizes, this is a reading program for adults to indulge in the luxury of reading. Do you like luxury? I do.

Also, big framed book covers are going to start popping up in King County for the springtime series of Book Cover Walking Tours. Pretty inventive.

KCLS has other nifty everyday luxuries as well like the Library Elf - a clever reminder system that tracks due dates and stuff.

Watson: Life Imitates Art

Am I the only one that noticed the amazing parallels between the IBM computer on Jeopardy! named Watson and the 1957 movie classic Desk Set?

In the film, Katherine Hepburn's character named Bunny Watson (coincidence?) runs the reference department at a fictitious television broadcasting company that today would be called NBC. Spencer Tracy's character Richard Sumner invents a giant computer called EMERAC that can answer reference questions. That's right - over fifty years ago this monster machine with tape reels and punch cards allegedly had the ability to parse questions into answerable search queries.

Anyway, the other notable events in the film include Bunny Watson exclaiming that the computer gives her the feeling that "maybe, just maybe people are becoming a bit outmoded" as well as the happy ending where Sumner reveals that EMERAC "was never meant to replace you girls, merely to free up your time for more valuable research."

While Watson performed amazingly well on Jeopardy!, there were still inhuman style glitches. An optimist (or an IBM executive) might say that the implications of this type of technology is to assist humans with memory related tasks. A pessimist might say that reference librarians should be a little nervous.

Here are two interesting articles on the subject. One from the NY Times actually describes what is essentially a reference interview when describing what Watson is capable of. The other is the optimist viewpoint (sort of) and imagines how a resource like Watson could assist overtaxed librarians.

And, if you haven't seen Desk Set, you really should. It is a Play Now feature on Netflix.

5 Thursday Things for Library and Info Pros to Consider

Here are the niftiest 5 things to discuss with fellow information aficionados: 

1. Type specimens from PSY/OPS.
2. Would Shakespeare tweet?
3. Want to know more about tech tools for scholars?
4. Have you heard about the 1960's comic book that is a resounding plug for libraries?
5. Do you miss SharePoint week? Check out this article on adding Google to SharePoint.

skulls

This educational site from the California Academy of Sciences is all about skulls. This is a fine example of how to feature dense facts in a clean and engaging and even interactive manner. Although the skull subject matter is interesting and directly informs my newfound obsession with the Science Channel show called Oddities, this site design lends itself to any collection of images and facts. Bravo!

 

Mod Librarian: Exciting Changes

Well, I start a full time job next week. It is a special library scenario, full details to be divulged once I confirm the stringency of the corporation's social media policy in regard to personal blogs, but let it suffice to say that juggling this fantastic opportunity with the impending culmination of my MLIS degree will leave less time for blog production.

To that end, I would like to change my Mod Librarian schedule to thrice weekly (or is that tri-weekly?). I will continue the phenomenally popular 5 Things Thursdays, initiate a Metadata Monday tradition and then reserve the right to publish one more tantalizing tidbit at a random interval.

My hope is a quality increase resulting from the quantity decrease. I should have a lot of fascinating new topics to discuss inspired by my new library life.

Things Organized Neatly

This site, Things Organized Neatly, makes me very happy. Happy Valentine's Day!

New Look for Duke Digital Collections

Feast your eyes on the beta version of the new and improved Duke University Digital Collections. These are some of my favorites and now the new navigation allows searching by collection, genre, subject, creator, temporal coverage and spatial coverage. How exacting and fantastic!

Also a new feature in the right sidebar - popular collections and popular items. And all the social media lies neatly at the bottom of the page.

I'll leave you with this soap ad to ponder.

 

Google Art Project

Why of course, Google has an art site too. I must admit, it is kind of cool to be able to click on Google Art Project and take a momentary vacation to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

It is kind of like being there in a weird kind of way like when I look at my house in Google maps. Orwellian, but interesting.

The #referencedesk Twitter Experiment

Imagine a network of librarians linked by Twitter. Imagine staffing the reference desk and being super stumped by a question. Surreptitiously, you reach for your smartphone and tweet a short synopsis of the question with the hashtag #referencedesk. Compulsive Twitter addicted librarians from around the country can see you are in distress and tweet you a suggestion on a resource or answer. Does this sound useful or fun to anyone?

The idea was inspired by the reference course I am taking now. The discussion was about what to do when you truly have no idea how to begin researching a patron question.

Let's try it. Pass on this blog to all your LIS pals. We can start a phenomenon.

 

Thanks!

5 Things to Inspire LIS Banter

Yes, it is Thursday yet again -  time for those 5 wacky and wonderful LIS topics:

1. From SLA Future Ready 365, ever wonder about ten things that will make you future-minded?
2. Speaking of the future, want to talk about this upcoming resource The Atlas of New Librarianship?
3. Dying for something fun to read? Jen Lancaster has a list right here.
4. Did you know you can display panoramic images with CONTENTdm? The University of Washington did and used JPEG 2000 for this collection of Panoramic Photos.
5. Ever marvel at the disconnect between DAM systems and metadata complexity and flexibility?

Finnish Crowdsourcing Games

You know how much I love projects incorporating games with digitization? So very much that I am sharing this RWW article on the National Library of Finland.

Feast your eyes on their clever Digitalkoot (digital volunteers) project. In conjunction with Microtask, a company dedicated to distributed work via the internet, the National Library of Finland dreamed up two games - Mole Bridge and Mole Hunt - both focused on correcting errors in OCR. Players write and identify words that presented issues during the normal computer OCR process, increasing accuracy and enabling greater access to Finland's cultural heritage.

Did I mention how brilliant this is?

 

Digitization Big and Small

There is a really nice article about digitization projects on the Information Today site right now. Jane Monson's What to Expect When You’re Digitizing: A Primer for the Solo Digital Librarian details some valuable lessons about embarking on digital projects whether you are in charge of a crack team of experts at a huge library or business or the solo librarian at a smaller locale. Highlights include accepting your limitations, seeking outside funding if available, and learning to juggle and collaborate.

Also, realize that even open source free software takes an investment of time and IT expertise to configure and install and that it is likely the project will actually take longer than you expect. As a general rule, it has been my experience that you should factor in trial and error time for the first upload to account for collection management software issues and also to build in extra time for creating metadata. Eventually, all steps will go more quickly, but at first there will be some errors, glitches and ramping up time.

In addition, it is wise to plan your a sort of soft launch to test part of your online collection with a group of trusted colleague's before going live for the public and search engines alike.

 

Otis College of Art and Design

The Millard Sheets Library at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles has some super cool online resources.

From this entertaining and informative library tour video to Otis Collections Online, this library seems to have serving the information seeking needs of artists down to a science.  Even the information on Copyright and Fair Use is topped by a colorful Wordle tag cloud to draw in the visually stimulated user. The research help link to pathfinders even reveals this incredibly thorough list of library-recommended websites.

Finally, are you wondering who the Millard Sheets Library is named after? Click here for more.

Gas, Food, Lodging

Here is a great selection from the University of Washington Special Collections on Flickr entitled Gas, Food, Lodging.

Death to Multi-Tasking: The Pomodoro Technique

Can I tell you about how I have based an entire lifetime on multi-tasking? I was doing it before it was even called multi-tasking. Now, a rash of new studies provides the shocking news that you can't really excel at any one thing when you are doing ten things at once. I must be exemplary.

But really, the key is focus. Without even realizing it, I have always practiced a workflow where I tackle difficult tasks earlier in the day, work on things in a concentrated manner for a period of time and rewarding myself with a web surfing break (the Pomodoro technique) or tackling creative work in a non-office setting.

These strategies and others are detailed in this interesting article by Jocelyn K. Glei. What does this have to do with library and information sciences? With so many hats to wear and plates to juggle, librarians are natural multi-taskers. It might be time to take a break, especially when trying to accomplish big projects like budget projections or staffing plans.

More DAM Sharepoint Resources

I never thought I'd be sad that Sharepoint week is over, but I have even more amazing insights to share specifically regarding Sharepoint and DAM.

First off, a critical look at Sharepoint as a DAM for publishing and advertising assets, as it appeared on the blog Invisible Fist in 2009. I particularly appreciate the list of concerns and opinions which include some I have already mentioned such as Sharepoint being Microsoft-centric and Sharepoint exhibiting issues with file conversion options for creative assets. Invisible Fist also astutely comments on Sharepoint's lack of integration with compound-content tools (hello, layout files) and lack of color management workflow.

Another article on CMSWire called Is Sharepoint 2010's DAM Good Enough for Your Organization? brings up some other valuable considerations including the fact that you will need Silverlight to render digital content and flagrant lack of support for thumbnail images. This is one of many articles on this topic to recommend Mediarich as an add on to alleviate these issues.

Finally, on Andy Dale's Sharepoint blog where you can apparently continue Sharepoint week for all eternity, Andy points out some good things that can result from using Sharepoint as a DAM, notably the ability to add approvals and permissions to assets. Then he says a whole lot more nice things about Mediarich for Sharepoint.

So what did I learn this week? If I want to use Sharepoint for creative asset management, I should check out Mediarich by Equilibrium. And so should you, DAM it.

5 Wonderful LIS Topics for a Happy Thursday

Let's digress from Sharepoint week to partake in the tasty Thursday 5 Things column:

1. How about these awesome posters to save the libraries?
2. What is the anatomy of a perfect landing page?
3. How about a side of free CSS templates to go with that landing page?
4. A visit to the Fontennium to explore fonts of the ages.
5. Have you thought about your personal brand this week?

Enjoy! Bon apetit.

Sharepoint: Towing the Company Line

Yesterday's post proved that a little ingenuity can help to make Sharepoint a viable option for creative workflows. Today, feast your eyes on this informational page from Microsoft on managing digital assets. Does it make your eyes cross? Me too.

The most interesting section is actually this one, on planning the digital asset library. The steps listed here actually could apply to any kind of DAM project and are oddly simple and sensible.

Here is a quick Mod Librarian summary for the attention deficit:

1. Who creates and uses the assets?
2. What kinds of assets and how will they be used?
3. Organizational decisions - where to store assets, how to organize, dare I say taxonomy?
4. Fixed or collaborative? Fixed is read only, collaborative allows versioned read and write.
5. Define content types (i.e. video, audio, images).
6. Plan workflows and policies.

Wow, that really boils it down. That last point is a good one too. Workflows and policies must be developed as any DAM is incapable of running itself. In any DAM implementation, some rules and guidelines, a little training, and people actually talking to each other go a long way towards the long term success of the resource.

 

Sharepoint and Rich Media Assets

Admittedly, the topic this week is a little on the dry side, but I will attempt to distill the information in an entertaining manner. Let's pretend you have been asked to develop a workflow and digital asset management system for a creative agency like a photo studio. While many of the stakeholders in the organization may be comfortable with Microsoft-style applications, Sharepoint does not easily morph into a one stop DAM solution for dealing creative assets which can include RAW files,TIFs, JPEGs and other Adobe centric file formats.

What can you do? What can Sharepoint do seamlessly? An excellent article by the Content Wrangler delineates these points offering pros and cons as well as possible workarounds. One solution for the handling of rich media assets seems to be Mediarich by Equilibrium. By adding this to your existing Sharepoint application, you can truly enjoy integration of a powerful creative DAM with all the perks desired by the masses without the filetype and file size limitations inherent to Sharepoint.

The bigger question is whether you should attempt to retrofit a system because it makes sense for the organization or whether you should require old dogs to learn new tricks that will prove ultimately beneficial in time savings and efficiency.