This week's selections focus on books, libraries, collections and related topics:
Like many of you, I am a big fan of a concise, well organized and easy to understand reference guide. Did you know that MIT has one for all things metadata? The MIT Metadata Reference Guide is a wiki with lots of information on standards, mapping, terms and uses of metadata.
There are project examples and reading recommendations and even some nifty crosswalks. While many of the project examples and readings are a little older, the content is both valuable, relavent and remains current. This would be a great starting point for students trying to gain a basic understanding of metadata or for a librarian that needs a refresher.
Here's a thought provoking idea. Instead of calling yourself a librarian, how about information ninja?
According to a recent presentation at CLA as well as a nice summary on the blog Cataloging Futures, space age librarians can transform into information ninjas by embracing the following skills:
- Information Retrieval - determining the best way to find, manage and access resources regardless of the system, format or location.
- Cataloging - moving away from traditional records and towards metadata and user tagging.
- Classification - establishing common, interoperable practices.
- Tech Savvy - learning about search, structured and unstructured content, digital preservation and retention.
Here are five topics to keep you on your toes this summer.
Here's another snippet related to Linked Open Data. As you may imagine, one wrinkle in sharing cultural heritage and other materials in digital collections is copyright. To ameliorate some of the concerns surrounding the intellectual property rights, LOD-LAM proposes a 4-star classification scheme for linked open cultural metadata.
While you can read more about this ranking system both here at the LOD-LAM blog and here at the Open Knowledge Foundation Blog, the summary of the rankings is as follows:
**** Public Domain (pre 1923 and other cases)
*** Attribution License (CC-BY / ODC-BY) where the licensor considers linkbacks to meet the attribution requirement
** Attribution License (CC-BY / ODC-BY) with another form of attribution defined by the licensor
* Attribution Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA/ODC-ODbL)
Instead of information architecture, sometimes digital archivists need information about architecture to classify assets and assign subject headings and keywords.
Here are two resources to help in building a solid vocabulary as a foundation for an architecture collection. First and foremost, the Getty Vocabularies are the place to start. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary or authority list that can be used to assign data values or aid users in retrieval. Truly amazing!
Need help learning how to identify architectural types and styles? Check out the Great Buildings Collection site for a list of architecural types linked to tangible examples.
You will feel like Frank Lloyd Wright in no time.
Here are five more things to tantalize your gray matter:
Would you like to easily create and embed Dublin Core metadata in your digital images? Check out this truly awesome tool by Matt Milller and Chris Mullin at Pratt - Embedded MetaData Explorer. Upload a photo or enter a URL and you will see the metadata that already exists. There is also an option to embed or edit Dublin Core. When selected, a template pops up featuring all the DC elements as fillable fields. As a bonus - up to nine Subject fields.
When you are ready to go, embed the data and download. Boom! Instant metadata.
Visual image search has come a long way indeed. Check out these products by pixolution, including an iPhone app. From sorting images based on their visual similarity to suggesting semantically similar images, pixolution products are like magic. Try the demo for Pixolu image search, for instance. Type in a word like 'cat,' behold the massive amount of cute kitty cat faces and then select a couple of your favorites. Choose 'get similar images' and the visual search technology locates shots that resemble the original selects.
Another company with a long history in visual image search is Idée. The reverse search engine TinEye can locate an image on the web. Upload a photo or choose the URL for the image in question and uses PixMatch - an API-based, automated image matching solution. Given an image to look for, it locates identical or modified images within or between large scale image collections.
Finally, did you ever wish there was an easier way to tag images? Have trouble with keywording your images to maximize findability? Want more image search and similarity suggestions? Well, a company called imense® makes cutting-edge products which revolutionize the analysis, search and annotation of digital images and video.
Here are five fun topics to discuss in the sun this weekend:
The hot topic of library circles in recent weeks appears to be linked data. While I feel like a trendspotter for recognizing this, I would like to say more. One recent blog post on the topic on the SLA Future Ready 365 site called vocabularies the "magic glue" holding data together. Vocabularies promote standardization, establish linkages, and ultimately allow for mapping of search queries to the correct information.
Findability, again? Vocabulary, taxonomy, thesauri and linked data in partnership can indeed lead to increased retrieval of relevant information. The challenge is that many organizations put the cart before the horse and often skip or curtail the valuable planning stages of a digital project where vocabulary creation or selection can be established.
Here are a couple of informative links featured in Alexander Polonsky's SLA post that demonstrate the importance of vocabulary in the success of linked data:
Doesn't text indexing of video assets sound a little like magic? Last year, when YouTube (Google) added auto captioning for videos by employing some of the speech-to-text algorithms found in Google's Voice Search to automatically generate captions, critics wondered how well it would work.
Another DAM product touting a "meaning-based rich media management platform" is Autonomy's MediaBin. At the heart of this innovation is "the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) which allows businesses to automate the processing of all rich media assets.
IDOL forms a conceptual understanding that allows marketers to automatically tag and classify any rich media asset, regardless of format or language."
Sounds incredible, right? I would imagine both of these processes works about as well as any automated metadata generation which means it is probably partially amazing and accurate. While I agree that the exponential amount of disparate media information ingested in corporate DAM systems required automation with a minimization of manual intervention, I just do not think an entirely automated solution can really interpret nuances like an actual person with a live brain.
Hence, the need for live people to manage DAM within organizations. Digital asset managers can maintain consistency, spearhead innovation, streamline processes, and ensure asset findability.
Here are five hot topics for rumination this week:
