Monday, August 29, 2011

Metadata Monday: Taxonomy and SharePoint

Here is a fantastic post on Digital Landfill on Five Myths about Taxonomy and SharePoint. I began to miss SharePoint, so I found this piece not only informative, but realistic regarding what you can and can't expect to do with SharePoint in terms of taxonomy.

The highlights for you, enumerated as follows:

  • The term store management tool is not a taxonomy management system.  It is called a term store and not the taxonomy manager for a reason. 
  • It’s important to note the lack of workflow associated with term addition, modification and deletion. Changes to taxonomy in the term store can occur without review or approval, which can lead to repercussions like downstream processes becoming out of alignment.
  • Content types should be refelctive of the content itself and therefore not relegated as the sole responsibility of IT because they are not generally the business stakeholders.
  • Taking too narrow or too broad a perspective can lead to problems. Just because you are able to create a seven level hierarchy with thirty-thousand terms doesn’t mean that you should.
  • In SharePoint, the taxonomy is used throughout the site but terms are managed in the term store for specific usage in content.

Finally, as with many projects that require the organization of information, LIS professionals can play a useful role in creating and managing SharePoint terms, however, it is vitally important to involve team members with a rich understanding of SharePoint's features and limitations and the actual enterprise end users.

 

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The National Archives UK: All About Digital Preservation

I love a good resource on digital preservation. Here is another one from the UK, from the National Archives.

I particularly like the "Digital Preservations FAQ's" section which talks about funding, expertise, and some golden rules like always holding two copies of a record and documenting processes.

The Guidance section includes practical information about file formats and storage media. Finally, there is a page devoted to Policy Guidance because every good digital collection should be backed up not only in multiple locations, but backed up by a solid policy.

Thanks to Jill Hurst-Wahl at Digitization 101 for pointing out this amazing resource!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Another DAM Podcast: Interview With Me!

I am proud to be featured on Henrik de Gyor's interview series Another DAM Podcast. If you want to hear me talk about creative assets, here is the link:

http://anotherdampodcast.com/2011/08/25/tracy-guza/

 

 

5 Things Thursday: Late Summer Edition

Here are five things to tide you over as summer draws to a close:

  1. HP acquires Autonomy - what does this mean for MediaBin DAM?
  2. Starting library school? Here are some tips from Hack Lib School.
  3. Want to be famous in your profession?
  4. Learn more about databases from Stanford University.
  5. Would you like to know more about SEO competitive analysis?

Monday, August 22, 2011

Metadata Monday: Data Friday

The Hedgehog Librarian, Abigail Goben, has collected a number of interesting metadata related tidbits on her blog. One of the most interesting observations is regarding the number of LIS jobs that are directly related to dealing with, modelling and even visualizing metadata. Here is the list of positions plus a few new ones. Take note of the skill sets and buzz words used in the descriptions. If you are a librarian excited about metadata, interesting opportunities abound.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Make Your Own September Issue: Cond?? Nast Archive

If you are interested in fashion and in reading big, hefty, glossy magazines, you are familiar with the mythic September issues. Well, did you also know that stock giant Corbis Images offers rights for editorial use of the Condé Nast archive of images?   

The Condé Nast Archive, with a collection dating back to 1892, is one of the finest resources in the publishing world. The selection of photography features work by such giants as Edward Steichen, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, John Rawlings, George Hoyningen-Huene, Toni Frissell, Henry Clarke, and many others.

From a Pucci dress to a portrait of Joni Mitchell to a woman dining with a cheetah, this image collection will amaze and inspire.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

5 Things Thursday: Melange

Here are 5 more things, just like every week:

  1. Want a website that inspires and informs your book club? Try Book Club Buddy.
  2. Thinking about how people search?
  3. What is your value proposition?
  4. Piccsy: do we need another photo site? If so, this one is pretty cool.
  5. Want to read how Hack Library School hacked my program at SJSU?

 

BONUS: Marvelous post by Meredith Farkas "Be the change you want to see."

Monday, August 15, 2011

Metadata Monday: Standards

Did you know that the good old Library of Congress has an entire page devoted to resources especially for librarians and archivists? In my opinion, one of the best sections is called Best Practices & Standards. There you can find authorities, information on search and bibliographic control and lovely sections on MARC, METS and EAD .

The page on standards has some fantastic information and links. One of the links is to Metadata for Digital Content. Nice resources, LOC!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

National Gallery of Art

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The Collection site for the National Gallery of Art is well organized, clean and easy to search. Here is a James Rosenquist from the collection.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

5 Things Thursday: DAM Edition

Here are your weekly 5 things:

  1. Can DAM handle Rights Managed assets?
  2. Interested in learning about digital asset management and imaging in one convenient certificate program?
  3. Want to manage your personal photos?
  4. Would you like to see me speak at DAM LA in November?
  5. More interested in digital preservation?

BONUS: Win a DAM book - “The Information and Knowledge Professional’s Career Handbook“, co-authored by Jill Hurst-Wahl and Ulla de Stricker.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Metadata Monday: Stemming

Are you familiar with stemming? In linguistics, stemming is essentially reducing a word to its root. For example, the word 'fish' is the stem of fishing, fisher, fisherman and others. "Discuss" is the root of discussion and discussing.

Stemming algorithms have long been used in search and SEO to increase the results associated with any given term. Keyword stemming involves the strategic use of synonyms and alternative keywords. Here is a great list of tips for using this concept in SEO.

Until last week, it did not occur to me to employ this strategy to my advantage in planning the controlled vocabulary behind the DAM system I work with. Our keyword field specifically has been littered with all forms of nouns and verbs increasing the size of the list.

I did some research on the configuration of our DAM and it turns out that one simple line in the search file, Stemming = TRUE (or FALSE), was all that was needed to ensure that if we entered the term baby, the search results would also include babies. If we entered farm, we would also get farms and farmers and farming. It is like magic, our keyword list is more concise and precise as a result and consistency improves as well.

 

Thursday, August 4, 2011

5 Things Thursday: Welcome to August

Here are 5 things to talk about with your information fanatic friends:

  1. Did you know Duke University's images appeared on History Detectives?
  2. Is digitization different than digital preservation?
  3. Want to make your own book? Try Blurb.
  4. What is the connection between a social graph, "liking" and library data?
  5. Need some more on personal branding?

BONUS: Make your iPhone look like a vintage volume.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Metadata Monday: Art & Architecture Images

Check out this lovely metadata scheme for art and architecture images created by the University of Oregon Libraries Digital Images Initiative. Part crosswalk and part data dictionary, this simple scheme (UO-AAI) combines the best of VRA Core and Dublin Core. Authorities are clearly delineated with the usual suspects of ULAN, TGN and AAT at the forefront and it provides a solid framework for anyone seeking to manage a digital visual resource collection.

Ostensibly, this scheme was created to manage the rich resources available at UO's Art and Architecture Library. Collections range from those originating from Oregon libraries like Oregon Digital, a joint effort by OSU and UO to the standard issue Artstor or Oxford Art Online.

From historic sheet music to Oregon state baseball, the collections employ the UO-AAI scheme in a CONTENTdm environment which is easy to search and browse.