Metadata Monday: Keywords for DAM

While doing research for my two speaking engagements in November, I ran across a great article  by Donna Slawsky on building a keyword library. The article discusses one of my favorite topics - aboutness in terms of identifying images -  and also spells out clearly how and why to create a taxonomy for managing the keywords applied to digital assets.

The photo example supplied in the article and the findings displayed are accompanied by the astute observation that "people use different words to express similar ideas, concepts and even things."

This is the main reason to create a taxonomy. Consistency in tagging assets begets consistency in retrieval.

Finally, the topic is summarized with some tips on creating the taxonomy - whether to take on the work in house or outsource to a freelance thesaurus developer. "Work on a thesaurus is never complete."

 

Happy Halloween!

From the NYPL Digital Gallery

5 Things Thursday: eReaders, Dropbox, Widen and Creativity

Here are five things to amaze and delight you.

1. Go over to Hack Lib School to read about iPads, and Kindles, and nooks.
2. Will Dropbox simplify your life?
3. Interested in who uses Widen's DAM system?
4. Has creativity killed the library star?
5. What would Steve Jobs say about the library catalog?

Metadata Monday: The Sound of Taxonomy?

A couple weeks ago a post by Seth Maislin caught my attention. In it, Seth talks about data visualizations and the need for explanation or interpretation to really understand and use the information presented. In the same way, perusing a taxonomy to establish patterns or identify gaps is often a murky pursuit.

Seth brings up an interesting idea of adding audio to assist in recognizing relationships and interpreting search query logs.

Simple patterns can be represented visually, but multifaceted interpretations might be better served using sound harmonies or vibration frequencies.

While these ideas may at first glance seem a little wacky, think about your own challenges making sense of the glut of data gleaned daily. Although this post is a bit science fiction, isn't everything lately?

Museum Ludwig

Here is another great website design for what looks to be an amazing art museum. With collections ranging from Bauhaus to Pop Art to a prestigious photographic collection, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany has a well organized and aesthetically appealing site.

Of interest to library types is the Art and Museum Library. The collection of books, rougly 350K volumes, at the Art and Museum Library of the City of Cologne covers the period from the Middle Ages to the present day with particular reference to publications relevant to museums.

 

5 Things Thursday: Tech Tools, MLIS Value, Apple's iCloud

1. Read about favorite tech tools like Zotero.
2. Wondering how to get started with iCloud?
3. Want to know the top ten reasons getting an MLIS is smart?
4. Can remixing content work in academic research?
5. Are word clouds harmful?

BONUS DESIGN SITE: Kern Type, the kerning game

Metadata Monday: SQL Server 2012 and Data Explorer

Microsoft's Data Explorer is a a touch-sensitive visualization tool that will orbit around the new SQL Server ecosystem. Admittedly, Microsoft Excel has long been the tool used to manipulate and visualize data, but even Quentin Clark, Microsoft's own corporate vice president for database systems, tells RWW in this article that using Excel for enterprise data is not really optimal.

Why? Because people tend to share Excel spreadsheet fragments, other people make changes, and the data eventually falls out of context with the database itself.Here is what Clark says specifically:

"It's not so much that we don't want Excel in the loop," says Clark about a product his team doesn't manage. "We want to give IT tools to make data sharable, so [people] can stop using Excel as the way data and information gets flowed, over e-mail... [and] ensure that SharePoint can be used as a sharing and collaboration mechanism, as opposed to e-mail."

And that's just the icing on the cake. Data Explorer allows sharing data through SharePoint too. 

Artquest

The Artquest site from the UK bills itself as containing "everything a visual artist needs to know." Indeed, this is a good resource containing information on grants for the visual arts, how to get an exhibition, as well as a marvelous section on Art and the Law.

Art and the Law features information on copyright, censorship, contracts and money.

The Art Directory has an art research section with a number of interesting image libraries including the Tate Research Services and the Bridgeman Art Library.

5 Things Thursday: ArtMatch, Analytics, Archivists Gone Wild

Check it out:

1. Want to use web analytics well?
2. Would you like to discover art that matches your tastes?
3. Read about an archivist who stole (and sold) archival sound recordings.
4. Consider structured content versus social media.
5. Visit the Digital Curation Exchange!

Metadata Monday: Social Metadata

Social metadata - content contributed by users - is evolving as a way to enhance and append metadata created by information professionals. The OCLC Research Library Partnership has spawned a 21-member Social Metadata Working Group that reviewed 76 sites for social metadata including tags, comments, ratings, reviews, images and video.

The first of the group's reports is available here and it is interesting to note how organizations are encouraging participation among users and utilizing the resulting content.

My favorite part of the report is the list of the sites reviewed which includes many I have not explored like:

• Brooklyn Revealed
• Kew Gardens
• Memory Maker
• Penn Tags

InfoCamp Seattle: Art of Presentation

Yesterday I attended day one of InfoCamp Seattle. There was a focus on user experience this year, a smattering of traditional librarian types, and not many people talking about my favorite topics - taxonomy and metadata.

What impressed me was the presentation style of the keynote address by Nishant Kothery, a designer from Microsoft, who spoke mainly about people, intuition, predictable irrationality and other things that can sometimes get in the way when collaboration is the key. He put together an amazing resource list here, but I was even more interested in his style of presenting - lots of photos, iconic images, soundbytes of ideas.

I attended another information session by Jen Matson, UX designer at Ascentium, on protoyping with HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. I was impressed by her presentation because it was organized in such a way that both people with no experience in coding or a lot of experience in coding would benefit. Jen was able to find the middle ground between simplicity and complexity.

Why was I more interested in the presentation style than the content? I am presenting twice in November - once at the Henry Stewart DAM LA conference on rights for creative assets and again at the ASPP West Chapter on keywording for photographers.

I always learn something valuable at InfoCamp and this year it was all about the art of presenting.

5 Things Thursday: October Tech, Legal, Linked Data

1. Want to see The Granger Collection of prints?
2. Is there something contradictory about vintage style tech accessories?
3. Can being an independent information professional guarantee a job for life?
4. Need some legal help with digital media publishing?
5. Should academic libraries expose bibliographic data as linked data?

InfoCamp Seattle: October 8th and 9th

InfoCamp, an egalitarian, community-driven format in which the agenda is created during the event, returns to Seattle Saturday and Sunday October 8th and 9th. InfoCamps tend to attract students and professionals loosely focused on information related pursuits. Digital librarians mingle with user experience gurus and taxonomists stand in the corner and categorize everyone.

The agenda is user driven and always a delightful surprise. My favorite sessions last year were about content management, product design, and holistic user experience.

Find out more here. Hope to see you there if you are in Seattle!

Metadata Monday: Tweet Data

Even though a tweet is 140 characters or less, the metadata (see chart here) attached to a tweet tracks much more. From standard issue items like the date created, a unique ID, whether the user has geo tracking enabled, how many followers the user has and many other things.

Most notably, however, is the fact that all the metadata surrounding your succinct missive can be sifted and mined for marketing purposes. Companies like Gnip  standardize and analyze data from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.