Transcript
Encounters with metadata
Angela Murphy
The Image Business
MILE
23 August 2007
Personal encounters with classification and metadata
• Pre-digital age - hands-on picture research– Subject headings and simple arrangements
• Setting up a picture library– Importing metadata from databases– Digitised card indexes
• A major funded digitisation project (NMSI)– Thesaurii and subject hierarchies
• Encounters with academia (Courtauld)– - not all projects were the same
• Systems, metadata, and search engines
Background
• 1980s: Picture editor and researcher
• 1990s Science & Society Picture Library
• ScM, NMPFT, NRM
• Time Out Group, The Labour Party, Getty Images
• Courtauld Institute
• University of Cambridge - museums, archives, libraries
The pre-digital age
• Still applies to 90% of the world’s cultural image resources
• The hidden resources• NMPFT (National
Media Museum)• Courtauld Institute• Cambridge University
NMSI - looking for taxonomiesNational Museum of Science and Industry
Science Museum LibraryB/w prints organised in large albums by collection subject
Limited colour transparencies in photo studio shoebox
Pictorial Collectionoriginal works of art and prints
Organised by subject
SSPL - Manchester Daily ExpressRedundant newspaper picture library
Complex subject headingsGeneral, Places, People
Science MuseumLondon
Photograph Collectionorganised by colleciton name
Photo StudioColour transparencies
organised by inconsitent subject headingsPosters - numerical order
National Railway MuseumYork
Photograph Collection3.5 million items,
including Daily Herald ArchiveNewspaper picture library (1920-1964)
3d CollectionsPhotographic Equipment
CinematographyTelevision etc
National Museum of Photography, Film & TelevisionBradford
NMSIBased at Science Museum
Collections Database (PRISM)New Trading Company
Evolution of image metadata
• Pictures: negatives, prints, transparencies
• Need to find images
--- newspaper picture libraries, press and stock agencies
--- indexes of art history e.g. Witt Library, slide libraries, LoC image collections
Working towards a subject hierarchy - analogue folder tabs
• Collection names• ScM Library Lists• Daily Herald• Daily ExpressAlso usedSHIC (Social History Index)Library of Congress Subject
Headings (not much use)
Building on the hierarchy
Images of items in
3D Collections• Collection Names• Sub-headings
adapted from the library lists, in consultation with curators
Pictures from the
Pictorial & Photography Collections
• Adapted existing sub-headings
• Typed up all the Daily Herald and Daily Express sub-headings
• Adapted to fit into a subject hierarchy - years and years
The NOF-funded project
• Opportunity to rationalise the subject headings
• Keywords, keywords, keywords
• Concepts, actions and emotions
• A new system
Going digital
The Home Page
Global Menus
Browsing Using Categories
Main Subject Level
The Sub-Category Level
The Sub-Category Level
Preview A Single Image
Issues: Migrating to overseas partners
• Commercial partners did not want an xml export of metadata
• Several had never heard of xml
• Picture libraries receive thousands of image records every week from hundreds of different sources.
• Which xml standard ?
Courtauld Institute
• NOF project team created powerful, sophisticated DAM
• Day-to-day activities not integrated into project
• Most staff prefer to use known, pre-existing, simple Access databases
• Locked-in images/ data
• Authority lists - ULAN and Witt
Keywords and thesaurii
Keyword Search• “Select a keyword below to
initiate a new search”• Keywords: portraits, books,
finger rings, busts
• Keywording done via thesaurii• Ensures consistency, but not
designed to enable unmediated searches
• Poor results on common general searches
The Bar at the Folies Bergere
• Keywords• bars (1) | beer (7) | bottles (13) |
dresses (108) | men (790) | mirrors (94) | necklaces (36) | oranges (2) | trapezes (1) | waitresses (2) | women (1356)
• Keyword Search• Select a keyword below to initiate a new
search• costume , textiles , furniture and furnishings ,
women , sport and leisure , people , people and organisations , business, commerce, industry , costume, jewellery and personal appearance , fine and applied arts, sculpture , making things , manufacturing , science and technology , visual works , domestic and social life, rites and customs , objects , coating (process) , processes , periods and styles , materials , nature , textile working , painting , waitresses , dresses , necklaces , bottles , trapezes , bars , beer , oranges , fruit , eating and drinking , botany , sports and games , jewellery , coatings (materials) , nations and peoples , paint , french , bar , canvas , containers , eating and drinking places , female people , food and drink , garments for the whole body , gymnastics , male people , mirror , oil paint , people by gender , people in service occupations , plant , vessels (containers) , plants , mirrors , men , paintings
A slice of the metadata
Cambridge DAM Project
• 8 core partners - all university departments• Libraries, museums, academics, technologists• Up to 30 potential partners• Broad range of issues - relating from the
sophisticated to the banal• Organise, assess, delete, rename, add information,
distribute, disseminate, earn…..• All involve improved use of metadata
Cambridge DAM Project
• University of Cambridge Library– Royal Commonwealth Society– Darwin projects
• Fitzwilliam Museum• Scott Polar Research Institute• Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology• Dspace• CARET (Centre for Advanced Research in
Educational Technology)
Analogue or digital ?
IPTC headers
How well does it work for us ?
• Important as a short term solution• Needs to be extended in several vital areas• Cultural use currently inconsistent
IPTC - Mapped fields
Tagging Objects
Blobgects
The role of funders
To make more precise demands of the recipients of their funds, in order to:
• Ensure digital preservation
• Ensure the rights information is harvested
• Ensure digital asset creation
• Pay more than lip service to the idea of sustainablity and re-purposing
top related