The fault is not in our databases, but in ourselves: messy data, metadata, and interoperability

The fault is not in our The fault is not in our databases, but in ourselves: databases, but in ourselves: messy data, metadata, and messy data, metadata, and

interoperabilityinteroperability

Adam RabinowitzAdam Rabinowitz

The University of Texas at The University of Texas at AustinAustin

[email protected]@mail.utexas.edu

British Museum Collection CRM schema - work in progress version by Dominic Oldman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Rabinowitz ● FAIMS 2012 ● 8.17.12



Go Go Fish!Fish!


Does anyone have… a medieval Islamic Does anyone have… a medieval Islamic padlock?padlock?





Hey, Corinth: do you have… a ceramic krater?Hey, Corinth: do you have… a ceramic krater?






Does anyone have… stuff from Athens?Does anyone have… stuff from Athens?

Pelagios graph explorerPelagios graph explorer


Hey, South Italy, do you have… Geometric ceramics?Hey, South Italy, do you have… Geometric ceramics?


Mockup of metadata description for digital object Mockup of metadata description for digital object sfi_CH05SR_3065_m.JPGsfi_CH05SR_3065_m.JPG

<dc > <title>sfi_CH05SR_3065_A9_m.JPG</title> <temporal>Hellenistic to Late Byzatine</temporal> <spatial>Chersonesos South</spatial> <creator>ICA</creator> <description>Lock</description> <date>2005:08:23</date> <format>.JPG</format> <identifier>sfi_CH05SR_3065_A9_m.JPG</identifier> <publisher>ICA</publisher> <language></language> <relation>image_documentation/special_finds/photographs/master</relation> <isInContext>CH05SR_434</isInContext> <isPartOf>sfi_CH05SR_3065</isPartOf> <rights>Specified in SIP</rights> <subject>Chersonesos South</subject> <subject>Archaeology</subject> <subject>photographs</subject> <source>Master</source><type>image_documentation</type></dc>

•StaticStatic

•Harvested From ARKHarvested From ARK

•Technical MetadataTechnical Metadata

•Harvested from Hierarchy Harvested from Hierarchy

•Harvested From File NameHarvested From File Name


iRODS (integrated rule-oriented data system)iRODS (integrated rule-oriented data system)www.irods.orgwww.irods.org


Descriptive metadata using METS and Dublin CoreDescriptive metadata using METS and Dublin Core


Automated integration of post-season documentation with Automated integration of post-season documentation with database using unique ID in filename of iRODS objectdatabase using unique ID in filename of iRODS object


Preservation metadata using METS and PREMISPreservation metadata using METS and PREMIS


The next step: a freestanding desktop toolkit to The next step: a freestanding desktop toolkit to automatically extract metadata without iRODS?automatically extract metadata without iRODS?


Go Fish, again! Some thoughts about interoperability and Go Fish, again! Some thoughts about interoperability and archaeologists off the gridarchaeologists off the grid

• The bar for metadata creation has to be lowered – it needs to be cheaper and easier to document your own material outside repositories

• This is especially true for documentation outside the database: individual files like images (or spatial data) that tend to proliferate even after a project is over, and that aren’t self-explanatory

• Data federation strategies should take into account the tendency of archaeologists to begin a search for information with a few key concepts, like

• Space• Time• Record type (site, building, object, excavation photo, etc)

• and within this, for objects, material

• URI services could really help here in the production of minimally interoperable metadata; Dublin Core probably isn’t a bad starting point as a schema

• In building services to use interoperable data, we should not neglect the highly visual nature of Go Fish searches, which get us past issues of terminology, classification, and misclassification (I can tell that’s not a hand-axe when I see it)

The fault is not in our databases, but in ourselves: messy data, metadata, and interoperability

Documents

orgrabinowitz faims

jpgrabinowitz faims

premisrabinowitz faims

dublin corerabinowitz

descriptive metadata

preservation metadata

metadata creation

mockup of metadata description