Transcript All for one and one for all Demonstrator Service

Metadata in the Real World
Amy Robinson
Look-Here! Project Meeting
University for the Creative Arts
10 May 2010
Overview
• Introduction to metadata
• Metadata standards in the creative arts
• A case study on the VADS Image Collection
What is metadata?
• “Data about data”
• In the digital world, metadata
is usually structured textual
information about the creation,
content, or context of an
individual file or collection of
digital files
• A lot of confusion around the
term’s meaning!
‘Perusing the card catalogue’, BinaryApe, Flickr.com
What are you describing?
• For different purposes
e.g. administrative, resource discovery
• For different audiences
e.g. academics, students, general public, collections staff
Different levels
Collection
Sub-collection
Item
Different layers
010010100101
001010101010
100001001010
101010101001
010100101010
011001010101
Original image
Slide image
Digital image
Creator
Leonardo da Vinci
Jane Smith
[Photographer]
John Brown [Scanning
technician]
Format
Painting
Photographic
transparency
JPEG image
Location
Louvre Museum
University slide
collection
A:\images\0023.jpg
etc...
Different layers
Left:
Imperial War Museum
Right:
Design Council Slide
Collection, Manchester
Metropolitan University
vads.ac.uk
Typology of metadata standards
• Categories (data structure standards) e.g. “Subject” or “Title”
• Cataloguing rules (data content standards) e.g. “Take the title of
the book from the title page and not the front cover”
• Vocabularies (data value standards) e.g. “Dog” or “Renaissance”
Design Council Archive, University of Brighton, vads.ac.uk
Typology of metadata standards
• Categories (data structure standards) e.g. Machine-Readable
Cataloging (MARC), Dublin Core, VRA Core, Categories for the
Description of Works of Art (CDWA)
• Cataloguing rules (data content standards) e.g. Anglo-American
Cataloguing Rules (AACR), Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO)
• Vocabularies (data value standards) e.g. Library of Congress
Subject Headings (LCSH), Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
(TGM), the Getty Vocabularies (AAT, ULAN, TGN)
Structure standards: Dublin Core
• A proposed minimum set of 15 categories
for describing network-accessible materials
• Generic set of headings
• Used to achieve interoperability (e.g.
OAIster database http://oclc.org/oaister)
• See: http://dublincore.org/documents/dces
Title
Creator
Subject
Description
Publisher
Contributor
Date
Type
Format
Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage
Rights
Structure standards: VRA Core
• Developed by the Visual Resources
Association (VRA)
• Standard set of elements for describing
cultural heritage works and their images
• See:
http://www.vraweb.org/projects/vracore4
Inscription
Style/period
Technique
Cultural context
Earliest date/latest date
Vocabularies: controlling your language
• Vocabularies are used to ‘fill’
metadata categories (the
‘buckets’)
• Glossaries, thesauri,
dictionaries, word lists
• Controlled vocabularies are
a tool for consistency in the
language used in the
recording and retrieval of
information
‘Dictionaries’, jovike, Flickr.com
Sculpture?
Figurine?
Idol?
Carving?
Doll?
Statuette?
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA, vads.ac.uk
Why bother?
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Better retrieval
Improved cataloguing efficiency and consistency
Support interoperability
Disambiguate the language
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National and regional differences (e.g. lifts or elevators)
Historical and contemporary names (e.g. Iran or Persia or Islamic
Republic of Iran)
Linguistic differences (e.g. pottery or keramik or céramique)
Homographs (e.g. sewer, a pipe to remove sewage, or sewer, one
who sews)
Examples of controlled vocabularies
• The Getty Vocabularies, compiled
by the Getty Research Institute
• Focused on the visual arts,
architecture, and material culture
Includes:
• Union List of Artists Names (ULAN)
• Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)
• Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)
• Forthcoming: The Cultural Objects Name
Authority (CONA)
See: http://getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies
Relationships between terms
Related concepts
Equivalent terms/names
Relationships between terms
Whole/part
Genus/species
Where am I going to keep it?
• Commercial solutions
e.g. Luna Insight, Extensis Portfolio
• Open source solutions
e.g. MDID, E-prints (Kultur)
• Simple solutions
e.g. Filemaker Pro, Access, even Excel
• ‘In the cloud’ solutions
e.g. Flickr
• Depends on your purpose, requirements, resourcing, timescale
• Make sure data is easily exportable
Some alternatives...
• Get some of your
users to do the
cataloguing!
• Tagging and
‘folksonomies’
• E.g. Flickr Commons
(http://www.flickr.com/
commons)
Some alternatives...
• Get some of your
users to do the
cataloguing!
• Tagging and
‘folksonomies’
• E.g. Flickr Commons
(http://www.flickr.com/
commons)
Some alternatives...
• Get the technology to do
the cataloguing!
• Content based image
retrieval
• Retrievr
http://labs.systemone.at/
retrievr
• Hermitage Museum
(QBIC)
Some alternatives...
More Examples:
• Tin Eye - finds exact
matches
http://www.tineye.com
• Idée Labs http://labs/ideeinc.com
Some alternatives...
More Examples:
• Tin Eye - finds exact
matches
http://www.tineye.com
• Idée Labs http://labs.ideeinc.com
Questions to consider
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What am I actually describing?
For whom?
For what purpose?
What categories and vocabularies might I need to assemble?
Where am I going to get the metadata from?
Where am I going to keep it?
Metadata: some references
JISC Digital Media
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/tags/category/metadata/
Baca, M., ed. (2008). Introduction to Metadata
Baca, M., ed. (2002). Introduction to Art Image Access
Both online at:
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards
A case study on the VADS Image Collection
Step 1: the initial contact
• Contacted at bidding stage, start of a project, part way through, or at
the end
• Existing depositors, recommendations, email/phone enquiries
Step 2: the deposit
• Recommend that images are
provided as high resolution TIFF v.6
for archiving
• Metadata as CSV or plain text, or
supply a copy of the database itself
• Signed copy of the VADS licence
form
Step 3: preparing the images
• Original images backed-up at VADS, and processed into small,
medium, and large JPEGS for Web delivery
Step 4: preparing the metadata
• Export, ‘flatten’, deal
with any anomalies
• Map the metadata
• See Getty Metadata
standards crosswalk:
http://www.getty.edu/res
earch/conducting_resea
rch/standards/intrometa
data/crosswalks.html
Step 5: upload and testing
• Collection info page created
• Collection uploaded to test site
Step 6: launch
• Launched on the public website at http://www.vads.ac.uk
Metadata Challenges
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‘A picture says a thousand words’ (or rather none at all)
Wide range of content in the visual arts
Different communities with different standards
Different database software and different underlying database
structures
Other challenges:
• Digitisation is often project based
• Rapid technological change
• Balancing needs of users and providers
Successes
• Cross-searchable bank of over 100,000 high quality images free for use
in education
• At a time when it is difficult to source copyright cleared images for UK
education
• Most images backed-up in high resolution offline
• Critical mass, and well-known in the sector
• Also attracts usage outside art education
Recap
• Introduction to metadata
• Metadata standards in the creative arts
• A case study on the VADS Image Collection
Image credits
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‘Perusing the card catalogue’, BinaryApe, Flickr.com
Mona Lisa image, from Wikipedia Commons
Letter to Musgrave from Studio, Peter King Archive: London Metropolitan University
‘Our Jungle Fighters Want Socks - Please Knit Now’ poster by Abram Games, Imperial
War Museum, and Design Council Slide Collection, Manchester Metropolitan University
Screenshot of vads.ac.uk showing image from Britain Can Make It Exhibition, 1946, from
the Design Council Archive, University of Brighton
‘Brown upside down’ by Alfred Concanen, Spellman Collection of Victorian Music Covers,
Reading University Library
‘Dictionaries’, jovike, Flickr.com
Screenshots from target.com
Female figure, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia
Screenshots from http://getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies
Screenshots from http://www.flickr.com/commons, http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr,
http://www.tineye.com
Image credits
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Gillette poster by Tom Eckersley, Eckersley Archive, University of the Arts London
A Summer Shower, by Charles Edward Perugini, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums
Image from Design Council Slide Collection, Design Council/Manchester Metropolitan
University
‘Idol with doll’, Nadín Ospina, University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art
Image from the London College of Fashion: Gala of London,Crystal Products and Henry
C.Miner Publicity Collection
Monument by Rachel Whiteread, located at Trafalgar Square until 2002, Rachel
Whiteread
Britons by Alfred Leete, Imperial War Museum
Feeding the animals - change of diet! by HB (Doyle, John; 1797-1868), Bodleian Library,
University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection
Coffee cup and saucer, Bernard Leach, David Leach/Crafts Study Centre
Britain’s Pavilion - Expo ‘67 Canada, by F.H.K. Henrion, Design Archives, University of
Brighton
Image credits
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Mr potato head character toy, from Museum of Design in Plastics, Arts University College
at Bournemouth
Les Pommiers à Damiette, by Armand Guillaumin, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums
Nicolas Gaze de Joursavaux, Knight of St Philip, Duke of Burgundy, with his patron, St
Nicholas and Infant Son, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Lady in a Fur Wrap, Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums): Pollok House
Regata on the Grand Canal, Canaletto, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
A Mediterranean Seaport with a Column, National Trust for Scotland (Hill of Tarvit)
La Jeunesse, by Jean Aubert, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums
Adoration of the Shepherds, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
‘Urgent please return that library book’ poster, ‘Lovely day for a GUINNESS’ poster,
Greetings 1983 poster, Keep Britain Tidy Campaign poster, and Tiger menu, by Tom
Eckersley, Eckersley Archive, University of the Arts London
Contact
[email protected]
01252 892723