metadata in the real world amy robinson look-here! project meeting university for the creative arts...

Metadata in the Real World

Amy RobinsonLook-Here! Project Meeting

University for the Creative Arts10 May 2010

• Introduction to metadata• Metadata standards in the creative arts• A case study on the VADS Image Collection

Overview

• “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!

What is metadata?

‘Perusing the card catalogue’, BinaryApe, Flickr.com

• For different purposese.g. administrative, resource discovery

• For different audiencese.g. academics, students, general public, collections staff

What are you describing?

Different levels

Collection Sub-collection Item

Different layers

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...

010010100101001010101010100001001010101010101001010100101010011001010101

Different layers

Left:Imperial War Museum

Right:Design Council Slide Collection, Manchester Metropolitan University

vads.ac.uk

• 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”

Typology of metadata standards

Design Council Archive, University of Brighton, vads.ac.uk

• 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)

Typology of metadata standards

• 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

Title

Creator

Subject

Description

Publisher

Contributor

Date

Type

Format

Identifier

Source

Language

Relation

Coverage

Rights

Structure standards: Dublin 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

Structure standards: VRA Core

Cultural context

Style/period

Technique

Inscription

Earliest date/latest date

• 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

Vocabularies: controlling your language

‘Dictionaries’, jovike, Flickr.com

Sculpture?

Idol?

Figurine?

Carving?

Statuette?Doll?

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA, vads.ac.uk

• Better retrieval• Improved cataloguing efficiency and consistency• Support interoperability• Disambiguate the language

• 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)

Why bother?

• 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)

Examples of controlled vocabularies

See: http://getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies

Relationships between terms

Equivalent terms/names

Related concepts

Genus/species

Relationships between terms

Whole/part

• 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

Where am I going to keep it?

• 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)

• 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

Some alternatives...

• 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?

Questions to consider

JISC Digital Mediahttp://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/tags/category/metadata/ Baca, M., ed. (2008). Introduction to MetadataBaca, M., ed. (2002). Introduction to Art Image AccessBoth online at:http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards

Metadata: some references

A case study on the VADS Image Collection

• Contacted at bidding stage, start of a project, part way through, or at the end

• Existing depositors, recommendations, email/phone enquiries

Step 1: the initial contact

• 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 2: the deposit

• Original images backed-up at VADS, and processed into small, medium, and large JPEGS for Web delivery

Step 3: preparing the images

• Export, ‘flatten’, deal with any anomalies

• Map the metadata

• See Getty Metadata standards crosswalk:

http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/standards/intrometadata/crosswalks.html

Step 4: preparing the metadata

• Collection info page created• Collection uploaded to test site

Step 5: upload and testing

• Launched on the public website at http://www.vads.ac.uk

Step 6: launch

• ‘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

Metadata Challenges

• 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

Successes

• Introduction to metadata• Metadata standards in the creative arts• A case study on the VADS Image Collection

Recap

• ‘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

• 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

• 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

Image credits

info@vads.ac.uk

01252 892723

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