Image Metadata AGgregation for Enhanced Searching

Building A Metadata Sharing Community

at the

University of Minnesota

Chuck Thomas

Digital Projects Librarian

University of Minnesota Libraries

http://digital.lib.umn.edu/IMAGES

What Is A Metadata Sharing Community?

Implications:

Heterogeneous Content

Varying Metadata (form and content)

Varying Primary Audiences

Need for Principles of Design & Purpose

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

CONTEXT

Decentralized environment

Rich and diverse content across campus - library only one creator

Rate of digital collections growth in library is too limited to build rich, diverse content quickly

Distributed collections are inconsistent, hard to discover

Existing digital collections are not fully discovered and used.

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

CONTEXT

Barriers To Creation of New Digital Collections

Rapidly changing technology

High entry costs

Need for multiple skill sets

Guarantees of success, sustainability?

Lack of widely accepted standards in this realm

Fear of loss of control of content has discouraged working together in the past.

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

THE NEED

1. Ability to search/discover relevant home-grown content

2. Distributed content/centralized metadata model

3. Relatively easy to demonstrate benefits

Start with one domain of content

Incentive to participate

4. Carefully plan so that all r&d meets multiple needs, avoids redundancy

5. Future scalability, extensibility for library needs

6. Right balance between ease of adoption, descriptive specificity

7. Pragmatic, highly extensible, transferable to other environs

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

SELECTION PROCESS

1. Determine Scope, Domain, Purpose (mainly open-access?)

2. Anticipate Needs (Some restricted content, for example)

*Balance needs with design principles

3. Dual purpose delivery & management system

4. Metadata Mapping Foundation - Choices?

descriptive (EAD, DC, VRA, CDWA, VADS)

administrative (METS, RLG, etc.)

structural (MOA II, etc.)

5. Consensus of Multiple Experts

6. Testing, Iterative Modification

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

Ease of Implementation, Adoption

Sufficient Descriptive Specificity

Relationship To Other Standards, Systems (Interoperability)

Extensibility

Ability to move beyond one content domain

Other systems, activities on campus

CONSIDERATIONS

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

FutureLocal Standard

Distributed Resource

Local Standard

Distributed ResourceUsers

Users

XML-BASED

Metadata Mapping

(images.dtd)

MetadataRepository

UnionInterfaceUSERS

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

FutureLocal Standard

Distributed Resource

Local Standard

Distributed ResourceUsers

Users

XML-BASED

Metadata Mapping

(images.dtd)

MetadataRepository

UnionInterfaceUSERS

Virtual Resource

Virtual Resource

XSLT

XSLT

Users

Users

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

digitalid (key field) other_identifier

title series (2 levels subdivision)

caption annotation

creator contributor

publication_info related_urx

year_img_created (display, certainty, type, normal)

period_img_created repository

object_location provenance

medium media

dimensions description

subject_term userights

note internal_note

thumb, reference, hi_res metadata (path, format, size, bitdepth, res.)

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE images SYSTEM "images.dtd"><images><image><digitalid>ag0070_3302_3842_001</digitalid><title>'Peach Centerpiece'</title><series><level1>Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station</level1><level2>Horticulture -- U of MN Varieties -- Chrysanthemums</level2></series><caption>Released by the U of MN Agricultural Experiment Station in 2001. Principal Investigator: Neil O. Anderson</caption><creator>Hansen, David L., 1952-</creator><imgyear display="2000" type="single" certainty="exact" normal="/2000"/><repository>University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station</repository><medium>Photograph</medium><media>Photographic positive film</media><dimensions>35 mm</dimensions><keyword>Anderson, Neil O.</keyword><keyword>Chrysanthemums</keyword><keyword>Chrysanthemums. Breeding</keyword><keyword>Plants. Hardiness</keyword><userights>Copyright the University of Minnesota. Permission to publish is granted for educational purposes or to publicize U of MN products. Image may not be altered to misrepresent content. Credit: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.</userights><note>Transparency was scanned onto Kodak Photo CD Master Disc</note><thmbimg><thmbpath>http://digital.lib.umn.edu/IMAGES/thumbnail/ag/ag0070_3302_3842_001.jpg</thmbpath><thmbformat>image/jpeg</thmbformat></thmbimg><refimg><refpath>http://digital.lib.umn.edu/IMAGES/reference/ag/ag0070_3302_3842_001.jpg</refpath><refformat>image/jpeg</refformat></refimg><archimg><archloc>The master file for this image is stored off-line in Kodak PhotoCd format. Resolutions Available: 3.072x2048 (18MB), 1536x1024 (4.5MB), 768x512 (1.12 MB), 384x256 (288KB), 192x128 (70KB)</archloc></archimg><relatedurx>http://www.maes.umn.edu/</relatedurx><relatedurx>http://www.hort.agri.umn.edu/</relatedurx></image></images>

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

identifiercreator

contributorpublisher

formattype

sourcerelationsubject

note

contributor

publisher

series

relatedurx

medium

media

internal_note, object_location

userights

provenance

descriptiondate

dimensions

repository

period_img_created

year_img_created

note

description

annotation

caption

creator

title

thmbpath, refpath, hi_res_path

standardid

digitalid

titlecoverage

rightslanguage

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

<meta name=“DC.Identifier” content=“ag0070_3302_3842_001”/><meta name=“DC.Identifier”

content=“http://digital.lib.umn.edu/IMAGES/reference/ag/ag0070_3302_3842_001.jpg”/><meta name=“DC.Creator” content=“Hansen, David L., 1952-”/><meta name=“DC.Title” content=“Peach Centerpiece”/><meta name=“DC.Relation” content=“http://www.maes.umn.edu/”/><meta name=“DC.Relation” content=“http://www.hort.agri.umn.edu/”/><meta name=“DC.Format” content=“image/jpeg”/><meta name=“DC.Type” content=“Photograph”/><meta name=“DC.Date” content=“2000”/><meta name=“DC.Subject” content=“Anderson, Neil O.”/><meta name=“DC.Subject” content=“Chrysanthemums”/><meta name=“DC.Subject” content=“Chrysanthemums. Breeding”/><meta name=“DC.Subject” content=“Plants. Hardiness”/><meta name=“DC.Rights” content=“Copyright the University of Minnesota. Permission to publish is granted

for educational purposes or to publicize U of MN products. Image may not be altered to misrepresent content. Credit: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.”/>

<meta name=“DC.Note” content=“Transparency was scanned onto Kodak Photo CD Master Disc”/><meta name=“DC.Note” content=“The master file for this image is stored off-line in Kodak PhotoCd format.

Resolutions Available: 3.072x2048 (18MB), 1536x1024 (4.5MB), 768x512 (1.12 MB), 384x256 (288KB), 192x128 (70KB)”/>

<meta name=“DC.Description” content=“Released by the U of MN Agricultural Experiment Station in 2001. Principal Investigator: Neil O. Anderson”/>

<meta name=“DC.Source” content=“University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station”/>

IMAGES MAPPED TO DUBLIN CORE

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

IMAGES Mapped To Item-Level EAD...

<c01>

<did><unittitle>Peaches centerpiece</unittitle>, <unitdate>2000</unitdate>

<physdesc><extent>1</extent> <format>Photograph</format></physdesc></did>

<admininfo>

<userestrict> Copyright the University of Minnesota. Permission to publish is granted for educational purposes or to publicize U of MN products. Image may not be altered to misrepresent content. Credit: University of Minnesota, Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.</userestrict></admininfo>

<note><list><li><subject>Anderson, Neil O.</subject></li> <li><subject>Chrysanthemums</subject></li> <li><subject>Chrysanthemums. Breeding</subject></li> <li><subject>Plants. Hardiness</subject></li><list>

<p> Released by the U of MN Agricultural Experiment Station in 2001. Principal Investigator: Neil O. Anderson.</p></note>

</c01>

...

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

ARCHITECTURE & WORKFLOW DETAILS

1. Initially programmed in SQL, delivered MSSQL

2. Migration to ORACLE TM

XML/XSLT Support

Support for future enhancements

Built-in bells & whistles

3. At the moment, mappings are done manually from contributor exports

4. DB --> XML achieved via XMetal database import wizard

5. Data frequently is “massaged” in early stages; less so as contributors learn

6. After DB-->XML and quality control, XML goes to DB administrator

7. XML is re-validated, then a) parsed, b) ingested as document

8. Search & Display Forms/Stylesheets modified as necessary (XSLT).

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

WHAT ELSE IS IMAGES?

1. Database System (First of its kind on campus; mgmt & delivery)

2. Suite of Tools

Authoring, Annotation/Export, Use Statistics

3. One-On-One Consultative Services

4. Hosting Service

5. Overlapping Partnerships

6. Key to Maintaining Library as The Place to Begin Searching

7. Foundation for Future Cooperation Across Campus

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

INITIAL RESULTSEnthusiastic response by multiple departments and administration

(23,000 metadata records so far)

Contributions of restricted access, hosted content, diverse visual resources allow good testing opportunities

Very personalized one-on-one consultations necessary

Need for quality-enforcement mechanisms evident

Need for versioning, workflow control

Need for more staff

Tension between desire to build a simple, transferable model & the need for ever-more tools, functionality.

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

Greater Support for Multiple Thesauri

Extend to Text & Other Domains (in process)

More User - Defined Options (in process)

Custom Annotation, Export Tools (done, improving)

OAI Support (done)

Promote IMAGES Metadata Scheme, Generate Statistical Evidence

Faculty Training Program on How to Build Sustainable Collections

ENHANCEMENTS

Problem

Solution

Details

Findings

Future

UNRESOLVED ISSUES

Conflict between unstable standards and need to move forward.

Can IMAGES be more than local standard? (example:Getty’s CDWA)

New training and hosting roles for library

Ways to exploit investment (automated item-level EAD generation, etc)

Effects of multiple distillations/mutations on metadata quality

User responsibility / library responsibility

Integration with other tools, services, content, partners