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