A DAM great list of Sources

The Museum Computer Network has been having an interesting discussion on Digital Asset Management systems. Among the information posted was some from, Leala Abbott, who has a blog on just this topic and is permitting me to post her suggested list of "great resources" here:

• DAM Foundation (LinkedIn): http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1952873
• a cross-disciplinary, professional organization, devoted to standardizing and making sense of the world of DAM which would be useful to join and follow. I recently created the DAM List (links below) which is a community contributed list of technical specs on DAM products (which are actually tough to get without jumping through vendor hoops).
• The Real Story Group (leading content technology analyst group): http://www.realstorygroup.com/
• Digital Asset Management (industry Blog): http://digitalassetmanagement.org.uk/
• Createasphere (DAM Conference Series): http://createasphere.com/En/explore-expos-conferences.html
• Henry Stewart - Digital Asset Management Conference Series: http://www.hsconferences.com/dam.aspx
• Early and Associates: http://www.earley.com/
• AIIM: http://www.aiim.org/
• The DAM List (Product Tech Specs): http://lealaabbott.com/wp/archives/423

If you like those check out Leala at her blog Lealaabbott.com

Embedded Metadata News

Fresh from the Visual Resource Association's (VRA) email list is this post from Greg Reser, which he has given me permission to repost here. Anyone with a Flickr account should check it out.

Embedded Metadata News

Like all of you, I spent my Holiday break reading about metadata, especially embedded metadata.  One blog post I found was from a Flickr developer in response to a complaint the social media companies "own" and "lock-in" their user's content.  The developer responded by saying that Flickr allows full access to all of the content users upload and create, including Descriptions and Tags, http://laughingmeme.org/2010/05/18/minimal-competence-data-access-data-ownership-and-sharecropping/ .  This is good news because it means that all that work you did tagging your photos is not limited to your Flickr page, you can download it to your computer or share it with other social media sites.  You enter the data once and then reuse it over and over.

Unfortunately, this data access comes via the Flickr API, meaning you have to be a programmer to get at it.  The good news is that some developers have created free or low cost applications to backup your Flickr content.  Best of all, they all have the cute missing "e" in their name.  For those of you have been looking for a way to get your metadata out of Flickr, you might try one of these apps.  The only limit I have found is that these apps do not export any custom metadata that was originally uploaded to Flickr.  So, if used a custom tool like the VRA Photoshop panel to add VRA metadata, it won't be downloaded.  It is possible to do this, just not with these apps.

Flickr Edit (Windows) - FREE (upload/download photos and EXIF and IPTC metadata metadata) http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/72157602367520002/

Downloadr (Windows) - FREE (download photos and metadata EXIF and IPTC metadata) http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/12400/

Bulkr (Windows, Mac) - FREE for basic (download photos), $24.95 for pro (download photos and metadata EXIF and IPTC metadata.  Also exports .txt file of metadata!) http://www.flickr.com/services/apps/72157622874451890/

You can find lots of other useful Flickr apps on the Flickr App Garden - http://www.flickr.com/services/

Besides retrieving metadata for your own photos, this ability could also be put to use for collecting images and metadata from groups.  For instance, you could have faculty and students upload and tag their own photos in Flickr, say of field work they did documenting architecture, and then you could download them and parse out the metadata into your institutional database.

Greg Reser

Arts Library

University of California, San Diego

greser@ucsd.edu

How to catalog Apples and Oranges?

So you are creating a digital asset system, which will serve a diverse user base. Your institution does not want to build a different management system for each user even if the marketing group may have different needs for digital assets than say the development or curator group. In an educational institution, there may be different subject areas or even in a design studio each individual may have a unique perspective. So, how to build an integrated system that supports all needs?

The key is flexible but clear rules. 
First, define a core group of fields that are to be filled all assets.  You will want that information which will aid in the management of the assets, such as:

• Location of digital file
• Title
• Usage rights
• Owner/creator of digital file

You will also want the fields that will aid users in cross collection searching, which must be derived from a study of your own users' needs when searching digital collection. For example in an art museum, all users would probably be interested in creator of original object, location of original object and possibly its provenance.  Thus a search on a particular object might not only turn up an image of that piece, but if doing a cross collection search, also promotional material about it and possibly informal images of it within an exhibit.  These fields would then be part of the core fields, which all groups would complete for their digital assets.

Secondly, define data standards before you start - i.e. decide what field will be used for which particular information.  You can start with data standards developed for each specialty, but chances are you will also need to create a crosswalk for differing data standards.  The important thing is to have each group use the assigned field for all the descriptive metadata, so that your crosswalks are accurate.

How Do I Find the Right Words?

While I did not hear Dr. Judy Weidman explain how cataloging is an art and not a science, I believe that she is on the right track. As an image cataloger, I can relate to her assertions about the cataloging process particularly as it pertains to architecture: uncertainty is always present, design is non-linear and one is imposing an order. In many cases, I simply do not know enough.

Those of us who experienced the development, release, promulgation, and implementation of controlled vocabularies which are now used to tag works or documents that we are cataloging in order to facilitate straightforward retrieval, appreciate the consistency that authorized terminology brings to our cataloging. We avoid many of the pitfalls of databases replete with homographs, synonyms, and worse. Our choices when applying authorized terminology are supported by discipline specific user warrant thus providing welcome consistency both within our local databases and in the aggregate as they are shared within and beyond institutional borders. Our work became much easier when these authoritative vocabularies became widely available.

And, yet, there is so much that I as a visual resources’ cataloger fail to notice or simply don’t or can’t know. While my lack of knowledge might be discipline based, this is not necessarily the case. Images are used so ubiquitously by all sorts of people for many different reasons that it is impossible for a single cataloger facing a data input screen to capture it all. This is where folksonomy--also known as social tagging, social indexing or social classification--becomes useful. This collaborative creation and management of descriptive tags contributed by end users adds an important level of descriptive information that is both democratically based and current. It can provide information that I simply do not and cannot know. This is why the Library of Congress Flickr Project was so successful; this is why museums are building on the experience of Steve.Museum.

Yes, there is still a huge role for our favorite authorized vocabularies to play as we describe images. The Getty Art History Information Program vocabularies (AAT, ULAN, TGN, and soon CONA) along with the Thesaurus of Graphic Materials (TGM-I, TGM II), and the Library of Congress Authorities (NAF, SAF) will continue to provide a base level of consistency, timelessness, and stability to our descriptive practices. We need both approaches.