More Managing that Metadata

Many have talked about embedding data in the digital file for some time. TIFF actually stands for Tagged Image File Format. Many pieces of hardware already use that capability to embed data in the file for other hardware to use to interpret the file's visual data. Now people can also do so, with almost as much ease.  Two groups continue to work on this the IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) and the VRA (Visual Reource Association).

The VRA's embedded Metadata Working Group has created a VRA metadata panel for Adobe's products, which uses the VRA core metadata structure, a similar though more complex than Dublin Core structure.

The IPTC Photo Metadata Working Group has issued a Manifesto encouraging this effort in May 2011.

Photographers, film makers, videographers, illustrators, publishers, advertisers, designers, art directors, picture editors, librarians and curators all share the same problem: struggling to track rapidly expanding collections of digital media assets such as photos and video/film clips.

With that in mind we propose five guiding principles as our "Embedded Metadata Manifesto":
    1.    Metadata is essential to describe, identify and track digital media and should be applied to all media items which are exchanged as files or by other means such as data streams.
    2.    Media file formats should provide the means to embed metadata in ways that can be read and handled by different software systems.
    3.    Metadata fields, their semantics (including labels on the user interface) and values, should not be changed across metadata formats.
    4.    Copyright management information metadata must never be removed from the files.
    5.    Other metadata should only be removed from files by agreement with their copyright holders.

Check out these two sites to learn more.

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