Mod Librarian

Check out this comprehensive guide on lifehacker for whipping your music library metadata into shape. This information covers cleaning up both primary tags like artist and album and secondary tags like genre or year.

As your music library grows into the thousands, the ability to search and locate tunes is reliant on good metadata. Auto generated data is often inaccurate and employing the clean up tools mentioned in this article like Jaikoz and MP3tag can help you tackle issues in batches efficiently and quickly.

Here is an amazing resource for digital photographers seeking workflow information and best practices for digital photography from the American Society of Media Photographers. dpBestflow.org is a site filled with information on color management, metadata, file storage and everything in between.

In the best practices section, there is a marvelous guide to keywording which discusses everything from hierarchical lists in Lightroom to purchasing keyword lists and controlled vocabulary.

There are instructions for creating metadata templates as well as information on copyright registration procedures.

I think I will be referring to this site a lot and I’m surprised I haven’t discovered it sooner.

From the New York Public Library collection.

Here are five things to talk about while eating turkey:

1. Why does Google+ delete copyright metadata?
2. Want to see more metadata in Adobe Bridge?
3. Would you like an ExifTool for editing metadata in the command line?
4. Learn more about keyword research.
5. Would you like to be an art librarian? Check out Hack Library School.

This is one of the coolest things ever - an export/import tool for a custom VRA Core metadata XMP panel. This tool, designed to be used with Adobe Bridge, allows you to export VRA Core metadata from images with existing metadata and even better, to import VRA metadata to a group of files from a .txt file.

The VRA Core metadata scheme has a very rich, robust, and relational set of elements so any tool that automates its application is extremely valuable. This site even has great videos to explain installation and use.

Here is a video I found recently that was a real hit in my recent presentation on managing image rights for creative agencies. It is very succinct and a must for anyone working with photography.

Here is a link to the organization that created this fine video - StockPhotoRights.com.

I just returned from a wonderfully informative time at the Henry Stewart Events DAM LA conference (#DAMLA). Here are more than five takeaways for those interested in managing digital assets:

1. Did you know you there is an app designed for accessing SharePoint on your iPad or iPhone? SharePlus is an app employed by companies like Skechers to remotely access their DAM content.

2. Check out this awesome digital collaboration and editing tool for photographers called GLOBALedit.

3. Do you need help selecting a DAM system? Materials from Theresa Regli and The Real Story Group can help your company pick the best tool.

4. Did you know you can customize the XMP info on Adobe files? The Marketing Store employs this in their creative workflow to effectively incorporate metadata for their DAM.

5. Are you craving more information on taxonomy and metadata? Check out this blog from Earley & Associates.

BONUS: The DAM Daily by DigitalAssetManagement.com features a lot of the topics from this conference.

DOUBLE BONUS: Here is an awesome article about a project featured at the conference - Tagasauris crowd-sourcing metadata for Magnum archive.

Turns out there are quite a few iPhone applications for reviewing photo metadata. I downloaded a handful of free apps listed below and most do precisely the same thing - display the EXIF data associated with the photos stored on your mobile device.

• Photo Metadata Viewer by Boxo - click on any photo in your library to see all the EXIF data
• Exif and IPTC Metadata Browser by C Godefroy - this application reveals EXIF and IPTC data on any photo in your library
• Pictures by James Devenish - this app allows you to organize, tag, color code, archive and share photos in one easy place.

Here is an example of the screen in the Photo Metadata Viewer.

The British Association of Picture Libraries has a lot of useful information on their website. From explaining copyright infringement to a comprehensive image supplier list or category search, BAPLA offers adjunct tools to help image researchers locate material.

The BAPLA site also features up to the minute industry news and a useful toolkit for photographers containing legal templates and information on specific topics of interest like photographing buildings and property releases.

Here are five more things:

1. Check out the newly launched OTTO, a photo agency devoted to iconic architecture and design.
2. Want to improve your photo skills and post photos online?
3. Why does photo licensing matter?
4. Too wordy? Use this summarizer to increase brevity.
5. Want to listen to or narrate public domain audio books?

Switching gears from my usual metadata topics to Search Engine Optimization. I found a great series of courses related to using meta tags for SEO over on SEO Hacker.

Meta tags are the words that are hidden in your code, in the HTML <head> area. This is where you can put titles, descriptions and keywords that help crawlers locate your content.

There are three main things that a search engine crawler does with your meta tags. These are used for indexing, retrieval and ranking or precision.

Primarily, SEO experts use meta tags for things like accounting for misspellings, adding synonyms and also describing web pages with visual not text elements.

Read the whole thing to fully understand meta tags, proper use in SEO and the purpose of meta robots.

There was an interesting article in PDN (Photo District News) recently on several recent cases involving television networks ignoring photographers copyrights on images.

Increasingly, copyrighted images are showing up everywhere from Project Runway to the evening news without compensation being offered to the creators. One freelance journalist, Jason DeCesare of Philadelphia has sued CBS, NBC, Fox, Disney and Comcast for unauthorized used of his images.

“You have some low paid intern who does a Google search to find an image, and doesn’t care about the copyright,” he says. “I think they’re like the guy who jumps the subway turnstile. They’re hoping nobody’s watching them, and nobody’s going to catch them stealing.”

Indeed, copyright infringement is a serious matter and in the instant gratification world of the Internet, more and more people are appropriating images with the hope that the use flies under the radar.

Here are five more things.

1. Want to curate conversations with Storify?
2. Are photo licenses obsolete in the age of the Internet?
3. Interested in some archival films of the Pacific NW? Try UW’s Ruth and Louis Kirk collection.
4. Ever want to throw your camera in the air. Check this out for 360-degree panoramas.
5. Want to learn things? Look at all the courses on Grovo!