Mod Librarian

For years I have been talking about the standardization of stock image rights parameters. As an art buyer/producer and later working in the stock industry, I observed many different models for calculating rights-managed licenses. Add to that original photography and usage stipulations can be wide-ranging and often confusing to end users.

Finally a solution is underway. Meet the PLUS Coalition, a group with the mission “To simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights.” Drawing on the vast expertise of stock industry veterans, visual resource associations, artist representatives, photographers and publishers, PLUS intends to stay away from pricing and focus on standardization of rights parameters.

Here are the main ways that PLUS will improve Rights Management:

• Standardize license data
• Provide machine readable, worldwide standards for communicating an image license
• Create license reference codes that can be embedded in image headers and invisible watermarks on printed images
• Allow for better monitoring and policing of image distribution and use
• Allow customers to easily track image licenses and avoid unintentional infringement
• Discourage claims of innocent infringement

Yes, you’ve got it - 5 things to inspire discourse:

1. Whatever will Google do with facial recognition company PittPatt?
2. What will life be like in the year 2050?
3. Would you like to see some of the best photography from National Geographic?
4. Want to learn about fellow library professionals participating in the Library Day in the Life Project?
5. Have an idea for the AMIA conference on digital audivisual asset management?

Imagine the challenge of indexing interdisciplinary research data on the internet, perhaps research pertaining to endangered Chilean flamencos as relating to the salt flats of Bolivia and the impact of environmental factors resulting from nearby uranium mines on the migration of the species.

Not only is that a lot of information, but to successfully index this material for optimal retrieval, a metadata specialist might have to explore a number of specialized vocabularies to select the correct terms. These challenges are being addressed via the Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering (HIVE) project, led by a research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) Metadata Research Center (MRC), in collaboration with the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent)  in Durham, N.C.

Essentially, one can search multiple specialized vocabularies simultaneously to choose the best term. In much the same way that PACASEARCH aggregates image search results from multiple stock photo sites, the HIVE project will enable mega search of multiple vocabularies and ultimately supports automatic metadata generation.

Try the HIVE demo here. There are only a few vocabularies in there so far, but it is impressive nonetheless!

How many of you fully explore the pre-installed programs on your computer? Well, thank goodness a recent post by Leala Abbott hipped me to the amazing tool on Mac OS - the Automator.

Like many people working with digital asset management, I often need to create lists of filenames, rename files, document folder contents and a variety of other tedious tasks. Looks like the Automator can help with that and much more. It reminds me of creating an Action in Photoshop - you select the steps you’d like in order and then run the workflow.

You can also use Automator to filter email messages, clean up your iTunes, combine PDF pages, scale images and manage your fonts. It seems the only thing the Automator does not do is make coffee.

Here are five topics to ponder:

1. Want to explore eJournal use by subject? Read this from the eclectic librarian.
2. Interested in ways to use web scale discovery tools without visiting library sites?
3. If you’re a Digital Asset Manager, ever wonder how to describe your job without boring people?
4. Do you ever wonder what it would be like if actual physical books had lending restrictions as complex as ebooks?
5. Are you experiencing information overload? Wait, it will get worse…

BONUS: student research journal from the San Jose State SLIS program

Don’t we all need another standard or schema for web page markup? Fear not, the folks at Google, Bing and Yahoo! have collaborated on Schema.org - “to improve the web by creating a structured data markup schema supported by major search engines. On-page markup helps search engines understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results. A shared markup vocabulary makes easier for webmasters to decide on a markup schema and get the maximum benefit for their efforts.

Schema.org provides a collection of shared vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways that can be understood by the major search engines: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!

You use the schema.org vocabulary, along with the microdata format, to add information to your HTML content. While the long term goal is to support a wider range of formats, the initial focus is on Microdata. This guide will help get you up to speed with microdata and schema.org, so that you can start adding markup to your web pages.”

To me, this schema, based on RDF, is akin in simplicity to Dublin Core and a boon to those wishing to ensure their content is understood by those sometimes obtuse search engines.

Last fall, I had the pleasure of working on an amazing digital project at The Seattle Public Library during my Student Librarianship. The Century 21 Exposition Digital Collection features ephemera and photos from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. From the modern Googie inspired architecture to the pavilions highlighting futuristic innovations, the Century 21 Exposition was a milestone event.

The SPL collection contains many photos by a local photographer, Werner Lenggenhager who captured a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the fair from construction to demolition. I was lucky to be involved in the metadata planning, scanning, and uploading of quite a few of the images in the collection. The final landing page and the search and browse features offer multiple ways to view the collection. Take a look at the photo of a man holding a giant crab in the Alaska Pavilion or the Belgian Waffle House.

Special Collections at SPL has done a marvelous job of curating and displaying these materials. Go back to the future!

Here are five interesting topics for summer discussion:

1. Need to do some research on anthropology? Here is a good starting point.
2. Would you like to find a good book to read? Try Book Crossing.
3. Have fun with translation here.
4. Did you know there is a collection of TV intros?
5. What would Don Draper do?

There is a thought provoking post on the Go to Hellman blog about various metadata topics, library linked data and advances in facial recognition tools for identifying photo content.

Why is this important? The post raises some excellent points about how library data is created, how much data is optimal for optimization, and also why libraries need to think about promoting the findability of collections by employing search engine optimization techniques on existing library data.

As I have said before, any type of automated data - whether OCR text or Facebook photo tagging - requires an actual human to vet accuracy. Imagine the possibilities of image recognition software in an industry focused on visual resources.

Here is a fascinating visual tracking the prevalence of Flickr and Twitter users by photographer Eric Fischer. He employed geotags to map social media use and a couple of things are immediately apparent. For one thing, people in the middle of the US seems largely uninterested in Flickr and Twitter compared to both coasts. Why?

Here are some explosively exciting LIS topics and resources:

1. Want to craft a crafty Tweet?
2. Do you need to know almost everything about e-Books?
3. Would you like a recent update on RDA?
4. Learn about the 3M alternative to Overdrive.
5. Peruse the application guidelines for the Institute for Museum and Library Services Learning Labs in Libraries and Museums project.

The University of Washington recently became the first library in the United States to use RISM metadata for a music manuscript digital collection. RISM or Répertoire International des Sources Musicales is a “multinational, non-profit joint venture which aims for comprehensive documentation of extant musical sources worldwide” The efforts of the RISM community help to make worldwide musical resources more accessible to all.

On a related note, IPTC recently launched the Embedded Metadata Manifesto for digital media content. This manifesto contains many saliant points including the fact that copyright information must never be removed from a media asset and that people working with media need to be aware of the importance of metadata for retrieval.

Go media metadata!