metacrap musings

So upon looking for some useful metadata guidelines, I stumbled across a somewhat dated virtual missive from info-meister and writer Cory Doctorow.  His screed appealed to me, as it provided a lighthearted counterbalance to the argument in favor of that ever-elusive fish, the perfect metadata taxonomy.  Doctorow provides many reasons one should be skeptical of pervasive metadata schemas, all boiling down to our uniqueness of being human. Here’s one of my favorites:

2.7 There’s more than one way to describe something

“No, I’m not watching cartoons! It’s cultural anthropology.”

“This isn’t smut, it’s art.”

“It’s not a bald spot, it’s a solar panel for a sex-machine.”

Reasonable people can disagree forever on how to describe something. Arguably, your Self is the collection of associations and descriptors you ascribe to ideas. Requiring everyone to use the same vocabulary to describe their material denudes the cognitive landscape, enforces homogeneity in ideas.

And that’s just not right.

I’m a big believer in having both a modicum of interconnected taxonomies as well as distinct and flavorful local schemas that are both concise and clear. Blogger-brarian Linda Summers counters Doctorow a bit more intelligibly:

Moreover, Doctorow’s tongue-in-cheek-yet-cynical diatribe on human nature reminds me in many of ways of Thomas Hobbs’s interpretation of human nature, as each focuses on the self-centered and lazy aspects of human beings. I do agree that humans have the capacity to be indolent and selfish; however, I disagree that these traits dominate the collective unconsciousness.

Rather than dive into a sociological rip-tide and become lost forever in a Durkheim-esque vortex of the collective consciousness, I will say that our indolence and selfishness have collectively served us fairly well in creating the crapstorm of economic malfeasance that our national boots currently wallow in.  But that’s another issue.  Regarding metadata, will it save the world and provide the pervasive info-elixir beaming information directly to our eyes? Probably not completely.  Perhaps our info-topia is found more in the journey of searching itself rather than just the result, however precise and quickly it is delivered by the Google.

digitization – the process

Digitization is one of the groovier things I am involved with as a librarian.  The process  serves two major purposes, preservation and promotion.  Regarding preservation, digitization may not last as long or be as durable as having an item copied in microfilm, but having a sets of backups on discs and servers definitely can’t hurt either.

As for promotion, digitization gives libraries flair, highlighting the stuff that normally just gathers dust in our archives. Preserving it is priority, but promotion is aces too, since libraries always need a little work in the PR department.  Having a collection posted serves to gather more attention for the library, institution, etc.  For example, we just created a collection of one of the college’s past traditions of having a Christmas tableau, where a senior would be selected to portray The Virgin Mary with The Infant Jesus (I work at private institution as you may surmise).  This tradition of the Christmas Madonna was interesting to digitize because it really displays the atmosphere (as well as the mission or vision) of the particular time period of the college.

Rather than describe the whole process, I’ll highlight the first and most essential phase of digitization, the planning stage.  Whether you have images, audio or video, or even realia, the way I’ve learned to approach a digitization project is to plan as much as you can.  Thorough planning involves not only organizing the equipment and storage capabilities, but organizing the content and more importantly deciding upon your metadata scheme and workflow.  Considerations include:

• Accessibility – should all the public be able to view the collection?
• Metadata – what type of scheme (Dublin Core/EAD/MODS)? Will it be updated?
• Who will be doing the work, and how will it be divided (scanning/metadata entry/updates)? Will it cost to train? How will IT be involved?
• How large is the collection?  Could it and should it be reduced to more specific and  smaller sub-collections (yes, in my opinion)?
• What are the rights associated with the items to be displayed? Do you have a copyright statement established? Should you have one?
• Does any of the content need permission to be added/posted? Will there be objections by the institution and/or the public?
• What’s the cost? Think in terms of software, training, hosting, the actual work and maintenance.
• How does it fit in your library’s and institution’s vision and mission?

Patient planning can prevent massive migraines.  It reduces the chance one will have to completely restart their project if any key component is missing, inaccurate, or just wrong.   Proper planning makes every phase that much smoother.  Next installment…the technical stuff.

digibrarian

Of the several projects I’ve been a part of over the summer, the ones involving digitization have been the most satisfying. Working with image editing tools, CONTENTdm, even taking images…that’s pretty fun stuff. So, for the sake of pure promotion, with a lack of subtlety, here I’ll post the link to a collection I’m particularly proud of. The Art of Marian College is a collection of items that the college houses in one building or another; the items themselves are either associated with the college or unaffiliated yet acquired by our art department. So far we have two major sub-collections housed within…a collection of Indiana landscape artists (known as the Richmond Group) and some cool lithographs by the Mexican artist David Siqueiros. I’ll probably outline the digitization process in another post, yet as I mentioned this is purely, promotionally cathartic. Now if only we can acquire some collections of Ralph Steadman.