Metadata and OmekaDeveloping Narratives around Digital Objects
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Deirdre Wildy Catherine Porter
Shawn Day Digital Environments Winter Institute
29 January 2014
Workshop Strand Agenda‣ Wednesday 13:45 - 17:30
What and why is Metadata? ‣ Welcome, Introduction and a look at
Metadata ‣ Hands-On: Breakouts with artefacts
and metadata ‣ Presentation: A Brief Introduction to
OMEKA for collection management ‣ Hands-On: Adding Digital Objects to a
Collection ‣ Roundtable: How do you use
Metadata in Your Work
‣ Presentation : The Life of Robert Hart ‣ Presentation: Exploring OMEKA and
it’s Narrative Tools ‣ Hands-On: Building a Narrative
Exhibit !
‣ Thursday 9:30 -11:00 ‣ Presentation/Case Study:
Crónán Ó Doibhlin ‣ Wrap-Up/ Alternate Tools / Extending
and Discussion – All
Objective‣ A brief introduction to Metadata, it’s value and how it can
be leveraged using Omeka as a digital narrative tool; !
‣ Outcome: to be informed to evaluate what digital narrative tools - such as Omeka - may be of use in your research programme.
"If a resource does not have any associated metadata information, then it is essentially lost."
"If a resource has erroneous, inconsistent, or not enough metadata information, then it is essentially non-existent."
Why and How? - Basic Metadata‣ What is this resource? ‣ Who created the resource? ‣ When was this resource created or published? ‣ Why was this resource created? ‣ Who owns or how do you purchase the resource? ‣ Can you re-use and/or share this resource? (Licensing)
Types of Metadata‣ Descriptive metadata —> Identification; ‣ Structural metadata —> Referential; ‣ Administrative metadata —> meta metadata —> Manage; ‣ Technical metadata —> Production Process; ‣ Preservation metadata —> Preservation Processes; ‣ Rights metadata —> Access and Use.
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‣ Some or all
A Universe of Standards
A Few Common Standards‣ Dublin Core (ISO15836) ‣ Resource discovery across domains ‣ General and Abstracted ‣ GIS Metadata (ISO19115) —> OGC GML ‣ VRA Core - Visual Materials ‣ MODS (METS) —> MARC ‣ MPEG21 - Multimedia Resources
Why Metadata?‣ Facilitate Discovery of Content; ‣ Help Organise Content; ‣ Facilitate Harvesting of Content; ‣ Support Archiving and Preservation.
Who works with Metadata today?
A Rather Quick Introduction to Dublin Core
TITLE‣ Title ‣ <dc:title></dc:title> ‣ What the formal name of this resource - how would a user
know it? ‣ Examples: title of a painting, photo, document; the name of a
person when using the "person" item type; the name of a lesson plan.
SUBJECT‣ Subject ‣ <dc:subject></dc:subject> ‣ What is the domain area/topic (non-spatial or temporal) that
the object is part of? ‣ Controlled vocabularies such as the Getty can help here. ‣ Typically keywords, key phrases, or classification codes. ‣ Examples: Library of Congress subject headings; subject-
specific nomenclature.
DESCRIPTION‣ Description ‣ <dc:description></dc:description> ‣ What sort of short narrative will help a user to know whether
this resource is relevant to their needs? ‣ This is often an abstract, a table of contents or even a
graphical representation of the object ‣ Examples: a photo caption; descriptive information of an
artifact/museum object; summary of a lesson plan; abstract or summary of a long document;
CREATOR‣ Creator ‣ <dc:creator></dc:creator> ‣ Who is responsible for making this digital resource - digtiser,
digital author? ‣ The original author or the digitising institution? ‣ Examples: Author/authors; artists; photographers; institutional
authors or producers, such as university or federal agency.
SOURCE‣ Source ‣ <dc:source></dc:source> ‣ From what resource did the derived digital resource come
from? ‣ This can be a type, a descriptor but best practice recommends
a string conforming to a formal identifier system ‣ Examples: Accession number; Collection of objects; Division of
an archive or library.
PUBLISHER‣ Publisher ‣ <dc:publisher></dc:publisher> ‣ Who (what institution is making this resource available? ‣ If there is a license or copyright involved helps to determine
this one ‣ Examples: actual publisher, if there is one; entity or
consortium publishing digital materials.
DATE‣ Date ‣ <dc:date></dc:date> ‣ A point or period in the lifecycle of the digital object ‣ When was this scanned? When was it published? ‣ Consistency - decided by project management - documented ‣ Consider in relation to the coverage of the object ‣ Date is one of the trickiest fields to fill. You will want to decide how best
to use it for your project for consistency. There is an open text field for date so that you can reflect the type of date information you have whether it is a very specific date MM/DD/YYYY or if it is "circa 1940".
CONTRIBUTOR‣ Contributor ‣ <dc:contributor></dc:contributor> ‣ Who (individual, institution, organisation - entity) is making
this object available/responsible for its digitisation? ‣ Examples: person who contributed a story or file for an Omeka
collecting project; owner or donor of collected objects.
RIGHTS‣ Rights ‣ <dc:rights></dc:rights> ‣ What restrictions are held in and over this resource? ‣ This is typically a statement relation to the intellectual and
usage rights relating to this digital object ‣ Examples: spell out conditions of use for specific items here;
Creative Commons type; Public Domain.
RELATION‣ Relation ‣ <dc:relation></dc:relation> ‣ What resources are related to this digitised object? ‣ Best practice is to refer to a <dc:identifier> ‣ Examples: a still image of a person entered as a "person" type.
FORMAT‣ Format ‣ <dc:format></dc:format> ‣ What is the file format of this digital resource? ‣ Examples include size and duration. Recommended best
practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the Internet Media Types (MIME).
LANGUAGE‣ Language ‣ <dc:language></dc:language> ‣ What is the language(s) of the digital resource? ‣ Again best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as
RFC4646 ‣ Examples: English; Russian; Spanish, et al.
TYPE‣ Type ‣ <dc:type></dc:type> ‣ What defined type best represents the object you are referencing? ‣ Best practice to use the DCMI Type controlled vocabulary ‣ http://dublincore.org/documents/2010/10/11/dcmi-type-
vocabulary/ ‣ Examples: For consistency, use item type controlled vocabulary
provided by Omeka: Document, Moving Image, Oral History, Sound, Still Image, Website, Event, Email, Lesson Plan, Hyperlink, Person, or Interactive Resource.
IDENTIFIER‣ Identifier ‣ <dc:identifier></dc:identifier> ‣ Where will a user find this resource via the web? ‣ A direct and unambiguous identification of the resource -
unique and persistent - handle?
COVERAGE‣ Coverage ‣ <dc:coverage></dc:coverage> ‣ To what defining place or time is this item relevant (spatial or
temporal)? ‣ Typically relies on a controlled vocabulary relevant to the
domain, ie. The Getty Museum / Research Institute ‣ Where appropriate, named places or time periods can be
used in preference to numeric identifiers such as sets of coordinates or date ranges.
Keeping in Mind the User !!‣ How will people find what they are looking for? ‣ How will they differentiate from one 'thing' over another? ‣ How will your information architecture refer to the digital
objects? !
‣ Useful for Straight Dublin Core: Dublin Core Generator
Lessons‣ The world is fluid and formats and standards change
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‣ How can I choose the right one? ‣ Be consistent and you can transform and evolve -
Crosswalks !
‣ How can I make the right decisions? ‣ I am a big fan of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) ‣ They have some very useful tools: http://dcc.ac.uk
Exercise OneGetting Intimate with Digital Objects
Reporting Back
A Quick Look at OmekaCollecting and Managing Digital Objects
Who’s Behind Omeka?: CNMH‣ Roy Rosenzweig Centre for New Media and History ‣ Founded 1994 ‣ George Mason University in Washington ‣ Collaborative Space Supporting 50+ Scholars ‣ To preserve and present history online ‣ Transform scholarship across the humanities ‣ Supported by grants from AHA, NEH, NHC, Library of
Congress, Mellon, Sloan, Rockefeller and Kellog Foundations amongst others
Products
Zotero !
Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to
help you collect, manage, and cite
your research sources.
Omeka !
Designed for cultural institutions, enthusiasts, and educators, Omeka is a platform for publishing
online collections and exhibitions.
Omeka.net !
Let Omeka.net host your collections, research, exhibits, and digital
projects.
THATCamp !
Short for “The Humanities and
Technology Camp," THATCamp is a
BarCamp-style, user-generated
“unconference” on digital humanities.
Scripto !
Scripto is a free, open source tool that enables
community transcriptions of document and
multimedia files.
PressForward !
PressForward is pioneering new
methods to capture and highlight orphaned or
underappreciated scholarship and
share it with digital humanists across
the web.
ScholarPress !
Manage your class, publish research, or
collaborate on a conference
presentation with this hub for scholarly & educational plugins.
Anthologize !
Anthologize is a free, open-source, plugin that
transforms WordPress into a platform for
publishing electronic texts.
Survey Builder !
Build online surveys that are especially
applicable to oral histories.
Timeline Builder !
CHNM Labs: Easily create and manage a timeline of historical
events for your website.
Serendip-o-matic !
Serendip-o-matic connects your sources to digital
materials located in libraries, museums, and
archives around the world.
Web Scrapbook !
Store all kinds of media items —
URLs, images, text, and movies — &
collaborate thru the CHNM online scrapbook.
What is Omeka?‣ Omeka was developed at Center for History and New
Media (CHNM) at George Mason University as a "next generation web publishing platform for museums, historical societies, scholars, enthusiasts, and educators." The feature-rich offering provides for the presentation, searching and browsing of digital collections along with a robust metadata management facility.
Situating Omeka
Omeka in Action‣ Example 2
OMEKA Core Features‣ Based on Open Source
Technology: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP;
‣ Free to Use, Free to Change;
‣ Easy to Use; ‣ Change Design using
Themes;
‣ Add Functionality with Plug-Ins;
‣ Unqualified Dublin Core Metadata;
‣ Strong Support Community;
‣ Extensible, Scalable, Flexible;
‣ Interoperable
What is 'an Omeka'‣ An Omeka 'instance' contains:
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‣ Items (digital Objects of various types)
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‣ Collections (of objects) !
‣ Sites (set of collections) !
‣ Exhibits (curated subsets of site collections)
Exercise Two:Adding Digital Objects to a Collection
Workshop Logistics1. You should have received a username and password to
the Library Omeka instance during the last few days?
2. Please access your User Account on eireidium.com/omeka/admin - You are all Contributors
3. Add an Item to the Collection
Brief Omeka Tutorial: Logging In
Brief Omeka Tutorial: The Dashboard‣ The Dashboard is where it all happens
Brief Omeka Tutorial: Item List‣ All of the digital objects
Brief Omeka Tutorial: Item List‣ Each Item has metadata
Brief Omeka Tutorial: Add an Item and its MD‣ Return to the Item List ‣ Choose Add Item
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‣ Take your Metadata record and populate the item record ‣ Dublin Core more info: http://dublincore.org ‣ 15 Metadata Elements of a generic and wide-ranging number
of digital resources; ‣ Each Dublin Core element is optional and may be repeated
Add an Item‣ Enter data to the best of your ability for the Dublin Core
info - bearing in mind not all fields are mandatory; ‣ Title, Description and Subject important. ‣ Title: ‣ Description: ‣ Subject:
Supported Item Types‣ Document ‣ Still Image ‣ Moving Image ‣ Sound ‣ Oral History ‣ Email ‣ Lesson Plan ‣ Website ‣ HyperLink
‣ Event (Time-Based Occurrence)
‣ Person (Biographic) ‣ Interactive Resource
Specify Item Type‣ You can select from the default ypes supported by Omeka. ‣ These can correspond to the dc:type but not tied directly
Add a File to the Item‣ You can have one or multiple files; ‣ Depends on type of item.
Add Tags to the Item‣ Why Tags with all the DC metadata?
The Added Item
Spend time thinking about your metadata in advance
‣ It’s really about best practice which means although you can touch and feel an object, you must define it properly first
Let’s Take a Look at What We Have
Roundtable
How does metadata inform andempower your scholarship?
The Life of Robert HartDeirdre Wildy
Building a NarrativeLeveraging Exhibit to Tell Tales
Create an Exhibit‣ What is an Exhibit?
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A carefully composed and curated digital showcase that organizes the images, texts, video, audio, and other uploaded items on your Omeka site into a coherent narrative for people to browse.
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- Harriet Green, Librarian, University of Illinois Scholarly Commons
Create an Exhibit‣ Exhibits consist of Sections and Pages and Group
Collections and Items !
‣ The first step is to take the time to plan your exhibit to consider basic user interaction.
Create an Exhibit‣ Time spent at this stage is essential - define the display
architecture
Create an Exhibit‣ Make sure that the Exhibit Plug-In in installed and
Enabled
Create an Exhibit‣ Add an Exhibit
Create an Exhibit
Add a Page
Populate Page Sections
So, Where are we Now?
Add an 'About’ Page‣ Use the Simple Page Plug-In to Add A Static Page
Thank YouShawn Day - [email protected] - @iridium
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The Library/Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities18 University Square - Ground Floor
http://qubdh.co.uk