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 - s.day@qub.co.uk - @iridium

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The Library/Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities18 University Square - Ground Floor

http://qubdh.co.uk