OLAC-MOUG Conference (Sept 26-28)
Of the sessions I attended at the OLAC-MOUG 2008 conference held Sept. 26-28 in Cleveland, one in particular of interest to work in our department currently was "Metadata for Audiovisual Materials and its Role in Digital Projects," given by Jenn Riley of Indiana University. Her blog is itself worth viewing at: Inquiring Librarian
Among the issues and standards discussed:
Types of Metadata
1. Descriptive: e.g. title, author Used for searching and display
2. Administrative: (a) technical. e.g. software, pixels, compression, etc. (b) preservation. e.g. how digital content was created, what migration was, how hardware was used, how things were done, and (c) rights. e.g. who can do what with it
3. Structural: navigation within an object
4. Markup Languages: puts information within the content itself. e.g. TEI
3 Types of Standards
1. Data structure standards: e.g. MARC, MODS, DC
2. Data content standards: e.g. AACR2, DACS, CCO
3. Controlled vocabularies: e.g. LCSH, MESH
One must mix and match to meet one's needs.
General Descriptive Metadata
1. MARC
2. MARCXML
3. MODS. General MARC inspiration, but not its equivalent. Intended to be useful to a wider audience than MARC. Used when you want a library type aproach but more interoperability than MARC
4. Dublin Core. Perhaps the most misunderstood metadata standard. Is not meant to replicate MARC. Abstract model is the current focus (e.g. DC record would report on slide of Mona Lisa, not the Mona Lisa itself. Follows 1:1 principle. Unqualified DC is generally used as a format for sharing metadata with others.
Still Image Descriptive Metadata
1. VRA 4.0. Work and image in separate records. Focus is on creation, style, culture. Best used on collections of reproductions of works of art and architecture.
2. CDWA Lite. To help museums share metadata about their collections.
Music Descriptive Metadata
1. Variations2 at Indiana University
2. Music Ontology Specification.
3. ID3 tags for MP3 files.
N.B. No discipline-generated format has emerged.
Other Media Metadata Standards
1. MPEG-7. From Moving Pictures Experet Group. Focus is on low-level features, not library bibl. info. Intended to cover descriptive, technical, rights
2. Public Broadcasting Core (PB Core). to support the creation, mngt., and discovery of media items. Good for broadcasting archives. 4 classes: (1) IntellectualContent, (2) IntellectualProperty, (3) Instantiation, and (4) Extensions.
Technical and Administrative Metadata for A/V Materials
1. Metadata for Images in XML (MIX) Derivable from image itself. Has compression level, pixel dimensions, format-specific data, and bit rate. Maintained by LC Network Development and MARC Standards Office
2. Audio Engineering Society (AES) Core Audio Metadata. Under development. Can be used for analog and digital audio. Audio editing software should generate this format.
3. LC Audio-Visual Prototyping Project VIDEOMD Data Dictionary. Just video information; assumes separate format for audio track. Note duration, sample rate, physical tape characteristics, frame size/rate
4. AES Process History Metadata. Records "processing events." Used to support digital preservation process. Used for any audio file.
Structural Metadata
1. METS. Wrapper to package many types of metadata together for a resource. Expectation is that METS documents would be generated automatically.
2. SMPTE Material eXchange Format (MXF). Wrapper for metadata and media files.
3. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). For multimedia presentations. Embedded media, transitions, timing.
Music Markup Languages
1. MusicXML. For content. Not "metadata." Encodes musical notation itself. Tends to include header with some descriptive metadata.
2. Music Encoding Initiative (MEI). Akin to TEI. UVa maintains this.
Conclusion
Support for these standards is "ridiculously low"
Use MODS for discovery (item level description of a variety of formats), and METS (structural metadata for multi-page objects) for delivery.
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