The rhythm of inputing metadata…

Posted on July 23, 2012 by sharon

Has anyone else felt that sometimes inputing metadata is relatively relaxing, and everything goes well, and it is almost repetitive to the point of being meditative…

…And then there are times when it is so frustrating to be doing the exact same thing over and over again?!  Working on the files from Elgin public schools for the Remember September Mail Art project really made me wish that there was a way to batch metadata. There is a lot of repetition in that collection!  I guess it all depends on your mood going into a project and how many problems you run into along the way.

I have really been enjoying seeing the exhibits come together.  One thing that is very satisfying about a course like this one is that you really get to create something from nothing, and create a product that is polished, professional, and tells the story of your journey through the course.

On another note, I was so impressed with Chris Brown’s lecture on the history of sound recording.  Even though there was an entire course crammed into one lecture, I felt that I came away having learned a lot.  I am always so impressed by people with such great passion for something so specific.

 

See you all tomorrow!

 

Posted in Sharon | 5 Comments

Proofing metadata

Posted on July 23, 2012 by lauretta

I have found proofing the metadata files for the exhibits to be an almost never-ending process.  It illustrates a couple of things to me. First, that you absolutely learn things as you go while you catalog items. That, of course, is a good thing. However it does create a consistency conundrum. Secondly, the devil is in the details with a large number of items. I have spent a lot of time checking the placement of commas. (And yet, I still feel like I’ve missed some out there!)

Looking back on the process, I think a style sheet would be an efficient way to streamline the process. The task of maintaining consistency is time consuming. I makes me wonder about large scale projects where many people are inputting metadata on one collection. The quality control issue is a big part of the workflow.

 

Posted in Lauretta, Week 4 | 4 Comments

Audio archiving

Posted on July 21, 2012 by joan

I enjoyed the presentation by Chris Brown during Thursday’s class.  My undergraduate degree is in Mass Communication, so I’ve certainly had classes about and exposure to different formats of audio formats.  And, I worked as a video producer for over a decade. But, I don’t think anybody has ever explained the digitizing process so clearly to me before, I found his illustration of the sampling process to be very clear.

I have so many cassettes of my children when they were young; my younger son, in particular, would sit outside with a tape recorder and talk about anything and everything and amuse himself for long periods of time that way.  It would be great to preserve those family memories.

Posted in Joan, Week 4 | 1 Comment

If only this machine was available at VOICES…

Posted on July 21, 2012 by jennifern

http://www.getdoxie.com/product/doxie-go/index.html

So pretty! Wireless delivery! I can’t stop watching the picture of the baby go through the scanner.

Posted in Jenn N | 3 Comments

Classroom Application

Posted on July 20, 2012 by christine

Maybe I am way off base, but I am thinking about how you would use Omeka in the classroom…Would 5th grade be too young?  Nancy–what could children of this age archive?  Or is there a “kids” version of Omeka out there somewhere?  Seeing this archive come to life as a result of this fusion of images and metadata really is neat…just wondering how or if I could use it with the kiddos…

Even for starters, having kids look through archival material that pertains to specific curricular areas would be a start–exposure to primary docs is always a wonderful teaching technique and opportunity for discussion…

 

Posted in Christine | 3 Comments

Chris Brown

Posted on July 20, 2012 by cathy

I wanted to share that I enjoyed the session yesterday with Chris Brown.  Seeing his “mini-studio” set up in the conference room and witnessing the conversion from a casette to digital was very interesting. One of the reasons that this appealed to me is because an employee of a company in NYC brought in a casette tape to VOICES last week from a funeral service from 2001 that was found (in a closet, drawer, who knows).  Seems like this is often the case.  I was able to sit with Frank Skornia as he converted from casette to digital.

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Item Type metadata

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Robert

My favorite new toy of the week is Item Type metadata. It was great fun to define a new entry, with a few customized elements to help describe our special collection.

Yes, Omeka is lacking some of the basic functionality of the drag-and-drop webpage applications, and it wouldn’t be hard to fix, but I imagine that being free sets some limitations on development. The real power, obviously, is in the archiving functionality.

Has anyone discovered if there is a way to view or download a clean metadata file from an item, like you can do, for example at the NYPL, or LOC? I am wondering how one would export all the cataloging created in Omeka.

Posted in Robert, Week 4 | 2 Comments

One more week to go……

Posted on July 19, 2012 by jennifer

Hi all~ Can you believe we only have one week left??
As far as Omeka goes, I’d say it’s pretty much user friendly. There are only a few things that I found annoying. One, like many of us said, we don’t like how you can’t see the item you are entering the metadata for while you are entering it, two, this is small, but is anyone else finding it frustrating that when you search an item by collection that the “search” button is right in the middle rather at the end and to get to the next page you have to scroll up – there isn’t a “next page” at the bottom, and when you do search by item and make an adjustment it goes back to page one? Chrisie and I didn’t realize at first that if we tagged our items to our collection at first it would have been easier. I know these are small things to complain about but I think if you have pages and pages of items it can become frustrating quite easily. Everyone’s collections look great so far… can’t wait to see the finished product!

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And Wouldn’t It Also Be Nice…

Posted on July 17, 2012 by annie

Wouldn’t it also be nice if Omeka:

Allowed you to batch edit Metadata for redundant information on a series of items from the Dropbox?

…Or if you accidentally entered the wrong metadata, deleting an item would not (necessarily) delete the item from the Dropbox?

Posted in Annie | 2 Comments

Digital Archiving so far…

Posted on July 17, 2012 by sharon

I have been enjoying seeing the collection come together digitally.  I like that we are getting the whole experience, from handling the materials from the folders at VOICES, to sorting through boxes of mail art to eventually see it come together in a digital collection.  I am looking forward to going in to class today to add metadata to our mail art collection.  I am also going to be working on an image-editing tutorial by using Jing.  I haven’t used it in a while.  I hope that it is as user-friendly as I remember!

It was great to conference with the Bailey and Anne last week.  I was definitely impressed with the way that they have forged their own path in the world of digital archiving.  They saw a need for material to be digitized, developed their own language, and created a user-friendly space to access material from the Kitchen Sisters.  It got me thinking about how digital archiving seems to find you sometimes…  Like how Mary at VOICES had no real background, just an idea that she made work…  Neat.

See you all in class today.  Sorry I forgot to post here last week.  I’ll make up for it later this week.  I had a major issue with my 580 project that kind of got in the way of my sanity and it slipped my mind!

Posted in Sharon | 2 Comments