Guest Post: Embracing Metadata Change: Too Hot, Too Cold, or Just Right?

Guest post authored by Josh Lynn, Digital Media Specialist, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Original post published on LinkedIn Pulse

 

"... digital asset metadata cannot be represented by a single, unchanging metadata model and schema. Data architects need to embrace flexible models that allow metadata to vary widely across asset types and that accommodate constant change."

 – Demian Hess, “Managing Digital Asset Metadata,” Journal of Digital Media Management, Vol. 3, No. 2 (November 2014).

An inflection point occurred at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) when we were awarded an IMLS grant for our Enterprise Content Management (ECM) project. The goal was straightforward: create an interface for federated search across museum data systems including the Digital Asset Management System(s), Collections Management System (the database for all works of art), and Web Content Management System. In other words, “one stop shopping” for all the great stuff being created across Mia’s various divisions and departments. As a digital asset management professional, I knew the task would be daunting. On the other hand, I was equally inspired by the opportunity to re-imagine a metadata model that had become bloated and inflexible over the years. I’m happy to report that Mia now has a shiny new ECM search interface in place, aptly named MetaMia (thanks IMLS!). What’s more, Mia now has a flexible metadata model for feeding MetaMia healthy, lean metadata. Now that we’ve spoiled the suspense, here’s the back story.

Mia’s enterprise DAMS was implemented over a decade ago. As you can image, the system has seen a number of system upgrades and the addition of a few metadata fields over the years. About 5 years ago, we established an API process to push metadata from our Collections Management System into the DAMS, for images of collections objects (that’s the “art”, my friend) specifically. This process also feeds DAMS images to the museum’s website, artsmia.org. The API sync was a start, but left 60% of our digital assets in relative seclusion within the DAMS. Meanwhile, the DAMS has become home to over 180,000 assets, growing by 27,287 assets year-to-date. Our metadata model had also grown... to over 250 unique fields, many of which had become deprecated, duplicated, or disused. Additionally, swaths of our fields were like desert islands – even where ISO metadata schema existed out in the world, XMP mapping had not been consistently configured within our DAMS.

But that’s not all! Consequently, the search index was bogged down with this deprecated, duplicated, and disused metadata, ensuring less-than-relevant search results for our users. You could call it metadata bloat. And that bloat was creating increasing inflexibility in our metadata model, degrading system performance, and creating a confounding user experience. Indeed, the tangled underbrush of metadata was threatening the very foundation of our DAMS. So, with a generously funded IMLS grant in place (along with a ticking clock, limited staff, and a lot of work on our hands), we set out to create a new metadata specification named Mia Core.

The Mia Core metadata makeover began with some serious reflection. First, we didn’t want to get into the same situation again. Ever. Therefore, a flexible metadata model was a necessity. The ability to painlessly add and remove schema future-proofs Mia Core for the changes we’re certain will occur, but cannot predict. Next, we resolved to keep it simple – more Library Science, less Rocket Science


Our new, flexible metadata model makes it easier for system administrators to maintain and develop the DAMS, it also makes it easier for catalogers, creatives, and general staff to contribute to, search, and retrieve from the DAMS. We even assigned easy-to-understand display labels for our users, for example “Keywords” rather than “DC:Subject”.

We also resolved to keep Mia Core (mostly) standards-based. By embracing recommendations from the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative, we quickly established a simplified set of minimum embedded metadata (based on Dublin Core) for all asset types, including audio, design, photo, and video. Because no single metadata standard can do it all, we then mapped in select schema from various standards and specifications including IPTC, Creative Commons, PLUS, VRA Core, XMP and more. This standards-based approach ensures the interoperability of our metadata – from desktop to DAMS and back again. Naturally, we have also created a small set of local fields for workflow process, including approvals, embargo, and quality control. Furthermore, we’ve added fields for expanded API data sync and publication routines, including ArtStories. After all, there isn’t a standard for everything, and we’ve got creative work to do. And, because XMP is a part of Mia Core, metadata seamlessly flows throughout workflows, from desktop to DAMS to the wider ECM system.

The work we’ve done over the past few years has reestablished a strong foundation for our DAMS and ECM system alike. Freed from an outdated metadata model, we are now positioned for future capacity. In the meantime, we’ll keep working to ensure Mia Core remains our Goldilocks metadata model – not too big, not too small, but just right. And because Mia Core is system agnostic, it can be applied to Enterprise and Open Source DAMS alike. After all, it’s good to have options. It is also good to share, and we’re keen to share what we’ve learned with the LAMs (Libraries, Archives, Museums) community and beyond.

If you would like to hear more about our project, my colleague Frances Lloyd-Baynes and I will be presenting at the upcoming Henry Stewart DAM Chicago 2015 event in September, where we’ll be sharing our work and its results. Note: As a reader of this post, you can register for that conference at a discount by using the code MINNEAPOLIS100. We hope to see you there.

The Mystery of the Missing Map and Other Digital Disappearances

Note: This blog post originally published on LinkedIn.

When I first arrived at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2011, I was undertaking a newly-created leadership position with responsibility for all things technical and digital. Rather than rush in with guns blazing, I realized that I needed to spend some time really understanding the needs of the organization. Of course, I found there were many. It was during this initial “listening tour” that I first heard about the mystery of the missing map, and that’s the story I’d like to focus on here.

Once upon a time, a museum hired a graphic artist – at great expense – to create a beautiful digital design for a large map of continental Africa, to be applied directly to the wall in a gallery. The effort was a smashing success. The map was visually impressive, told a great story, and brought the nearby collection to life for visitors. Of course, like all museum installations, this was a time-limited experience. Soon the walls were repainted as the institution marched forward. Then, perhaps five years later, another project came along that could re-use that expensive and gorgeous map. A call went out across the realm: bring forth the map! The response was … crickets. Then the whispering began. Who had the map? Who had that file? What was it called again? Did we save it anywhere? Staff contacted other staff, who then contacted more staff. Investigations branched out across several different operational units. Soon, a number of employees had dropped their work and were digging through old network shared folders, boxes of CDs, and even local hard drives, searching, searching, and searching for several days. Finally, the frustrated and exhausted group gave up. Another graphic designer was hired, and the effort and expense were repeated.

The mystery of the missing map became a metaphor for a long-standing approach to managing digital assets: ad hoc. In fact, the story became a sort of proxy for an entire body of recent digital work that had essentially disappeared. Sound familiar?

To those of us in the information management professions, this is the kind of thing that makes our blood boil. When you layer in the fact that my area – the non-profit cultural sector – typically operates with limited funding and limited staffing, it really adds to the frustration. We simply can’t afford to lose the digital assets that were painstakingly produced to fulfill our mission.

Now, I want to be clear about something. I’m not blaming anyone. Staff who work in cultural sector organizations are diligent, hard-working, incredibly sincere, and very smart. They do their best, day after day. What they often lack are the tools needed to improve the WAY they do their work. And many times that staff has limited or no exposure to best practices in other industries, and thus never knows to question the methods they use in their own workplace.

I think we can agree that 21st century audiences demand unprecedented access to meaningful and portable content. This had led many sectors to transform, to see themselves as vast digital publishing enterprises. The cultural sector is no different. The need to craft and share stories, engage funders and provide inspiration to audiences - new and traditional - has never been greater. We are producing, and will continue to produce, a veritable flood of digital content. Are we equipped for this transformation?

As an organization, we were able to rally around the missing map metaphor and begin to establish better working models. Perfect? Well, not yet, and maybe never, but certainly improving. Our challenges are many:

• Accelerating digital media production.
• Workflows established for print-production being misapplied to digital.
• A plethora of metadata models.
• Lack of cataloguing staff.
• Myriad digital asset management system software packages – too many choices.
• Our big “elephant in the room”: how are we to deal with the wave of born-digital contemporary art joining our collections?

These challenges must be met if we are to sustain and enhance continued audience engagement across the field. We are not alone in making progress on all of these fronts, and we believe that strong collaboration is a key to our mutual success. At upcoming conferences, such as the Henry Stewart DAM NY event in early May 2015, we’ll be sharing our work and its results. Note: As a reader of this post, you can register for that conference at a discount by using the code MINNEAPOLIS100

As a sector, we will be more likely to succeed when we learn from each other, share our wins as well as our stumbles, expand our professional networks, and set the stage for continued dialog. Let's put our heads together and look to the future, one without any more mysterious digital disappearances.