Making metadata for Manga and applying Topic Maps to it

Shoichiro HARACenter for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University

Motomu NAITOKnowledge Synergy Inc.

Outline

1. Background and Purpose2. Functions of Manga Metadata3. Components of Manga Metadata4. Apply Topic Maps to the metadata - Bibliographical Metadata - Structural Metadata5. Web Applications on topic maps 6. Conclusion7. Challenge and Future work

1. Background and Purposes Manga has already established itself a genre of culture

– Sales in 2011: 271.7 Bill. / 1112.3 Bill. One of foremost Japanese pop culture

– World wide market– Attractive to Japanese culture and language

Media characteristics– Media diversity/derivation: Weekly periodicals, books, animations, movies,

dramas, theaters, parodies etc. Problems of Manga

– Easy to be disappearedEasy to be out of print and/or cease publicationEasy to be discardedEasy to be destroyed

Importance of Metadata, digitization and preservation But there are no well established metadata for Manga database THEN, our trial to define new metadata of Manga

Bookstore in Bangkok

2. Functions of Manga Metadata1. Ability to describe media diversity and derivation

– From weekly periodicals to books and animations etc.

2. Ability to keep all aspects of Manga– Bibliographic, texts, images, movies etc.

3. Importance of participatory data creation– No special librarians/catalogers of Manga– Need grass roots supports (expressly for foreign materials)

4. Importance of effective use of Web information– Much information about bibliographies, explanatory notes, authors,

publishers etc. are available from Web– Metadata will be used to organize existing information

Thus Our Metadata should be easy to create and use should be compatible with other metadata

3. Components of Manga Metadata

Bibliographic Metadata – DC based simple structure– Describes elementary information about general concept of

work, each work/media (such as book, novel, TV drama, movie, etc.), each resource, etc.

Structural Metadata– Describes structural component of Manga book such as Page,

Coma(Frame), Picture, Text, Symbol, etc.– Will try to apply TEI

Topic Maps and Web application– Express metadata as network– Link each component with other Web data

Materials Title ：花より男子 (Hana yori dango) / Boys over Flowers Author ：神尾葉子 / Kamio, Yoko Outlines

– Original: Serial Manga published in マーガレット (Marguerite), a biweekly girls’ Manga magazine published by 集英社 (Shuei-sha), from 1992 to 2004.

– Book: 37 volumes. The best selling girls’ Manga in Japan (58000000 copies until Sep. 2006)

– Multimedia: animation, drama, movie.– Translated versions: USA, Taiwan, Thailand, France, Spain etc.

Reasons for Research Material– Various medias: good sample for metadata– Various translated versions: good for multilingual text sample

Material : Book version (Vol. 1)– Japanese (original) (Shuei-sha ）– English (Viz Media)– Thai (Siam Inter Comics)

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Image DataImage scanning

– 300dpi– Gray scale （ 8bit ） , Only cover page is color scanning

Preprocessing– Remove the cover – Then cut the binding of the book

(Bind the book again after scanning)

Composition of Manga

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Example of Structure Metadata

Example of Bibliographic Metadataelement content

Title BOYS over FLOWERS

Creator Yoko Kamio, PSI

Subject Love story, http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlsh/00569390 (PSI)

Description Manga, book, URL

Publisher SHUEISHA Inc., PSI

Contributor Agent, PSI, Role

Date 1992

Type StillImage, PSI

element Content

Format print, PSI

Identifier

Source URL of resource

Language Ja, PSI

Relation isFormatOf, URL of resource

Coverage Heisei, PSI place, PSI

Rights Yoko Kamio, PSI

4. Apply Topic Maps to the Metadata

What and Why Topic Maps? Simple, Intuitive and Human-friendly model for organizing

information 　– Models target domain as concept/subject network (topics and

associations between topics)– Links concepts and related information resources (occurrences)

Consists of types (which corresponding Ontology) and instances– Same vocabularies and syntax are used for Types and Instances

Uses Subject Identifier (IRI or URI) to identify subjects (topics) and link/merge subjects

Has very powerful Topic Maps query language: tolog Has remote access protocol: TMRAP to access remote topic maps Topic Maps is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 13250) Can use matured open source tools, e.g. Ontopia http://code.google.com/p/ontopia/

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The Basic Model of Topic Maps

• Some pool of information or data– any type, format, or location

information

• Associations– representing relationships between

subjects

draw

born in

draw

• Occurrences– links to information that is somehow

relevant to a given subject

• = The TAO of Topic Maps

• A knowledge layer, consisting of:

knowledge

• Topics– a set of topics representing the key

subjects of the domain in question

Yoko Kamio

Cat Street

TOKYO

BOYS over FLOWERS

P.S.Topics, associations and occurrences have types, and all types are also topics…

（ Source: Steve Pepper, “Towards Seamless Knowledge” ）

General View and target of Manga Metadata

Three types targets– Work( 著作 ), Expression( 表現形 ), Manifestation( 体現形 )

Metadata is made for each instance of the types Describing relationships (e.g. derivation) between instances

Bibliographic Metadata Metadata is described by DCMES’s (Dublin Core Metadata

Element Set) 15 elements and relationship between them Attaching identifier(IRI or URI) to the elements as far as possible

Refer to: Steve Pepper, Expressing Dublin Core Metadata using Topic Maps, http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0906.htm

Topic map of Bibliographic Metadata Topic Types (8): Work, Expression, Manifestation, Agent,

Coverage class, Language class, Subject class, Type class Occurrence Types (5): Description, Date, Format, Identifier,

Rights Association Types (9): createdBy, hasSubject, publishedBy,

contributedBy, typeAs, sourceOf, expressedIn, relatedWith, coveredWith

Association role Types (18): creator, subject, publisher, contributor, type, source, language, relation, coverage, resource-role-for-creator, resource-role-for-subject, resource-role-for-publisher, resource-role-for-contributor, resource-role-for-type, resource-role-for-type, resource-role-for-language, resource-role-for-relation, resource-role-for-coverage

title is used as topic name of resources (Work, Expression, Manifestation)

* Red characters represent DCMES

Structural Metadata Structural Metadata is described by Composition elements of Manga

(volume, scene, page coma, script/onomatopoeia, person) and relationship between them

IRIs (URIs) are attached to all components

Topic map of Structural Metadata

Topic Types (6) ： Volume, Scene, Page, Coma, Script/Onomatopoeia, Person

Occurrence Types (3) ： Attribute, String, image Association Types (8) ： part-of, appear, depict, speak, before-

after, coma-before-after, script-before-after, scene-before-after Association Role Types (16) ： whole, part, coma-appearing-

person, person-in-coma, coma-depicting-script, script-in-coma, speaker, script-of-speaker, before, after, coma-before, coma-after, script-before, script-after, scene-before, scene-after

Scope : Japanese(ja), English(en), Thai(th)

Topic map of Structural Metadata

Instance topics – volume ： 1– scene: 29 　　　　　　　– page ： 158– come ： 550 　　　　– script/onomatopoeia ： 1,239– person (character): 18 　

Instance associations– part-of ： 780 　　　　　　　– appear ： 520– depict ： 1239 　　　　– before-after ： 157– coma-before-after: 547– Script-before-after: 1238

5. Web Applications on topic maps

Make Bibliographic topic map and Structural topic map separately– Transform CSV format to Topic Maps syntax– Using “DB2TM” in Ontopia as a tool

Make Web application separately– Using “Ontopia Navigator Framework” in Ontopia as a tool

Link bibliographic topic map with structural topic map– One way link at the moment

Functions of the Web applications

Instance list for each topic type Instance details

– Topic characteristics (topic name, internal occurrence, external occurrence, association role)

Graphic representation Keyword search Tolog query Navigating topics based on associations Web service interface by TMRAP

Web Application for Bibliographic Metadata

Web Application for Structural MetadataTop page

Key word search

Structural Metadata Web application

Script/Onomatopoeia list Script/Onomatopoeia detail

Coma detail

6. ConclusionManga and related resources should be preserved and

inherited Metadata plays very important roles to realize it By our method metadata changes from mere list of

elements to structured network of concepts (including derivation)

Necessity for introduction of semantic technology– This research uses Topic Maps technology– Computer can identify concepts using IRI or URI– Queries can be done from various point of views and based on

association In result It becomes easy to manage, find and access the metadata

and information resources (target of metadata) It makes new way to create and add new value to domains

7. Challenge and Future work

Increase examples of Manga MetadataConform the Bibliographic Metadata to FRBRDevelop environment for metadata input and maintenanceMake metadata guideline for animation, drama, movie, etc.Develop environment for register, manage and use of

Subject Identifier (IRI or URI)Use authority data and ID of author and organization

– E.g. Web NDL AuthoritiesYoko Kamio: http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlna/00320527

Ensure enough terms for subject (NDLSH are not enough)Make multilingual metadataAnd all that

Challenge and Future work (cont.)

Utilization of the Metadata Send messages about Manga related information resources to all

over the world and pass them down the generations Try to apply the metadata to the learning materials, user guides

and maintenance manuals for the instruments, etc.

In order to increase usefulness of the Metadata, we would like to make sure some ambiguity requests can also be fulfilled.

Such as: I'd like to find “that manga” which I read when I was a child. I'd like to use “appropriate manga” to check “Trend, Culture,

Fashion, etc.” of “some old days”.

Thank you!

Any suggestion?