Metadata for 100,000 digital objects

A digitisation project case study

Contents

• In Place - overview

• The project’s metadata requirements

• Metadata workflow

• Metadata schema

• Metadata in practice

• Some clever stuff

New Opportunity Fund (NOF)

• The British Library received £3.4m

• Approximately 50 digitisation projects

across the whole of the United Kingdom

• NOF digitise - A total of £50m grants

Project overview

• The Library’s largest digitisation project

• 100,000 objects from 20 collections

• Free access to material to ‘Lifelong Learners’

• In Place considered to be at the heart of the

Library’s strategic vision

• The project complete by summer 2004

Criteria for selection

• Objects linked to a location

• Three themes

– Your Place in the Nation

– Britain - in Sight and Sound

– Beyond Britain

• No conservation issues

• British Library copyright

The challenge

• To complete on average 250 metadata records every working day until summer 2004

Project Team

Project Board

Project Manager

Studio ManagerMetadata Team

ManagerWeb Delivery

ManagerIS Lead

Studio Team7 x photographers

2 x LibraryAssistants

Metadata Team11 x Metadata

Creators

Web designAgency

Content Manager

2 x ResearchersIS development &

support

NOF metadata requirements

• Common standards across all NOF digitise projects

• Dublin Core

• NOF digitise portal

The collections

• Maps

• Early Printed Collections

• Manuscripts

• Newspapers

• Music

• Oriental and India Office

• National Sound Archive

Early Printed Collections

• 3000 I´mages from 19C photographically illustrated books

• 13,500 pages text and illustrations

• 3000 x Victorian ephemera

Maps

• 4500 x Maps and topographical drawings

• Earliest 1025• Largest 3m x 2m

Manuscripts

• 7500 manuscripts• Ancient &

illuminated, topographical drawings

• Conservation

Newspapers

• 40,000 pages• The Penny

Illustrated newspaper

Music

• 1000 pages of sheet music and illustrations

• Victorian popular music

Oriental and India Office

• 12,500 prints and drawings

• 10,000 photographs

National Sound Archive

• 300 hours audio

• British Dialects

• British wildlife

recordings

• Ethnographic wax

cylinders

Audience and accessibity

• Lifelong learners

– General or casual users

– Local historians

– Learners - in and out of formal education

– Academic researchers

Evolution of schema

• Review object selection with curators - ‘What are the key data elements you must have to describe the objects’

• Identify end users

• Adjust schema to match our requirements

The final schemaDC No. Field Name Sample Data

DC22 Collection British topographical booksDC1 Title The entrance to Portreath, CornwallDC19 Unique Identifier 004ZZZ0000189E6U00018000

DC20_1 Shelfmark 189E6

DC20_2 Item number 18

DC20_3 Location

DC18_1 Length 278

DC18_2 Width 204

DC18_3 Scale mm

DC2_1 Alt Title 1 A Voyage Round Great Britain

DC1_2 Alt Title 2 With a Series of Views, Illustrative of the Character and Prominent Features ofthe Coast, drawn and engraved by William Daniell

DC1_3 Alt Title 3

The final schemaDC No. Field Name Sample DataDC13 Object Type ImageDC14 Object Genre Topographical print

DC16 Object Medium Etching

DC5 Keywords Cornish, Seascape, Pier, Water Transport, Sailing Ship

DC6 Description Despite it's small size Ayton says of Portreath; 'It is, nevertheless, a place ofconsiderable bustle and business, and has a harbour, which is always crowdedwith vessels, that bring coals to it from Swansea and Neath, and return withcopper and tin ore'

'While we were standing on the pier-head we saw a small brig running for theharbour, and though the weather was moderate, we could not see her, evenwillfully, advance towards the rocks, without a sense of anxiety andbreathlessness'.

DC23 ExistingReferences

DC25_1 OS GridReference 165500 , 45500

DC25_2 OS Gazetteer Portreath, Cornwall

The final schemaDC No. Field Name Sample Data

DC3 Creator William Daniell

DC4 Creator role Artist

DC10_1 Contributor 1

DC10_2 Contributor 2

DC10_3 Contributor 3

DC11_1 Contributor Role 1

DC11_2 Contributor Role 2DC11_3 Contributor Role 3DC21_1 Language 1 EnglishDC21_2 Language 2

DC21_3 Language 3

The final schemaDC No. Field Name Sample Data

DC8 Publisher Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Browne, Paternoster-Row; and WilliamDaniell, No 9 Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square

DC9 Place ofPublication

London, England

DC12_5 Publication DateDC12_1 Key Date 1813

Date Description Early 19th Century

DC12_2 Original CreationDate

1814

DC12_3 Map Survey DateDC12_6 Map Revision

DateDC7_1 OS Map scale

DC7_2 Scale descriptionDC15 Digital_medium image/TIFFDC17 Digital_size 123,000 KBDC27 Rights NOF statement on rights.

Metadata workflow

Content Management System

Content Management System

Content Management System

Practical issues

• How do you uniquely identify each object in a meaningful way?• The issue -

Add.74000, f.1 Eva.100 WD1234,f321x X321(123)Cotton MS Vitellius A.X11 H.1260.1(16.) Mss.Eur F174/2336OSD 222 H.3981.42.(52) Mss.Eur F174/2336 K.Top 1153.2 K.Top vol 102 (part 3) 2 Mss.Eur B360b (65) C45/1733189.E.7 H1783.p.(59.) Mss.Eur F1234/9876 (1234B) Add.147

Practical issues

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 U 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 4 Z Z Z 0 0 0 0 0 1 8 9 E U 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 4 Z Z Z 0 0 0 0 0 1 8 9 E U 0 0 0 1 8 0 0 0

0 0 4 Z Z Z 0 0 0 0 0 1 8 9 E U 0 0 0 1 8 0 A 0

0 0 4 Z Z Z 0 0 0 0 0 1 8 9 E U 0 0 0 1 8 0 A 0

Shelfmark: 189E f18 (1)

Practical issues

• Free text descriptions

• ‘Man on a cross’ syndrome

• Ideal description 100 words

Topographical print>Seascape>Sailing ship

The entrance to Portreath, CornwallWilliam Daniell, 1814

Despite it's small size Ayton says of Portreath; 'It is, nevertheless, a place of considerable bustle and business, and has a harbour, which is always crowded with vessels, that bring coals to it from Swansea and Neath, and return with copper and tin ore'

'While we were standing on the pier-head we saw a small brig running for the harbour, and though the weather was moderate, we could not see her, even willfully, advance towards the rocks, without a sense of anxiety and breathlessness'.

Etching278 x 204mm

NextBack

Object level example

Practical issues

• Map interface – Coordinates - point verses area

• Dates– Original creation date – Key date

Practical issues

• Keywords and classification– Sample of each here

The website

• OliveSoft

• Penny Illustrated - 40,000 pages

• Scan from microfiche - OCR and image

• Clever user interface

• Demo

The website

• How does a user view a large image

• Largest map dimensions here

• Zoomify demo

Conclusion

• Understand your material and your users

• Exploit technology - CMS

• Wherever possible use what’s already there

• Metadata the hardest part of the project

hugh.hadfield@bl.uk