Cataloging Images In Thl Mms Through Web Interface

THL Toolbox > Images & Immersive Technologies > MMS Images Manual > Cataloging Images in THL MMS through Web Interface

Cataloging Images in THL MMS through Web Interface

Contributor(s): David Germano, David Newman, Steven Weinberger

Introduction

When in editing mode, you will see a thumbnail of the image at the top under the header "Medium". The overall header above it says "Editing Catalog Record for Medium 9013", with the final number being the unique THL ID for that image.

Many of the fields in the image cataloging record are controlled vocabulary that are offered as drop down menus from which you select the item you want. If you need a choice which is not offered, then that choice has be to added to the controlled vocabulary to that field. If you have administrative rights, you will see to the right of the item a choice "new photographer", "new quality type", "manage cameras", and the like. You can click on that and easily add a new item to the relevant controlled vocabulary, which will then show up on the drop down list for that field. If you don't have administrative rights, you will have to contact a THL staffer to get it added; if you think you should have such administrative rights, then request them from THL staff.

The editing interface first shows you all the fields that currently have data, along with the ability to edit them by changing the current data, or adding new data. At the bottom of these fields is an UPDATE button. If you make changes, you must click this UPDATE button to save them. IF YOU DON'T HIT THE UPDATE BUTTON ALL CHANGES WILL BE LOST!!!

Photographer

Simply choose the photographer's name. In some cases, people may find they are trading cameras back and forth in a team, such that it is unclear just who photographed a given item. Thus, often people may want to attribute a photo to two people. In this case, just add both photographers. There may be a need to attribute a photo to a corporate organization where there is no sense of the individual photographer and there is a team of people who may have photographed any specific photos. In that case, you can request that the named team be added to the controlled vocabulary.

Time Picture was Taken

This allows the date and time of the photograph to be specified through a series of drop down lists: year, month, date, hour, minute, second.

Quality Type

This refers to the quality of the photo in terms of both its content, framing, and technical quality. The choices are: unusable, poor, average, good, excellent. There may be a reason to keep a poor quality image due to its unusual content.

Camera Model

This specifies the camera manufacturer and model used to take the photography, if known. Since people often won't remember the model, each manufacturer is also listed with an "unknown model".

Recording Note

This is a free text field. Generally, it should be used to…

This can be used for an explanation about the situation in which the photo was shot, why it was shot, special circumstances, etc.

Recording Orientation

This is a drop down list.

Private Note

These notes are private only for the use of the photographer, such as information about how it links to other private documentation, or personal notes about relationships to the people in the image, etc.

Collection

TBA.

Caption

This should be repeatable so that you can have as many captions as you would like.

Caption: This is limited to 140 characters, including spaces. In general, a caption should be a sentence fragment rather than a sentences, although, if there is a good reason, a complete sentence is acceptable. Use sentence case, such that only the first letter is capitalized except for proper nouns and the like. Every image must have a caption – it is the minimum textual description for images – and this must be of the type "General". Additional captions specific to disciplines may also be added, specifying the caption type below. You can also add additional captions of specialized variety in English, or add captions in other languages.

If you include any Tibetan words in your caption enter the THL Simplified phonetic followed by the THL extended Wylie in parentheses, with the Wylie in italics. Example: Caves in the right wing of the khyung (khyung) formation.

It is better if the only caption for an image is not in Tibetan since no one who doesn't read Tibetan will be able to understand the caption, but it is allowed.

Note: catalogers may be tempted to insert references to the place of recording into the caption, such as, “A woman in Lhasa”, “Morning rituals in Sera Monastery”, etc., however, it has to be kept in mind that the location of images is kept track of in the “location” field within the image catalog record, and thus the location of images can be displayed together with captions. Thus references to the location of an image should be kept to a minimum – the information is redundant. Try to make the caption as informative as possible, otherwise, rather than just generic phrases that offer little insight beyond what is obvious to anyone.

Caption Type: “General”, “Art historical”, etc. The default is “General”. A single picture can have multiple captions either by the same people, or by different people. Each is “typed”, such that one might make captions that are “art historical” which focus on art historical aspects of the image’s content, someone who is examining 1000 photos and ignores everything except the clothes would use "type=clothes" analysis, etc. and so forth. We have to keep track of these “types”, and provide an exhaustive list for people to utilize, or suggest an addition for.

Caption Language: this is specified from a drop down list of languages.

Caption Creator: This is the author of caption, and is automatically assigned from the name of the person logged in who creates the caption. There is currently no way to edit this.

Description

This is repeatable so that you can have as many descriptions as you like.

Description: This is limited to 750 characters describing the content of the image in detail beyond the caption. Images do not require a description, but in many cases this further analytical detail will be advisable. Additional descriptions specific to disciplines may also be added, specifying the description type below. If you include Tibetan words in your description, enter the THL Simplified phonetic followed by the THL extended Wylie in parentheses, with the Wylie in italics. Example: Caves in the right wing of the khyung (khyung) formation.

Description Type:

Description Language:

Description Creator:

The Editor for Descriptions/Essays

The WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) rich text editor for descriptions and essays is a THL editor that is used across THL in many applications. For that reason, we keep its documentation separate so that a number of editorial manuals can refer to it. For anyone writing descriptions, it is essential that you refer to the THL Online Essay Editor Manual for details on how format your text and use the editor.

Associate to Keyword

This is not a knowledge map, but a user-created cloud of tags maintained within MMS. Note that keywords should not duplicate location (that is, the name of the feature the image is associated with, such as a lake, monastery and so forth), knowledge map categories associated with the image as topics or subjects, and so forth.

Associate to Location (Geographical Metadata)

Photographing/Recording Location

This reflects the location where the media was first created - i.e. the spot where a photograph was taken, or a video recorded. In general, this is done by opening up the Place Dictionary within a MMS cataloging record, and specifying the place in question. If the place is not in the Place Dictionary, then it needs to be first added into the Place Dictionary so that the MMS can draw upon it.

However, there will be often be cases when one has a specific GPS point for a photo - frequent for these days of GPS-enabled cameras, and we thus need for the MMS record to record that information.

Coordinates: Use if relevant, and if the recording location is a point without a gazetteer entry. Otherwise, the Gazetteer will provide the coordinates. If a GPS reading has been taken at the point of recording, the result may be in degrees or UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator – metric units)

Degrees: Use this section if the coordinates are in Degrees.

  • East/West Longitude: Specify here whether the reading is in East or West longitude.
  • Longitude (X) Degrees:
  • Longitude (X) Minutes: Sometimes a GPS reading will have minutes followed by a decimal point. In the case of a reading like 31°41.354', "41.354" should be entered for minutes.
  • Longitude (X) Seconds:
  • Longitude (X) Decimal: This is for decimal degrees when the value is degrees followed immediately by a decimal point, not a value in seconds. This is the value that is the right of the decimal. In the case of 31.68923°, the value to be entered here is "68923".
  • North/South Latitude: Specify here whether the reading is in North or South latitude.
  • Latitude (Y) Degrees:
  • Latitude (Y) Minutes: Sometimes a GPS reading will have minutes followed by a decimal point. In the case of a reading like 31°41.354', "41.354" should be entered for minutes.
  • Latitude (Y) Seconds:
  • Latitude (Y) Decimal: This is for decimal degrees when the value is degrees followed immediately by a decimal point, not a value in seconds. This is the value that is the right of the decimal. In the case of 31.68923°, the value to be entered here is "68923".

UTM: Use this if the coordinates are in UTM (metric units). The figures will generally be a 6 or 7-digit number.

  • UTM Zone: For example the zone value for the Porong region of Tibet is "45".
  • X (East): A sample value from Porong is "414484".
  • Y (North): A sample value from Porong is "3170804".

General:

  • Latitude: This is only used if the data is imported in a form that does not allow for separating out the degrees, minutes, seconds.
  • Longitude: This is only used if the data is imported in a form that does not allow for separating out the degrees, minutes, seconds.
  • Elevation:
  • Units: This refers to the units in which the elevation is measued, for example meters or feet.
  • Orientation: This refers to the orientation from which a photograph was taken.

Administrative: This is the location where the photograph was taken in terms of the national administrative hierarchy scheme. It needs to be drawn from the Place Dictionary.

Spot feature (point of interest): This is for a specific building, etc. Note: There is a potentially misleading relationship between spot features and administrative features in this entry form. For instance if a school is determined to be in skyid thang Township but is not located in any particular village, the school will appear as an option as if it were at the same level as a village in skyid thang.

Notes: Notes on the recording location.

Cultural: This is the location where the photograph was taken in terms of the cultural hierarchy scheme. It needs to be drawn from the Place Dictionary.

Content Location

Administrative: Enter the location of the most important content of the photograph terms of the national administrative hierarchy scheme. Examples are a painting made in sde dge, but photographed in London, or a woman from A mdo photographed far from her home in Western Tibet, etc. It needs to be drawn from the Place Dictionary.

Cultural: Enter the location of the most important content of the photograph in terms of the ethno-cultural regional scheme. It needs to be drawn from the Place Dictionary.

Associate to Subject

Associate one or more categories from the Subjects Knowledge Map, external link: http://tmb.thlib.org/categories/272/children. Enter the category ID for the subject, found by clicking on the subject in the knowledge map and then in the left side of the screen, copying the category ID. If you want to associate more than one subject, enter their ID numbers separated by a semi-colon (;) with no space before or after the semi-colon.

Associate to Socio-Cultural Group

This is the ethnicity of items or people photographed.

Associate to Source

Source:

Shot number

TBA.

Copyright

Copyright Holder

License Type: a drop down list with the following options -

  • unrestricted use permitted
  • use permitted w/ explicit citation
  • contact copyright holder for permission to use
  • only private uses permitted

Notes

Copyright could be photographer, or if paid for by an organization, including THL, it could be the organization.

Affiliation

Sponsor

Organization

Project

Workflow Information

Original Filename

Original Medium ID

Other ID

Notes

Sequence order

Keywords

At this point there is no controlled vocabulary in THL. As contributors provide input, we hope to piece together a system of effective keywords. For now, the keywords fields can be used to add general topics. Additionally we have attempted to implement at prototypical scheme for a three-tiered system for creating thematic hierarchies, which is found in the

  • Keywords
  • Keywords 2: This is to allow for keywords in another language.
  • Keywords 2 Language

Essay Location

Enter a URL or file name for a resource that uses the image.

Collection

This is knowledge map that organizes images into collections based upon groups of images that one wants to present together to end users. An example of a three tired hierarchical Collection could be “PreBuddhist Archaeological Monuments Collection”, which contains Series such as “Funerary Grounds”, “Fortresses”, and so forth, which then in turn are divided up into Subseries dedicated to specific sites exemplifying each.

We also want to be able to create a sequence of images for a slide show:

  • Sequence Title
  • Order Within Sequence

Thematic Classification

This is a multi-tiered knowledge map hierarchy from which the cataloger can choose to indicate the subject matter of the media in genreal terms. This will allow people to see all dogs, all yaks, etc.

Named Individuals

These are names of individuals in a given photograph. The names of Tibetans should be in a form of a phoneticized name, followed by the name in THDL extended Wylie within parentheses eg: Konchok Jiatso (dkon mchog rgya mtsho).

Administrative Metadata

This section deals with information such as file names, photographers, copyrights, the date the media object was created, the location in which it is stored, etc.

File name

  • THDL ID: THDL file ID.
  • Other ID 1: A legacy name that people might use for reference purposes.
  • Other ID 2: A legacy name that people might use for reference purposes.

Affiliations

Sponsor: This is the name of the source(s) that have funded the photographer's work. This is multiple-select, and specifies funding grants/agencies who have paid for the photography.

Host organization: This is the name of the organization to whom the photographer belongs.

Project: This is the project (such as Sera Monastery, Lhasa Neighborhoods, etc.) under the auspices of which the photographer was working.

Workflow Data

Temporary Workflow Data/Old Path Data: This preserves information from an earlier storage of the image, such as the folder location of the image on the photographer's hard drive. It is to be used in reconstructing the image's relationship to other images and/or its entry in handwritten or other forms of cataloguing records.

Keep/Trash: This indicates whether an image is to be kept in the database or deleted.

Select: This indicates records selected for performing batch processes in FileMaker.

Rotation: This indicates the images that need to be rotated in a batch rotation if the database software doesn't have direct scriptable rotation capacity.

Original Media Asset

This refers to the source media for the digitized object. It may be a slide, a print image, a negative, a video cassette, etc. If the object is "born digital", such as an image taken with a digital camera, this section deals with that as well.

Source asset recording time (i.e time of making original photograph)

For digital photos, this information will generally be automatically extracted from the file on the camera storage media. However for slides and photos that have been digitized, or for digital photos for which the dates have been gone bad, this has to be entered manually.

Asset creation year: This must be 4 digits. Make sure you don't hit the return key when you enter your data. If you do that, then the entry will be invalid, because a return symbol will be inserted. The same applies for all entries that specify a format for entry in the database.

Asset creation month: This is the name of the month in English.

Asset creation date: This must be a number between 1 and 31.

Asset creation hour: A 2-digit hour must be entered according to a 24-hour clock. For instance 5 pm must be entered as "17".

Asset creation minute: This must be a number between 0 and 59 inclusive.

Asset creation second: This must be a number between 0 and 59 inclusive.

Asset creation season: This choices are summer, fall, winter, spring

Asset creation day of week: The day of the week in English.

Asset creation date: This is a field for legacy data, primarily extracted from records in past databases. The dates are generally in the form of '7/13/1999'.

Asset creation time: This is a field for legacy data, primarily extracted from records in past databases. For instance, records imported from Cumulus contain times in the form of '10:51:28 AM'.

Asset creation date/time: This is a field for legacy data, primarily extracted from records in past databases. The dates are in the form of '7/13/99 10:51:28 AM'.

Asset time note: This is for any notations about the date or time, such as “it was late afternoon”, etc.

Weather conditions: Briefly indicate the weather conditions at the time of recording the asset.

Source Asset Location Details

This refers to the location where the original slide, cassette, etc is stored.

Storage location of original source: Some examples are "the Rare Collections of Alderman", "Francoise Pommaret’s personal holdings", etc.

Storage Location Notes: This is for additional notes about where the original media object is stored.

Original media ID: The other IDs in the File Name field above would generally be used, however if you wanted to specify an ID of the original media object, that can be specified here. If the original ID is in the form of a shot number of a roll of film, use Roll ID and Shot Number below.

Roll ID: The ID number of the film roll.

Shot Number: The shot number of the original image.

Source Image: Use this field to indicate the original image from which the current image is derived. An example is a detail from a painting that exists independantly from the larger image from which it came.

Digitized Asset

This refers to the digitized version of the original slide, negative, etc.

Digitized Asset Location Details

I.e. the DVD, digital file, etc…

Digitized asset storage location: This refers to the location of the actual DVD or CD, etc on which the asset is stored.

Digitized asset path data (DigitizedAssetPath): This refers to the location of the high quality original digital file – such as <Hitchcock/TibetMedia/Originals/>

Technical Metadata

TBA.

Fields not yet added back in

Original Media Asset: This refers to the source media for the digitized object. It may be a slide, a print image, a negative, a video cassette, etc. If the object is "born digital", such as an image taken with a digital camera, this section deals with that as well.

  • Original film format (OriginalImageFormat): Options for this include color negative, color print, color slide, digital still, digital video, monchrome negative, monochrome print
  • Film Type:
  • Film Speed:
  • Physical size of original photo (PhysicalSizeOriginalPhoto): This is used if the digital asset is a scan of an actual image. Sizes include: 3X5, 5X7, 8X10, 7X 9, 10X12, 4X6.
  • This refers to the digitized version of the original slide, negative, etc, however it may also refer to a digital born asset.

Width (Width): This is the width in pixels of the highest quality version of the digital image.

Height (Height): This is the height in pixels of the highest quality version of the digital image.

Bit Depth (BitDepth): This refers to the number of bits used to describe the color of each pixel. Greater bit depth allows more colors to be used in the colour palette for the image. 8-bits per pixel will allow 256 colors, 8-bits per color component in a RGB image will allow 16777216 colors (256 X 256 X 256).

Compression (Compression): This is an algorithm that is applied to a digital image to reduce its file size. Compression can be either Lossy or Lossless.

Color Space (ColorSpace): This is the mathematical definition of color used for aiding communication of color information.

Photometric Interpretation (PhotometricInterpretation): This pertains to color balancing.

Digital Asset

This refers to the digitized version of the original slide, negative, etc, however it may also refer to a digital born asset.

Media type (MediaType): This is the type of asset being catalogued, such as an image, video, audio, etc.

Digital format (DigitalFormat): This is also known as the "file type" and includes such formats as JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc.

Mime type (MimeType): This is a method used by web browsers to associate files of a certain type with helper applications that display files of that type.

File size (FileSize): This is the size in kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes of the digital asset. This will generally be automatically extracted from the file when it is imported into the image datbase.

Digitization device (DigitizationDevice): This refers to the device used to digitize an analog asset, eg, an Epson 1600 scanner. This may be automatically extracted from the file when it is imported into the image datbase.

Image correction: This is where the cataloguer notes that an image is in need of correction such as levels, color balance, etc. and white type of correction has been performed.

Image correction required (Correction): This indicates whether the image is in need of correction.

Image correction done (ImageCorrection): This indicates whether the image has been corrected.

Details of image correction (DetailsImageCorrection): This indicates the image that is needed or that has been undertaken.

Provided for unrestricted use by the external link: Tibetan and Himalayan Library