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Media Metadata Best Practices

Table of contents

Overview

Media metadata should be kept to help with the digitisation process.

Recommendations

Media Metadata (MM1, MM2)

Level: Basic

Use Case: As digitisation manager I want to keep all media metadata so that I can use that information in different use cases.

Recommendation:

MM1: Keep media metadata, like EXIF tags embedded in the image and imaging information stored in standalone txt files, as much as possible in the digitisation process

MM2: Mark sensitive fields in the media metadata and make them invisible if necessary in required cases.

Discussion

Media metadata can provide useful information to the digitisation process. Cameras usually generate related imaging information, such as image resolution, orientation, date and time, location, in EXIF tags embedded in the images during the image capture. EXIF information can be read and modified by computer software, which can be used to automate the digitisation process to reduce the manual labour work and the potential human mistakes.

There may be fields in the media metadata that are sensitive in some special cases. Those potential fields should be marked and invisible to the users.

Implementation

Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luomus)

EXIF information of the images from mass digitisation is extracted from the images and saved as standalone text files. The data and time of the processing and transformation on the image, like rotation and quality check, are recorded in a text file associated with the images. For endangered species, the location information in the occurrence images was removed and the accurate location information was not shown to the public.

Authors

Zhengzhe Wu and Esko Piirainen
Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luomus)

Contributors

Lisa French, Laurence Livermore

Authors

Zhengzhe Wu and Esko Piirainen
Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luomus)

Contributors

Lisa French, Laurence Livermore

Citation

References

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Last Updated: 27 June 2022

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