Meaty Metadata

Help me, Internet, you're my only hope. I'm trying to wrap my brain around metadata. I mean, I get metadata. Data about your data. That's rad. But how to implement it?

Background! I'm preparing for a photography/object digitization project. I'm researching metadata and imaging standards and trying to learn photo editing and, well, how to use the DSLR camera the museum has. Frankly, my brain is swimming.

Now, the photos will be uploaded into PastPerfect, which prompts for Dublin Core Data, so that's easy. But those photos will be the access photos, not the masters. For the master photos (and other versions) how do I associate metadata? Do I create an excel file to keep in a folder with the files? Is there some super secret way to attach the data to the images themselves?

Another issue that I'm running into is with file type and conversion. Everything I read says: TIF!! But my camera (a Nikon D60) takes uncompressed photos in the proprietary .nef format and the Nikon program (which will convert the .nefs to .tifs) seems to only convert at 300 ppi (for a 3872x2592 pixel image). Maybe that's the max ppi that the D60 can take photos at? But right now I'm thinking that I'll keep the .nef, make a submaster .jpg for cropping and editing and make an access .jpg (640x420ish? 300 ppi) for PastPerfect. I don't have photoshop. I do have Gimp, but that doesn't work for 16 bit color, only 8 bit.

Final goal of the project is to create nice quality images which can be used for possible digital exhibit, images for possible web access, and images for the database. Database images, however, are the only immediate application of the project. Everything else is out there in space.

Help? Advice? Pointing to resources which lay out implementation in very simple language (I've already got a ton of resources on my desk, but many are almost a decade old)?

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To be or not to be?

What do you do with a thesis blog when you finish your thesis? (I got the official grad school email, by the way. I'll have my piece of paper in 3-4 months. You'll just have to take my word for it until then (unlike LeVar Burton or Lt. Jordi LaForge, whose word you don't have to take (I'm sorry, that was a particularly lame reference, even for me, queen of nerdery))

I'm not sure what to do with this place. I don't want to give it up, cause I like you guys. Even if I think I got called fat in Italian. I don't speak Italian. But what to do with it? How to stay relevant? I've got a few ideas:

1. Become a link style blog. Read museum blogs, pointing out stuff I think is cool. Pros: Not really being done. Cons: Dear gourdesses there are so many museum blogs! Plus I think it would lose some of my voice, which could be a pro if you hate this rambly thing I've got going.

2. Try and get academic with it. Make posts trying to be all analytical and insightful. Pros: People love this stuff. Cons: It's not me. Sure, I've been in school FOREVER, but I'm just not cut out to be analytical; I see too many sides to things.

3. Just keep on keeping on. Do what I want. Some links, a little analysis, maybe blog reviews. Pros: I like doing this. It's messy, it's fun, and there's variety. Cons: It's messy. I might be taken less seriously than blogs which are more formal, and I would like to be taken seriously.

Really, I think I'll end up going with option number 3. But what are your thoughts? What would you like to see here?

And one more thing: That title bar. Maybe I ought to change that a bit now. Options (after the colon is the subtitle bit)!
1. Im in ur museum blogz: Readin' and analyzin'
2. Im in ur museum blogz: Online Culture and Museums
3. Aw, I dunno. I really like that "Im in ur" thing despite the fact that it'll date this like nobody's business. Suggestions?

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Mmmm metablogging

So if I blog erin82's metablogging, am I a metametablogger?

erin82 of Henry Art Gallery's HankBlog talks about voice, audience, and the messiness of blogging. Maybe the messiness comment is my own.

Maybe it's the archaeologist in me (I have a degree in that too) but I love how hands on and dirty (not in that way) blogging can be. The unrefined nature of what I conceive of blogs to be. Interesting situations can arise from this, as erin82 points out, but when blogs are run with a heavy hand (cougheye levelcough), I find they begin to lose their appeal.

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