Currently the focus is on editing photo metadata directly to the files using an image editor.
In this early phase with only one, hmmmm, tagger? (me), this is the most efficient method for organizing a large collection consistently and apply bulk actions when possible.
Using the Metaproperties Management panel, some have been added and experimented on during the past 2 weeks.
Currently the changes made were to show License (Terms), Credit, and Colour mode (CMYK/RGB). This information makes use of XMP metadata, and can be written to the hosted file when downloading by selecting the “include XMP metadata” option.
Asset Type, Location, and Units, are not XMP properties, they’re custom options in Bynder, and as such are not retained when the file is downloaded. Perhaps consider how useful these options are?
Image files in the OIPA server are diverse in type, content, size, but mostly tend to be organized on meaningful folders. However, they rarely have any descriptional metadata, and apart from photos from the Photolab, copyright information is often lacking.
The first photos I used for adding a pattern in metadata and testing with Bynder were from the Editorial folder. Caption and title were copied from the ones used in the news piece, together with copyright, and all I had to create was a tagging system. This week in a meeting, rules were set for the tagging system, mentioned in “Metadata fields”.
This week I began processing the folder “Scientific Images” to experiment on a harder set of images. Without the direct link to a news piece, and usually lacking information besides the filename, each photo took substantially more time to process than the Editorial folder photos. This process involved using some keyword in the filename, like Briggs, and searching the embl site for a match, allied with the date of the picture. This bottleneck can sometimes make 1 photo take 15 minutes to be found and updated, and when it is present on a press release/news. Those not found are left pending until I ask other people for help, which will be done soon.
Currently I believe that the next move is to perform an overall assessment of how many images exist in the OIPA server and one final decision process on what is to keep or discard, including those of interest to keep but not to be uploaded to Bynder. This catalog will show how big is the current stock of imagery, how long it might take to include them all into Bynder, and recognize the distribution of image types as evidence to support new image needs/incentives.
Perhaps creating informal use case personas (unsure if that’s the word I think it is) is a good method to evaluate actions and results.
Editorial: finding images for articles
Design: sharing approved/finished images
Press: create and share press kits
Scientist: uploading images from experiments
Scientist: using images for presentations, conferences, etc
Outreach:
CCO:
others…
When access to Bynder is set to be expanded outside of the Stratcom department, a chapter dedicated to this step will be created and be based on the outcomes of what this report was intended to present.