Two Open-Source Tools for Digital Asset Metadata Management (original) (raw)

In today's world of digital information, previously disparate archival practices are converging around the need to manage collections at the item level. Media collections require a curatorial approach that demand archivists know certain information about every single object in their care for purposes of provenance, quality control, and appraisal. This is a daunting task for archives, as it asks that they retool or redesign migration and accession workflows. It is exactly in gaps such as these that practical technologies become ever useful. This article offers case studies regarding two freely-available, open-source digital asset metadata tools-BWF MetaEdit and MDQC. The case studies offer on-the-ground examples of how four institutions recognized a need for metadata creation and validation, and how they employed these new tools in their production and accessioning workflows. Digital asset metadata is a critical aspect of preservation, access, and stewardship; without this information, objects become increasingly difficult to manage and use. Without knowing precisely what an object is (both as a technical asset and intellectual entity), questions such as "how do we present this?" and "are there obsolescence concerns?" cannot be answered. Supplementary to external datastores-databases, spreadsheets, and the like-technical and descriptive metadata about digital collections can be embedded within the assets themselves. All together, external and embedded metadata comprise the total knowledge of a given digital object, and this information is critical in archival workflows and in preservation repositories. This study evaluates two tools that offer solutions for creating, reading, and making use of metadata that can be embedded within digital objects. Some uses for embedded metadata in an archival environment include automated quality control, object self-description, disaster recovery, and metadata sharing between systems. The two tools discussed in this study, MDQC (Metadata Quality Control) and BWF MetaEdit are open-source software utilities created to aid archivists in the creation and use of such metadata in daily workflows. This article explores four production implementations of these tools and their usefulness for overcoming problems and streamlining processes. The sheer quantity of digital assets created as a result of digitization projects and the resulting large-scale ingests often overwhelm library staff. Outside of digitization on demand, objects are typically digitized at scale in order to capitalize on efficiencies of volume. In such cases it is not uncommon for small archival teams to handle many thousands of digital assets, each of which must go through an ingest workflow. The most important part of ingest workflows-performing quality control on incoming preservation masters-is often the most time consuming step for digital archivists. An archive may wish to ensure that its digital assets conform to naming standards, minimum quality specifications, or format compliance. These assets are typically reviewed manually at the item level, as evidenced in our case studies below. In such cases, a bottleneck emerges because the rate at which quality control is performed falls behind the rate at which newly digitized assets are created and acquired. Quality verification also tends to be an ineffective use of staff time. Despite its importance, it is tedious and a poor use of skilled labor. Digitization projects and departments can sink unanticipated amounts of valuable time and resources into item-level quality control, thus detracting from other services (both real and potential). All told, asset quality control is a step in archival workflows that is ripe for improvement.