Blog Post #8

In the article Managing content in a rich media world by Dan Goodin, Goodin addresses the several conflicts with managing electronically produced content such as “videos, audio clips and digital images”. He begins with the example-storage of content in the Dallas Museum of Art, which has been a conflict for 26,000 images and research that cannot be accessed through one computer-rather through several computers in different departments. Goodin- introduces us to DAM (Digital asset management) a solution for information storing under one roof (literally) instead of using outside storing facilities. Broadcaster, the Discovery channel who also owns Animal planet uses four different DAM systems to manage music, video, and images. DAM uses the metadata method (as mentioned in Badke, metadata in chapter 4-an organized way of using a search engine. The searches are specific unlike Google, where the search is based on the word being in that sentence, category or tag etc.) But with DAM it allows more accurate searches-and in some cases allows to search using voice recognition and “optical character recognition”, the results are precise.  I was very surprised that museums, large real estate and pharmaceutical companies face problems with storage capacity. With museums, it seems difficult to store and find every bit of information saved, but with metadata its easier for the researchers and the public to access the exact information they need. Its something I never really gave thought too. After the reading, I actually went on the MOMA website (museum of Modern Art) to check their web engine. I searched Henri Matisse and received many categories of Matisse’s great works throughout the 1900’s in images,sketches,paintings and multimedia. It allowed me to find exactly what I needed, depending on the category.

Class notes 8/31/10

• The article I mentioned in class today, The Library in the New Age, that discusses the 4 innovations in information that I wrote on the whiteboard: writing, the codex (book), printing with movable type, and the internet.

• A Timeline of Information Innovation, with lots of details about the history of information. Note that this covers non-electronic information only and doesn’t discuss computer- or internet-based information.

• The video we watched today, The Information Cycle, which explores how different kinds of publications cover the same event.

–Prof Smale