Concerto Archive Management

Concerto consists of collections and exhibitions. Collections are archives of assets that are accessible via user interfaces for searching and browsing. Exhibitions are groups of slideshows that allow users to present assets from various collections in a particular order with specific annotations.

Assets

Concerto allows the storage, cataloguing, and retrieval of media of all types. It does this by using the abstract concept of an Asset. At their most basic level, Assets are objects that have a title, description, and any number of data or metadata records. These records can contain files, metadata in a standard schema such as Dublin Core or VRA Core, or in a custom metadata schema that could include fields such as ‘requester’, ‘processed-date’, ‘dynasty’, or anything needed.

It is important to note that a given Asset can have zero or more records for every schema, including multiple file-records. An Asset representing a sculpture for example, could have 6 file-records — one for each photograph of the front, back, sides, top, and bottom — in addition to a VRA Core record describing its subject-matter and style. Likewise, additional VRA Core records could be added for translations into additional languages.

Assets can also be arranged hierarchically if desired.

Collections

Assets in Concerto are grouped together under collections. Collections define the data and metadata schemas that are used in the assets within them.

Exhibitions & Slideshows

Users of Concerto (with appropriate authorization) can create annotated slideshows from any asset in Concerto that they can see. Slides in a slideshow may be text-only, contain an asset (with or without displaying its metadata), or contain both an asset and an additional annotation. Slideshows are the prefered way of presenting a series of assets to one’s audience as slideshows allow for complete control over the ordering and amount of text shown to the audience. Exhibitions are simply groups of slideshows. Slideshows can be browsed as well as displayed windowed or full-screen in the Concerto-Viewer.