Digital Asset Management :: Metadata: How to improve your metadata and search results.
Choosing the right metadata is a significant factor in enhancing your digital media library. Even with relevant content in your server, unless you and your colleagues can find the appropriate media instantly, the best content will stay unused and old files will appear all too often.
Tagging files allows them to be retrieved by searching, instead of browsing. As soon as a collection of media becomes sufficiently large that not every file is familiar, finding your content is a process of search and categorisation. It is also essential to have complete flexibility in defining your own metadata – it must be simple to add checkboxes, pull-downs, trees and free text fields to match your particular requirements.
A skilled approach to ‘tagging’ files is often a matter of experience: knowing the intent behind a search informs better keywording for that kind of search. Foresight in keywording and structuring a library is an investment in time saved in the future.
What is Metadata and XMP?
XMP stands forExtensible Metadata Platform and is a standard pioneered by Adobe to make metadata portable between all applications, and ensure that metadata can be extended whenever the need arises.
XMP is an open-source technology, available to all developers, which means that XMP is widely-adopted. It is also extensible, and can accommodate existing metadata schemas as well as new and emerging standards.
Third Light IMS includes a powerful search engine, with a standard and advanced mode to suit all users. It is based around industry standards like XMP, and ensures future-proof keywording as well as efficient and intuitive searching. IMS also gives you feedback on searches that have been run, so that you can refine your keywords based on real-world use, and supports a wide range of different data types like trees and pull-down lists.