The document describes a photo archives and digital asset management internship at the Wildlife Conservation Society Library and Archives located within the Bronx Zoo. As part of the internship, the intern is responsible for three projects - digitizing historical photos, digital asset management of new image collections using the DAM system Widen, and assessing new metadata vocabularies through a user survey and analysis of search terms in online animal photo resources. The intern created a survey of possible metadata terms, analyzed the results, and evaluated terms from various sources in online animal photo collections to help identify useful terms for the metadata vocabulary.

2. • Located within the Bronx Zoo
• Library was founded in 1909
• Archives was established in 1979
• Most of the archives are housed in
the original library building
• Collections include print and
digital resources on conservation,
veterinary medicine, animal
behavior, and other wildlife topics

3. • Photo Archives & Digital Asset
Management Internship
• Responsible for three projects:
1. Digitization of Department of
Tropical Research historical photos
2. Digital asset management (DAM)
of new image collections
3. Assessment of new metadata
vocabularies & user evaluation
survey

4. • Widen is the DAM
system used by WCS
Library & Archives
• Institutional users can use
Widen to access digital
images by category or
keyword search
• Metadata is added to
digital image assets using
Adobe Bridge

6. • Created and provided a survey to
50 institutional users
• Suggested 20 possible terms
asking whether or not they are
useful for searchability
• Received and analyzed 23
responses
• Terms suggested by the site
supervisor and me performed well
• Users provided valuable
comments

8. • Find the frequency of vocabulary
terms in online resources
• Evaluate media that is specific to
only animals
• Used 20 terms coming from a
combination of the user survey,
comments from survey responses,
and my own choices not in survey
• Collect data from 12 online
resources containing a large number
of animal photographs and then
normalize and find trends

9. • Terms from user comments
performed very well
• Zoo-affiliated resources had very
different results from resources not
affiliated with zoos
• Conservation, baby, male and
female, group, keeper, and family
were the highest-scoring terms
• Many terms scored well in some
resources but poorly in others

11. • The context of the resources used makes
a large difference in the results
• Metadata vocabularies made for the
correct subject but in the wrong context
might not be useful to users
• This study does not take into account
whether terms are subjective or otherwise
difficult to use in metadata vocabularies
• Since user-provided terms did quite well,
it was immensely helpful to perform the
user survey before gathering this data

12. • The process of creating a useful
metadata vocabulary requires a
multi-faceted approach
• The users of a collection are the
best source for ideas and insight
into metadata term selection
To review the complete methodology and
results of this study, visit:
http://zoocabulary.wordpress.com

13. Images:
•Title Slide (Raccoon)
http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/northern-racoon-photographer-texas-hill-country-usa-10555-pictures.htm
•Practicum Information Slide (Bronx Zoo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Stavenn_Bronx_Zoo_00.jpg
Sources:
•Attig, J., Copeland, A., & Pelikan, M. (2004). Context and meaning: The challenges of metadata for a digital image library within the
university. College & Research Libraries, 65 (3), 251-261. Retrieved from http://crl.acrl.org/content/65/3/251.full.pdf
•Breitbach, B.M., Tracey, R., & Neely, T.Y. (2002). Managing a digital collection: The Garst photographic collection. Reference Services
Review, 30 (2), 124-142.
•Kandel, S., Abelson, E., Garcia-Molina, H., Paepcke, A., & Theobald, M. (2008). PhotoSpread: A spreadsheet for managing photos.
In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems April 5-10, 2008. Retrieved from
http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/857/1/2007-38.pdf
•Leyssen, M. H., Traub, M. C., van Ossenbruggen, J., & Hardman, L. (2012). Is it a bird or is it a crow? The influence of presented
tags on image tagging by non-expert users. CWI Tech 2012. Report INS-1202, CWI. Retrieved from
http://oai.cwi.nl/oai/asset/20690/20690D.pdf
•Schreiber, A. Th., Dubbeldam, B., Wielmaker, J., & Wielinga, B. (2001). Ontology-based photo annotation. IEEE Intelligent Systems,
16 (3), 66-74. Retrieved from http://www.cs.vu.nl/~guus/papers/Schreiber01a.pdf