Skip to content
The DAM Book
Menu
  • Home
  • Bookshop
    • The DAM Book 3.0
    • The DAM Book Guides
      • Digitizing Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom
      • Organizing Your Photos with Lightroom 5
      • Multi-Catalog Workflow with Lightroom 5
    • Steve Uzzell
      • Open Roads Open Minds
    • eBook FAQ
    • Register
    • Affiliate Program
    • Media
  • Resources
    • The DAM Book 3.0 Resources
      • Content Revisions
      • Visually Speaking
      • Image Objects & File Formats
      • Using Metadata
      • Storage Hardware
    • Digitizing Your Photos Resources
    • Organizing Your Photos Resources
      • Organizing Your Photos Updates
    • For Educators and Students
    • Errata
  • About
    • In Person
    • Consulting
  • Blog
    • The DAM Book 3
    • Digitizing Your Photos
    • Announcements
    • Appearances
    • DAM
    • How to
    • Lightroom
  • Contact
  • Cart

Linked Open Data

Posted on March 1, 2014March 2, 2014 by Peter Krogh

Most people think about photo metadata (if they ever think at all) as information that is attached to the photo. Typically, this includes the camera information, like the time of capture or the camera and lens model.  It could also include the IPTC metadata, like keywords, location tags, or author information.

But there is a new class of metadata that is increasingly important. A photo can be matched up with external information that can provide important context for the picture. GPS data is a perfect example of this. Using GPS coordinates, you can place a photo on a map, retrieve place names, and find out other characteristics.

When you add in a timestamp, it’s even more powerful. If the time and place combination shows the New Orleans Fairgrounds on the first weekend of May, you know it’s a picture related to Jazzfest. This is the promise of Big Data.

This happened.Of course, the trick is to be able to match these things up automatically. In order to make use of Big Data, and what it can tell me about the context of my photos, I need to be able to hook the photo, or the catalog of photos, up to the database that has all the knowledge.

Linked Open Data (video below) describes a particular kind of database. The “linked” part provide a way to link the information in a database to other data (like my photo catalog) or to applications. This is done through RDF, URIs, APIs and other acronym-based methods.

And the “Open” part means that it’s published under a (generally) free and non-revokable license, like a Creative Commons style license.


The Getty has recently released their thesaurus of Art and Architecture information as Linked Open Data. The Getty has been a real leader in smart, forward-thinking, web-based, community-focused collection management.

While Linked Open Data is not the kind of thing that most people will be able to wire up on their own, it is the kind of thing that will get incorporated into third party applications and services. And one day, as if by magic, applications will appear that seem to simply know stuff.

Posted in API, Business models, Metadata

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Black Friday deals from DAM Useful November 25, 2022
  • More PS4 camera scanning rigs available April 26, 2022
  • Try Tandem Vault 3 (TV3) for 30 days for free! November 26, 2021
  • Some webinars/podcasts from the last year November 23, 2021
  • Negative Lab Pro – a slam dunk for negative conversion November 22, 2021
Contact us
Copyright © 2025 The DAM Book – OnePress theme by FameThemes