Managing digital cultural objects: analysis, discovery and retrieval

As the title suggests, this edited book investigates analysis, discovery and retrieval, specifically focusing on digital non-textual objects, for example still and moving images, and music. The editors, Allen Foster and Pauline Rafferty, both from Aberystwyth University, state their purpose is to ‘inspire prospective students to develop creative and innovative research projects at Master’s and PhD levels’ (p. XVII), and with this book they provide some theoretical underpinning for this purpose. There is a wide selection of topics to support the goal to inspire innovative research, with the authors representing a range of fields including digital humanities, digital preservation, computer science, archives and libraries, all based in either the UK, the Americas or Europe.

The book has three parts. Part 1 provides an accessible introduction to the analysis of digital cultural objects, and supporting context for some of the issues involved in analysing non-textual objects. Editor Pauline Rafferty sets the scene with Chapter 1, beginning with a brief review of literature about managing digital cultural objects from different disciplines including archives, media and communications, and computer science. Rafferty combines a gentle introduction to the literature, case studies to illustrate the issues, and exploration of challenges to satisfy the book’s goal to supply future pathways to develop new areas of study. In Chapter 2 Higgins examines the importance of data modelling and its uses. Weller provides inspiration for future research projects in Chapter 3 by illustrating the various challenges of using social media data, emphasising that initiatives to use them for historical research are in the very early stages.

Part 2 features three case studies from practitioners. In Chapter 4 Dee, Hughes, Roderick and Brown describe the use of image data to analyse and classify artworks. Pennock and Day provide an overview of the British Library and its strategy for digital preservation in Chapter 5, describing the library’s approach to integrating preservation into lifecycle management of digital content. In Chapter 6 Prentice provides an analysis of the field of sound-recording preservation, the limitations and the challenges, putting forward a persuasive case for digitisation of audio content.

Part 3 covers image, music and film discovery and retrieval on the Web, and the challenges involved, including user tagging, intellectual property issues and sustainability issues. Jörgensen in Chapter 7 examines information retrieval of social media, comparing the use of human indexing for concept-based retrieval with algorithm use for content-based retrieval. In Chapter 8 Orio presents a case study of improving access to large music collections available from music web services. La Barre and Cordeiro provide the book’s final chapter, examining access issues and strategies for film retrieval on five film retrieval systems.

Some chapters explicitly meet the goal of the book to provide inspiration for research projects, while others leave the challenge to the reader. For example, in Chapter 9 the authors explicitly set out future research challenges, whereas in Chapter 6, Prentice instead concisely states issues for audio preservation, for example ‘there are as yet no broadly adopted standardized data models around which structural metadata can be built’ (p. 134). By identifying gaps such as this one, readers are invited to think and reflect in greater detail. Higgins’ big-picture overview of the important role data modelling plays for analysis, discovery and retrieval of digital objects in Chapter 2 certainly invites future research and analysis. She brings in the long-term aspects of management of materials over time that facilitate access, focusing not on the data to be delivered, but instead on the audience and their use of the data. This focus is one that invites future research into custodianship questions, and long-term management of data. The complex task of gathering requirements for structuring how digital objects will be created and supported over time is one area that demands more research if long-term access is to be supported.

While some chapters do not present particularly radical or new topics for future research, others, such as the use of social media data as a historical source, and image, music and film access and discovery issues, present contemporary, cutting-edge areas that are becoming important for scholarly research. By providing understandable introductions and case studies in these areas, the authors provide ample grounding for scholars to take up and develop new ideas and avenues of research. In addition, the broad-ranging bibliographies that the editors requested each author provide are noteworthy and rich additions to the book, enabling researchers to seek more information about a particular area of interest.

The contributions to this book are clearly written, and more advanced topics (for example, semantic web implementations and the resource description framework specification) have ample description to orient the reader. This book will be of interest to the broad range of professionals and academics within the information domain seeking to expand their horizons to non-textual digital materials. Managing Digital Cultural Objects is an accessible introduction to the many issues involved in managing non-textual digital objects, with adequate resources to inspire new explorations in these areas.

Jaye Weatherburn
The University of Melbourne
[email protected]
© 2017 Jaye Weatherburn
https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2017.1360757