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Wikidata is an open, free, shared, multilingual and secondary database for collecting structured data. It can be created and maintained collaboratively by users. In March this year, we integrated Wikidata search links into prometheus. On the one hand, a direct link from the image archive goes to the corresponding norm data in Wikidata, if this information was included in description fields of the mentioned image databases. On the other hand, the first link can directly trigger a search process in prometheus for the Wikidata ID. Now a new function is integrated. The artist fields can be enriched by you with the corresponding Wikidata-ID.
Clicking on the pen, a window appears with an instruction and a field to be labeled.
Saved Wikidata IDs are also displayed in the following search result lists.
Without login, after accepting the terms of use, you can also add this data to one of the open access image databases included in prometheus, for example to that of the “Paris Musées”, at the image “Fleurs” by Félix Ziem.
This year, behind the windows and flowers of the advent calendar, #promvent22 you can find on the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and Twitter daily Images from the image archive and various flower information, not only from the picture archive.
Dörte Böhner has once again compiled a list of other „more (or less) library advent calendars“ this year.
We hope everyone can find something to enjoy.
The 116 image databases that are currently integrated in prometheus are based on different data preparations. They are mechanically networked with each other in the distributed digital image archive and brought together via one interface for the search. Exchange formats facilitate harvesting the systematic collection and processing of metadata. Around a fifth of the image databases use the currently internationally established standard LIDO for the publication of their data.
This XML-based metadata schema – LIDO: Lightweight Information Describing Objects – was developed by the CIDOC working group, the International Committee for Documentation, in order to standardize data sharing and harvesting across all borders with a uniform output format.
Others use the predecessor format „musemsdat“ by the specialist group documentation in the German Museum Association and still others use HiDA (hierarchical document administrator) MIDAS (Marburg inventory, documentation and administration system).
To get to know the internationally established exchange format LIDO, NFDI4Culture invites you to an online training next week.
On November 22nd and 23rd, after an introduction, the various information areas, information groups, elements and attributes will be presented and explained and discussed in more detail using examples. The Metadaten eLecture by digiS, the research and competence center for digitization Berlin, offers a lesson on "Exchange format LIDO 1.1 “, and arthistoricum.net on the portal „LIDO for cultural objects“ offers suggestions on manuals and XML sample data sets.
“Screenshot from LIDO (Lightweight Information Describing Objects) XML-Snippet”, © CC0, Creator: Barbara Fichtl, Owner: Barbara Fichtl
To enable secure sessions for you with browsers, organizations must install SSL certificates on their web servers. This SSL certificate is a small data file that digitally binds a cryptographic key to the details of that organization: Domain, server or host name and organization name with location are encrypted in such a way that unauthorized people cannot read them. Once a connection is established, the security lock and https protocol is activated and thus all web traffic between the web server and the web browser is secure. To secure the data transfer via our website, we use certificates from Let’s Encrypt and the DFN-Verein, the German Research Network, which are regularly renewed via the Computer Center of the University of Cologne and applied for by us. We have just completed this, the certificates on the servers have been exchanged and your data remains protected during transmission.
In order to get an idea of how big or how small the displayed works and objects are directly at the image in prometheus, we have now – as announced in April – integrated a display of the dimensions. For all images where the height and width are specified in the “Dimensions” field in the metadata, the additional visualization is visible in the detailed view of the image.
Picasso, Pablo. Rechteckige Schale, Stierkampfszene „Banderilleros“ [Gesamtansicht]
We are excited. How do you like it?
If you have a personal account at prometheus, you can create image collections, rate images, comment on them, determine favorites, upload your own images to your own image database and add to and update your profile.
And you define in your profile how you want to work in the image archive. Under “Settings” you can choose your preferred language and start page under “Access”, for example. Under “Search” you can define the display of search results, such as the number of images per results page or the sorting of the hit list, from relevance to title to number of ratings. Under “Image Collections” you can set, among other things, which view you prefer: gallery or list view, and under “Uploads”, for example, the sorting direction: descending or ascending.
A detailed explanation of the personal settings can be found on our help pages.
In the next weeks we want to add these personal settings options in the “Search” section. You will then also be able to select your preferred image databases there, for example. If you have further wishes, what you would like to set basically, write it to us with pleasure.
Together with the Project DigiROM we have been discussing since the beginning of the project how we want to deal with discriminatory terms in the image archive. We have looked at other examples, for instance the way the State Art Collections in Dresden deal with racist names of exhibits, we have followed, among other things, the controversial discussions around these changes and we have decided on a masking in the form of clickable starlets in the first level view as well as the display of a notice. This form is now integrated into prometheus.
If you click on the three orange starlets in the search results list, you will be shown the following text:
“Titles and descriptions in historical records sometimes contain discrimatory terms. We opted to mask these terms by default. However, in case you require it for your research endeavors, we provide the option to display the original vocabulary.”
You, as a user, can now decide on the second level to display in this one case or to display all terms during your entire session. In this first step, four German-language discriminatory terms (I***, M***, N***, Z***) are automatically hidden in titles, descriptions and keywords. And we continue to discuss whether and if so, which other terms, also in other languages, should also be blanked out and which notes could additionally support a sensitive handling of historical sources. Please feel free to discuss with us.
„Collections Online Albertina“ has been integrated into Prometheus since a few days as a museum database with 144,753 images.
The public domain works to be researched are primarily prints, photographs, paintings, posters, sculptures and drawings by artists such as Marie Lippert-Hoerner, Anna de Frey, Max Slevogt, Edouard Manet, Franz von Defregger, Hans Makart, Carl Moll or James Ensor, just to name a few. Select in the advanced search this image database and take a look.
Various image databases integrated in prometheus provide not only many records with images, but also some PDFs, GIFs and videos. These media types are also displayed, in the second zoom level. If you select a record from a results list and view it in full with detailed metadata, you will see various icons directly on the image to the left, and the fourth button will take you to the second magnification level.
Examples:
(collective) Sommerer / Mignonneau. sommerer mignonneau solar display [Solar Display], 2008, mp4, pdf.
Diana Domingues. Ouroboros, 2002. GIF.
So far, two holdings from the Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln (Rhenish Picture Archive Cologne) have been integrated into prometheus: “Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Köln(Art in public space Cologne)” and the “Bestand Fritz Zapp (Inventory Fritz Zapp)”.
Today, the “Bestand Kölner Museen (Cologne museums inventory)” with 16,419 images has been added, including objects from the Art and Museum Library, the Museum of Applied Art, the Cologne City Museum, the Museum of East Asian Art and the Museum Ludwig.
Within the following weeks, seven more pools of photographers like Chargesheimer and photographers like Margarita Neiteler will be available for your research.
We will of course inform you here when the time comes.
