In which I dabble in metadata.

I have now uploaded two videos, two audio clips, and one more photo to my Omeka page. I chose to display the items I did because it is everything that comes with a quiet evening at home. It was too sloppy outside for my dogs to do much more than play in the yard and nap, so I took videos of them doing both those things; I stared at my bookshelf for a long time looking for inspiration for this assignment and realized I could take a nice picture of a plant of mine. As for the audio files, ever since Mac was a puppy, he has loved to eat cabbage — we are not sure if he loves it because he saw the bunnies eating it and wanted to copy them (he has also sampled raspberry branches), or if he genuinely enjoys the taste. Vi has also taken a liking to it, though, so maybe it is a case of genuine interest. In any case, I thought the comparison between how a rabbit eats cabbage versus how a dog eats it might be interesting. Animals crunching vegetables is, coincidentally, the only version of ASMR I actually find enjoyable.

When it came to adding metadata, I definitely had some confusion about what descriptor words to use, and what information I should, or even could, fill in; unfortunately the Omeka manual left me more confused (maybe because I don’t understand a lot of lingo yet) so I did my best, with a plan to return and check my work later. I tried to be consistent and decided to over-describe, if anything; too much information is (usually) better than not enough. I will also need to look into how my Rights work with property on the internet. I do see the benefits of adding metadata, despite how time-consuming it was — as I am typing this, I have realized that I didn’t add any location or place information; I might go back and see if there is a spot for that, too.

Another difficulty I encountered, which was a carry-over from last week, was getting thumbnails for images to display properly. Grant Potter sent me a link to try (https://support.reclaimhosting.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005621461-ImageMagick-in-Omeka-Classic) AND IT WORKED! Next step is to try adding a plugin to my Omeka page, because that is needed for the “fix” to apply to images I had already posted.

There was also a near-hitch when I tried to figure out converting my audio files from MP4 to MP3. I had hoped I could just “Save As” on my PC’s Windows Media Player but. Alas. I ended up checking Reddit reviews of converters and chose one that felt safe: “Convertio,” https://convertio.co/m4a-mp3/. It worked, and it doesn’t seem my computer has caught any viruses. Huzzah!

I tried adding my items to a “Collection,” for easier reference. My Collection for Week 3 can be found at https://dragons.tierneytrieshumaningdigitally.com/cms/collections.

To see all of the items I have posted thus far, my general Omeka items page is at https://dragons.tierneytrieshumaningdigitally.com/cms/items.