Metadata and Taxonomy

I've just completed the set-up of a large database with many catalogs for audio and video content - it took me three months! Not that ingestion of the media took so long, no it was mainly preperation time: how do I structure this properly so that it makes sense in the future and also for the other users? What kind of metadata will help us work with our media in the long run?

Now taxonomy might be exciting for a dedicated librarian or an archivist in a museum, for me it seemed like an insurmountable challenge in the beginning. If you're more of a creative worker the last thing you want to do is sit down and rack your brains about catalog structures. However, I've learned my lesson and a lot more along the way.
If you do invest the time in setting up a good structure, naming your categories or folders properly and assigning the right metadata, DAM-life will be so much easier once your done.

Of course at present there are so many standards and metadata and taxonomy guidelines around that you really have to take a close look at what your requirements are. If you are an ad agency it is rather unlikely that the taxonomy guidelines for a library will be something you can go by. Ok, if you ARE a librarian you might want to look at the following webpage of IFLA that lists all metadata resources (reading them all might become your new lifelong project!). http://www.ifla.org/II/metadata.htm

Being a Cumulus user I found a good guide for my metadata considerations and first steps at Canto's website. It's written by Geoff Bock and "provides an overview on managing digital assets within an enterprise, as well as setting out the principles of defining and maintaining metadata." You'll find the white paper here: "http://www.canto.com/pro/index.php?metadata.php&2"

For a more general view on metadata, especially in the Adobe and Microsoft world you should have a look at the Real Strategies blog at http://blog.reallysi.com/really_strategies_blog/metadata/
It also gives you some insight on the XMP hype..but dear reader I won't get into that now...and maybe never, I've had enough of structure and standards in the past months.