About a year and a half ago, I wanted a metadata database (or metabase), where I could collect all my notes about songs I’ve listened to and pictures I’ve taken.
The idea is that the photo and its associated notes are both data (metadata is also data). It’s important not to loose any of them. The hard part – for which I don’t know of an existing solution – is how to save the associations.
For multiple reasons, it is not a good idea to specify the association of datum by placing them in the same file. If I had original and cropped versions of the same photograph, I wouldn’t like to “glue” the two versions together by placing them in the same file. Also, computer programs aren’t good at guessing which files are related to which, so placing several mp3 files together in the same directory may not automatically create a mixtape. (If you’ve ever used an iPod you know what I’m talking about.)
Thus, the original idea of a metabase is now not as much about storing metadata, as it is about storing associations.
Such a database would store pairs of associated GUIDs in one table, and assorted external identifiers (filenames, hashes) for each GUID in another.
Of course, somebody has already thought of this.
I’m trying to solve a similar problem, I want to collect chunks of knowledge and associate them together. Then I want to be able to search for knowledge and find associated facts. It’s basically for brainstorming options and ideas – finding things that my memory long forgot :)
I wonder if some of the solutions around the Semantic Web might help – that seems to be concerned with collecting assets and associating them. Sorry I don’t a solution yet, I’m looking into it still!
This looks promising:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_Maps
Thanks Tobin. Topic maps could be the basis for the metabase!
Plus there are several open-source implementations.
No probs, let me know how you get on. I’m looking at the Ruby Topic Maps gem (rtm), but it’s early days…