BAPLA Launches Two New Initiatives - Digital Guidelines And Metadata Panel For Image Professionals

London, Nov. 17, 2006. BAPLA has launched two new initiatives to encourage consistency when working commercially with digital images; the BAPLA Digital Guidelines v1, and the BAPLA Metadata Panel v1.4.

New Digital Guidelines

The new Digital Guidelines provide a clear framework for both image libraries and image buying customers. The guide was drawn up in consultation with BAPLA’s technical steering committee and working parties and is under international review. 

Raising customer awareness of the value and safeguards provided by a reputable picture library makes good commercial sense for both buyer and supplier. Customers need accurate information to make sound decisions at key stages of the workflow. The digital environment makes the need to work with files that are fit for purpose a priority.

“BAPLA is hopeful that these digital guidelines will give our members and their clients a benchmark from which to work, to encourage and facilitate dialogue in ensuring their relevance in a changing market.” Said BAPLA CEO Linda Royles.

BAPLA has created an online posting board to capture readers comments for v2. To download the guidelines or to post a review: http://www.pbf.org.uk/ezineagm/picsagm/digitalguidelines1.jpg.

Metadata Standards for image professionals

BAPLA has worked with the PPA to create a set of standard fields for use by image professionals in the photography and publishing industries.

Until now the use of available metadata fields has been patchy and inconsistent. This has meant that important data such as picture number, credit and copyright information has often been missing from the digital image. 

XML now enables software to pick up image metadata information from images. It is now even more crucial that the fields are consistently populated by professional photographers and picture agencies in a way which is useful for their image buying clients.

The BAPLA / PPA initiative was created in response to the demand from all sides for standardisation. The metadata schema was created after consultation with BAPLA members and the PPA pic4press / pass4press committees.

BAPLA / PPA have agreed on a panel for use in Photoshop which uses a small number of fields already in existence. The image professional now has a useful and time saving way of accessing, viewing and inputting the information and data in one place. The panel can be downloaded free of charge and installed easily for use in Photoshop.

BAPLA has created an online posting board to capture readers comments for the next version.To download the panel or to post a review:

http://www.pbf.org.uk/ezineagm/metadata.html.

“Today’s world is more about data than it is content. Now that we have agreed on the importance of metadata in media we need to actively engage all picture professionals in reaching a consensus on metadata and working with digital images.”
Linda Royles BAPLA CEO

“Images in circulation recently have been the equivalent of hard copy prints or transparencies without their labels. Standardising the use of key fields will help image users to work more efficiently and will help preserve key copyright data in a standard way.”
Sarah Saunders, Electric Lane, Chair of the BAPLA Metadata Group 

“Working in the cultural heritage sector, I am very aware of the disparity between what we want to do and what we currently do. BAPLA's initiative in publishing such clear and comprehensive digital guidelines will help to narrow that gap, and break down the divisions between picture librarians and technical services.”
Angela Murphy, Project Manager, Courtauld Images, Courtauld Institute

“BAPLA’s dedication to providing practical and understandable guidelines to metadata will prove a huge asset to the image library industry. Furthermore, the establishment of a Metadata panel for industry professionals also demonstrates BAPLA’s commitment to improving standards and widening their implementation in the future. This is why we are so happy to have BAPLA’s participation as a network member in our EC funded project MILE, a 3 year project under the eContentplus call, which aims to improve accessibility and interoperability to digital libraries throughout the European Economic Area.”
Jessica Tier, EC Project Manager, MILE/The Bridgeman Art Library

“More accurate fields are needed for metadata. There are currently too many conflicting and confusing fields. It is great that BAPLA is working with pic4press – this ensures the metadata panel works for both the image buyer and seller.”
Jonathan Moore, Digital Manager, The Condé Nast Publications Ltd

ABOUT BAPLA

BAPLA is the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies. BAPLA represents circa 80% of the UK's picture libraries and agencies. The UK has the largest concentration of image libraries in the world. BAPLA helps foster the community of image suppliers, image buyers, photographers and industry service suppliers. BAPLA - 440 members, collectively representing 400,000 photographers – www.bapla.org.uk.

For further information or images, contact:

Christina Berry - Communications and Membership Officer
BAPLA
18 Vine Hill
London
EC1R 5DZ
Email: christina@bapla.org.uk
Tel +44 (0) 20 7713 1780