Friends:
I agree that one could/should construct free/cross-platform/easy-to-use
software for manipulation of metadata. I'll share all my java library code and
python scripts with anyone who wants to do it.
But I think the real problem is much closer to what Vicki was saying a few
messages back: people actually need to take the time and exercise care and
understanding to produce good documentation and metadata. This can't really be
done automatically.
Even high res and high tech fixes won't do, I'm afraid. As an example, consider
something simple like a recording of a single bird's song: maybe GPS and
chronometer data that's automatically recorded say when and where to
milliseconds and meters. But was the bird identified by sight or could it be a
mimic? Was it an adult or immature? Male or female? What was it doing while
making the sounds? What conspecifics were present? Where thate predators
around? Or prey? etc. etc. None of this could be logged automatically ---
someone has to notice it, know it is significant, and record/enter it.
And of course the potential questions to be answered about a "soundscape" are
this multiplied many times over.
So I think discussing software is fine --- I even wrote some a while back for
my own use --- but the real issue is spreading an understanding of the
importance of such ancillary data and encouraging each other to make ever
better efforts at recording and preserving it.
If we were going to do anything high tech at all here I'd propose we work
towards developing a template ( perhaps an XML format (DTD or schema)) we could
all use to record all the significant facts about a cut. Anyone implementing a
metadata manipulation program would benefit from such a standardization and in
the mean time we could all work towards including all the important data in our
documentation in some "exportable" form.
--- just my $0.02 worth
Steve P
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