When faced with a folder full of images that have very little in common, the best way to insert metadata is to use the modified Visual Resources Association (VRA) upload tool. The updated version of this tool install the Import/Export option directly into the tool bar at the top of the Adobe Bridge interface window.

The altered VRA metadata tool is found in the DocLib/Codes and Scripts.

Follow the instructions for adding startup scripts to Adobe Bridge to install this tool.

There is a metadata template with guidelines, varNewTemplate.txt, in the dirctory Z:\ImageLib\Metadata templates. Check out the ReadMe file for instructions on how to save the template specific for your project.


 

  1. Use the dir.txt to get file names, which should contain the catalog number.
  2. Use find/replace, Excel text import wizard, or Open Refine to derive catalog numbers from file names.
  3. Run a Specify query on the Catalog numbers. I normally include Determination information, Type status, Geography, Litho and Chrono strat as well as Accession number. Export the results (remember, you have to export to a preexisting excel spreadsheet!)
  4. Open the results of your query, and open the varNewTemplate.txt in Access.
  5. In the varNewTemplate.txt, delete the rows with the definitions and examples.
  6. Copy and insert the query results into the template spreadsheet.
  7. Upload spreadsheet to Open Refine. The attached file, ConcatWorkSearch.txt performs the following actions:
    • Changes blank fields in Preferred taxon/Full name to 'undetermined'.
    • Move file name to Title, strip off the file types .jpg and .tiff
    • Add a comma, then the name given in Preferred taxon/Full name
    • Changes blank entries in columns Type status, State, County, Chronostrat/Full name, and  Lithostrat/Full name to the character "~".
    • Where Preferred taxon is undetermined, enters a '~' in the blank Family field.
    • Where Genus has an entry, and species is blank, inserts 'sp.' into the field.
    • Where Genus is empty, enters a '~' into the field.
    • Concatenates Genus, Species, Type status, Lithostrat/Full name, Chronostrat/Full name, County, and State.
      • (all values have a semi-colon to separate them, except Genus and Species (one space) and County and State (separated by a comma and one space)
  8. Refer to the original varNewTemplate.txt for instructions on where to put the concatenated data. Use the cells["column name with concatenated data"].value to copy the whole row.
  9. Export as an excel spreadsheet, and delete the rows that were originally part of the query results. In order for the metadata tool to work, you MUST have the exact column titles as are shown in the template.


Read the whole thing before proceeding. There are a good number of technical steps.


 

Running the Tool:

  1. In Bridge, at the top of the window, select the VRA Core Metadata tool.
  2. In the new window, under the Image folder path section on the right, browse to your image files location. Hit OK.
  3. In the Text File Path section, browse to location of the import template txt file. Hit OK.
  4. Make sure "Match on Filename" is selected.
  5. The options let you choose to let the tool create the Title, create Descriptions and Captions* Hover text at these entries show which data gets folded into these fields. The keyword one has not been updated since I altered the tables.
  6. Hit 'import' and let the tool run.
  7. When process is complete, ctrl+A to select all files. Click on the VRA Core Metadata, and pick the VRA palette.
  8. Once everything loads, hit the VRA button at the side. At the top of the window, choose 'Fill from VRA'
  9. Save and close out.

*These are created by taking the values of fields like title, headline, subject and making them into a single list that the VRA tool creators call "description" and "Caption".

Folders with lots of images will take some time, so try to limit yourself to around 1000 images at a time.