Making New Connections - All About Metadata
The main building blocks of this site are items. The Omeka S user manual says this:
Items don't have to represent physical objects (photographs, maps, books), nor do they have to have attached media (a scan of a photo, or multiple page images, or a PDF). An item can be used as a node - a way to represent a person, place, or thing. You can use items and their classes to create separate types of nodes that serve the purposes of your sites.
Items can be linked to other items, or contained within item sets, to represent complex relationships.
Items can be linked to other items, or contained within item sets, to represent complex relationships.
The main items for this project are playgrounds. Here is an example of a playground with all its descriptive metadata.
- Description
-
The playground at Walsh Park is a great playground that has two wonderful and unique structures. There is a huge play structure consisting of two towers that are connected by a fully enclosed rope net bridge. The climbing elements are all inside the towers and each tower has a large curving tube slide so while there is no chance of a high fall from the tall structures, it still takes courage to climb and cross them (for child and for parent!). The second structure is harder to describe but resembles a dome with rope netting on the exterior with a variety of climbing elements inside. This is slightly smaller but still a challenging elements for kids who like to climb. Finally, there are some swings (toddler, adaptive, and hammock-style saucer swings), a small curving climbing wall, and a unique pipe drum musical element.
There is also a water spray feature in this playground! Small jets of water spout from the ground for a duration of time after a button is pressed. This water feature is quite integrated into the play area (i.e. hard to keep kids away) so probably good to plan accordingly.
This playground is located at the eastern end of the 606 trail and despite it's central location actually seems quite removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. That being said, it's also a very popular playground that is used by school and camps groups so it can get crowded. The play area is not fully enclosed but it is fenced from the street. There are large, flat rocks set around the area as benches as well as two picnic tables for seating. The play area itself is bright and open though there are trees dotting the area for some shade and the play surface is wood chips.
All in all, this is a great playground - especially for somewhat older children - and definitely a worthwhile destination.
- Playground Features
- Surface: Wood Chips
- Water Feature
- Bench or Benches
- Picnic Tables
- Destination Playground
- Drinking Fountains
- Afternoon Shade
- Playground Equipment
-
Climbing Wall with Holds
-
Curved Tube Slide
-
Single Straight Slide
-
Corkscrew Tube Slide
-
Quarter Circle Ladder
-
Rope Net Bridge
-
Climbing Wall with Holds
-
Suspended Ring Climber
-
Hanging Disc and Balls
-
Hammock Saucer Swing
-
Toddler Swing
-
Water Jets (from the ground)
-
Walsh Park Net Climber*
-
Tube Drums
-
Adaptive Swing with Harness
- Part of
- Walsh Park
- Street Address (of the Park)
- 1722 N Ashland Ave Chicago, IL 60614
Meta-Metadata - Describing the Descriptions
Whew - glad you made it! Some details about the descriptions
- Some of that metadata is just descriptive text. Things like the description and the street address of the park are just words on the screen.
- Other bits of that descriptive metadata link to other nodes in the network. The location information, for example, links to nodes related to political ward, community area, and neighborhood.
- Other metadata fields link to more complex nodes. For example, I try and catalog detailed information about playground equipment - each bit of playground equipment is another node in the network that gets described using a separate template. Explore playground equipment here!
- This metadata allows users to browse playgrounds by criteria (explore the Find a Playground feature!) and answer very specific questions about playgrounds.
I want to conclude with a few thoughts/questions around the fact that almost all metadata is subjective and reflects cultural values. In practice:
- I never describe playgrounds as "hidden gems" and don't talk about "good neighborhoods" or "bad neighborhoods" - this is obviously subjective and I've avoided it.
- I've found the Chicago Park district's definition of "accessible playgrounds" to be lacking but haven't developed a better working definition myself.