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Blue Angel MetaStar Metadata System
LizardTech Image Management System
The NPS Focus Digital Library consists of a seamless integration of a metadata management system and a separate image management system.
It represents the first NPS effort to maintain a central repository for pictorial and textual digital content as well as a coordinated effort to set up policies
and procedures for scanning, serving, and archiving digital resources. The system is designed to support all interested NPS endeavors.
NPS Focus is a library or repository of images and not a multimedia application. NPS Staff and the public will use NPS
Focus to search for relevant images and then link to them or download images from the library to build into a Web page, PowerPoint
presentation, or other application.
The NPS Focus system is built on Blue Angel Technologies MetaStar software that can manage any metadata/cataloging standard as well as
gateway or "one stop" searching and the LizardTech image management system that can handle any type of image from technical reports, to
photographs, to floorplans, to maps, and geospatial satellite images.
Blue Angel Technologies gateway and metadata management system
A metadata management system is much more complex than a database system. The NPS Focus system uses Oracle as its database
but the software provides many features unavailable when working with Oracle or another database directly including:
- Metadata standards - Different communities (eg. GIS, Libraries, Museum, etc.) have developed different metadata standards
for what information about
a resource should be collected, organized, stored, and presented. Blue Angel Enterprise supports all international standards
although at present only Dublin Core, MARC, and FGDC are deployed.
- Repeatable fields - One of the more striking differences between a metadata system and a database application is that a
metadata system enables the user doing data entry to repeat fields for metadata elements as needed. For
example a book or article could have up to 5 authors. A resource may be best described by as many as 10 subject headings.
By enabling
repeatable fields every author or subject will get its own entry and be separately indexed for searching and sorting.
- Customizable - All metadata standards can be customized in Blue Angel MetaStar to meet NPS needs (eg. add local element for Park Code) and
local database structures can also be defined.
- Gateway - Blue Angel MetaStar supports the ANSI Z39.50 standard for information exchange promoting "one stop searching"
across similar systems from the GIS, Library, and Museum worlds with NO NEED for custom system integration.
- Interoperability - Besides ANSI Z39.50, MetaStar also supports the W3C suite of standards known as Web Services and SOAP
Messaging and actively uses these to integrate NPS systems
- Open standards - Blue Angel MetaStar incorporates multiple standards for entering metadata (eg. ISO and ANSI place and
language codes; ISO860 for dates), record syntax (XML, MARC, GRS, SUTRS), and various searching and data transfer protocols
- Harvester - Blue Angel also has a compatible Harvester or Web crawler that enables the capture and indexing of Web sites
LizardTech Image Management System
The LizardTech image management system product suite has four components:
- MrSID which is both a file encoder and a file format (like jpg) handles all pictorial images such as pictures of
buildings, wildlife, or artifacts.
- MrSIDgeo which is both a file encoder and a file format similar to MrSID but specially designed to handle large
geospatial images (DRG, DOQ) with georeferencing.
- DjVu which is both a file encoder and a file format handles text items, line drawings such architectural plans, and non-georeferenced maps.
- Content Server is the server software that manages MrSID, MrSIDgeo, and DjVu images and serves out the images with options as to size and format of delivered file. MrSID images may also be delivered to the end user as JPG, TIF, or bitmap files. DjVu files may be delivered as DjVu or as a series of linked JPG files.
The LizardTech image management system was selected for the National Park Service because it is:
- Comprehensive - handles the full scope of NPS image types from picture to text to GIS
- Extensible - multiple interoperable image servers can be deployed
- Easily Integrated - into any Web-enabled database system; multiple NPS database systems can point to the same image
- Online Image manipulation - the server generated Image Viewer enables user to zoom, pan, etc. without requiring a browser plug-in
- Powerful Download capability - Users may choose to download an image in different sizes, format, and resolutions to meet their current needs
- Customizable - The delivery of images (format, size, etc.) can be customized to meet a particular park's/program's needs
- Open standards - although the MrSID and DjVu formats are proprietary, the back-end of the system is based on open and industry standards
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