Kyle, I don't know if I'm understanding your question correctly, but I
think this is something I was just reviewing. I removed "Diversity" as a
subject term (we're a little loose here in applying subjects terms that
aren't directly in the photo) from some photos that were of, for example, a
single student studying on the lawn or in the coffee shop. The diversity in
the photo was that the student was of color. When there is an image of a
white student, we wouldn't put "homogeneity" or something like that, so I
took off "diversity". But, as you say, users do want to be able to search
for these concepts, and I think it is important not to erase differences
just because it is difficult to represent that without being essentialist
in metadata.

Are you trying to automate this process, or are humans doing this? If
automated, watch out for what Google Photos did:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/07/01/google-apologizes-after-photos-identify-black-people-as-gorillas/29567465/


On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Brian Kennison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> >I don't know what system these collections are in, but isn't this what
> >tagging is for? The idea has died out in libraries, but this seems like a
> >perfect use case for a folksonomy. :-)
>
> Tagging is a good idea and I think it would help.
>
> Topic maps are a little more than just tags though. A topic map would
> allow you to identify a topic but also allow you to create relations
> between topcs. Topic maps use uris like RDF so we would be talking about
> "things not strings". I think topic maps are (and have been for a long
> time) a good idea I just need to make it work ;-)
>
> --Brian
>



-- 
Laura Buchholz
Digital Projects Librarian
Reed College Library
503-517-7629
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