For this presentation, we will describe an ongoing collaborative experiment in the optimal organizing of the digital images of sporting events that is currently underway between the Paul W. Bryant Museum and the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alabama. The collection under study consists of images taken by the University of Alabama Department of Athletics and deposited with the Bryant Museum for their long term curation. The Museum’s repository of digital images contains current photography as well as digitized photos of past sporting events. SLIS provides expertise in the indexing of images based on a new method. We will present an overview of the collaboration and details of the ongoing experimentation with optimal indexing methods, including work accomplished by students pursuing their Masters of Library and Information Studies at SLIS.

1. Optimal Organizing of
Digital Images in Sports
A Project of the Bryant Museum & UA SLIS
Ken Gaddy, Paul W. Bryant Museum
Steven MacCall, UA SLIS
SLIS Students in LS 566 - Metadata

2. Introduction

3. Project History

4. Problems
• Issues with image processing and indexing:
– Identifying images from past games
– Identifying images in real time
• Metadata research issues:
– Efficiency of indexing workflows given large
numbers (our primary concern today)
– Effectiveness of indexing in terms of consistency
• Bryant Museum would like:
– One digital repository containing both past AND
real time images indexed with the same method
– Indexed with image monetization in mind

5. Digital Images as Artifacts
• Artifacts imply a context:
– The context of how they are to be used
– The context of how they are generated
• Artifact use contexts:
– After game is completed (past game images)
– While game is occurring (real time images)
• Artifact generation contexts:
– Past game images: Take advantage of the “latent
info” in archive
– Real time images: Take advantage of cameras

6. Timeline for Optimizing Indexing
• Our project’s context:
Event of type Sport of type Football
• Structural analysis of football sport event:
– Game has 4 quarters
– Quarters consist of series that consist of plays
– Plays have:
• Definite non-overlapping start and stop times
• Definite players on field and definite outcome
• We want to know what’s happening at every
moment in the game: who, what, when, how

7. Timeline Approach (cont)
• Students are using latent info to create:
– Game timeline containing individual plays (with
statistical outcomes) and all players on the field
mapped to each down
– Name files mapping player numbers and names
• The two uses for image identification:
– Past images: Optimizing latent information
– Real time images: GOAL is to optimally align real
time image generation with real time timeline
building by matching camera timestamp to timeline