Check out Memory Miner.
Particularly check out the video of it in action.
The first version is available for download/purchase and looks to be a pretty amazing first generation family history tool – but could have wide application within museums not just in public programmes, but also in easily generating image metadata. Its use of XML allows export to future applications and doesn’t lock the resulting product down to any future platform or delivery mechanism.
MemoryMiner is a brand new application that represents the first step towards a long term goal: the creation of the world’s most extensive network of first-person accounts of modern society and culture. Like all big ideas, it starts with a simple premise and a mass appeal for participation. MemoryMiner is an application used to organize and share digital media using a simple, yet powerful metaphor, namely “People, Places and Time.”
At its core, are a simple set of tools for treating photos (particularly rare, “pre-digital” photos) as individual frames in a type of endless story board. The story elements are linked to each other by way of annotation layers identifying the people, places, dates and events captured in each frame. As links are made, it becomes easy and tremendously interesting to explore the threads which link people’s lives across time, place and shared experience.
Over time, a set of network services will link individual MemoryMiner libraries, using the descriptive metadata to help people find these digital story elements securely and efficiently.