Metadata

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How do we describe things?

In the CDIL, we use the simple Dublin Core Metadata Practices, which provide us a standard for how we format our descriptions and make the information readable for a large audience. This section will cover the details of the different formats and guidelines for all common sections of a metadata sheet that technicians will encounter.

Not all of the fields listed below will appear on every metadata sheet. Some metadata sheets will have extra fields depending on the subject material. As a general rule, though, these are the most common fields you will encounter when entering metadata. It may seem like a lot of information, but each field serves a purpose for both preservation and access.

Common Metadata Fields

• title:

  • either the given title of an article or item, unique to that one item. For photographs in a series, this can be either “Founder’s Day parade [01]” (no quotation marks in entry) or a generalized brief description of the photograph. All words after the first word in the title should be lower case unless referring to a proper noun such as a name or place (Dylan Fuller, Empire State Building, Idaho, etc.)
  • Example values: Hecla Mine; Students playing baseball

• description:

  • a detailed accounting of the item. This includes small details such as “mountains can be seen in the background”, and should include names when known and list if either person or place is unknown in the material. All descriptions should be in complete sentences and single spaced between sentences.
  • Example value: Students on lawn in front of old Gault Hall, which was torn down in 2003 to make room for the current Living Learning Center.

• creator:

  • This is the individual or company that created the item. For articles or publications, this is the author. For photographs, either the photographer or the studio. Last name, first name “nickname” middle name maiden name, birthdate-death date if known. This is considered an enhancer for the material, and can be linked to records already available on the internet. This increases the usability and accessibility of our collections to a much broader audience.
  • Example values: Riegger, Hal; Barnard Studio (Wallace, Idaho)

• date:

  • Refers to the date the item was created/published. If you know the exact date for an item, fill it in using the yyyy-mm-dd format (ex. 1955-12-25). If you only know the year and month, simply leave off the day: 1955-12. Likewise, if you only know the year, just enter the year (1955).
  • If there is no year included with the item, you can estimate the date to the nearest decade if you know enough information about the content of the image or item. For example, if you think a photo was probably taken in the 1950s based on a car or clothing pictured, you can put ‘1950’ or ‘1955’ in the data cell. Be sure to fill in ‘yes’ for the ‘date is approximate’ cell in this situation.
  • Example values: 1955-12-08; 1955-12; 1955

• date is approximate:

  • This field lets anyone looking at the collection know that we are certain of our estimation, not that our estimation is the accurate date. Only fill out ‘yes’ if the Year, Year-Month, or an actual estimation is provided. If date is accurate, leave blank.
  • Example value: yes

• subject:

  • Words or phrases that describe or relate to the material. Think of subjects as how you the technician would search for the item. What subjects are described/depicted? These allow researchers and people interested in looking for one thing in particular to narrow the collections down to their interests. We use the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus for our subjects. Multiple entries are encouraged when possible, and should be separated with a semi-colon. Some collections have a controlled vocabulary related to the subject material, so be sure to check with a supervisor before you start assigning subjects.
  • Example values: children; parades; automobiles; cows (mammals); farming (function)

• relation:

  • This field indicates if there are any relationships between resources. An example of this would be if a collection contains material from another collection, or is similar to material in another collection. This is not an often used field, and will usually be populated by the Digital Projects Manager. Sometimes it gets cross-referenced as Spatial Coverage, but you will be notified before-hand.

• location:

  • The location field designates a geographic location(s) to which the item is tied. It should be in ‘City, State’ format, but can extend to ‘City, County, State, Country’ depending on the collection. Be sure to separate multiple location entries for a single record with a semicolon (;).
  • Example values: Boise, Idaho; Potlatch, Latah County, Idaho; Jakarta, Indonesia

• latitude/longitude:

  • Geographic coordinates specifying the north-south and east-west position of an item. To find these coordinates, use Google Maps or iTouchMap. Copy/paste the coordinates from either of these sites into the field in the metadata sheet. If Excel tries to reformat it to only 2 or 3 decimal places, right-click on the Letter at the top of the column and select format. In the window that pops up, select number, and increase decimal places to 6. Sometimes this field is split into separate entries; other times it will be a combined entry.
  • Example value: 46.731634; -117.165625

• digital collection:

  • This field contains the name of the digital collection to which all of the material you are working with belongs. It lets patrons, researchers, and those viewing the item know where they can find more materials related to this item in case they found it by searching for a subject, or through another linked entry. This also provides a connection with the physical material and helps individuals to know where it is located. The collection name will usually be completed by the Digital Projects Manager.

• contributing institution:

  • Most of our digital collections are owned by the University of Idaho Library, but some of them originate from other institutions or individuals. Some digital collections are combinations of UI Library materials and materials from other institutions. Citing the contributing Institution notes attribution as well as protects UI from potential copyright issues. This field will always be filled in by the Digital Projects Manager unless it is specified in the collection on an individual item basis.

• source:

  • The original source of the material being scanned. Sometimes this is a single collection here at UI, sometimes it’s pieces of another collection presented in a different collection. A lot of the time, this will also be the call number or collection number or the physical reference of the item, so people are able to find the item in person if they want to.
  • Example value: PG 5, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives

• original file name:

  • refers to either the collection of numbers and letters that designate its location within the library or the original file name that may have been edited to fit our standards here at the library. This field won’t always be on every metadata entry sheet.

• identifier:

  • The identifier field is used to preserve the unique identifier assigned to the object by the object’s (usually physical) source collection.
  • Example value: ARG-02-16-1993

• rights:

  • a copyright statement that consists of a free-text statement and a standardized rights statement. These statements indicate to viewers and researchers if permissions are required to use the material in publication, and how to attribute the item once used. A list of these can be found in your student folder in both Daily Scans on the Desktop and in your student folder in the W: drive. If you have any questions or aren’t certain of which statement applies to your project, ask the Digital Projects Manager.
  • Example value: Educational use includes non-commercial use of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. Digital reproduction rights granted by the University of Idaho Library. For other uses beyond free use, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department.

• rightsstatement

  • This field is a standardized rights statement, designated in the form of a URI. It should be presented as a creativecommons.org URI or a rightsstatements.org URI. The Digital Projects Manager will either fill this in themselves or direct you on which to use.
  • Example value: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/

• format original:

  • What was the item originally? A photograph? A newspaper clipping? This field specifies what the object was before digitization. Examples of original formats include: black-and-white photograph, color photograph, article, scrapbook, newspaper clipping, magazine, etc. There is no controlled vocabulary for this field.

• type:

  • This field indicates what the material contains. If it is an audio recording, input Sound; for video, input Image; MovingImage. Image refers to any form of picture or visual representation of an item, while Text can refer to any typed or written material. You may have multiple types per item, such as a newspaper clipping that contains an image and the related article.
  • Example values: Image;StillImage; Image;MovingImage; Text; Sound

• digital format:

  • the digital format of the item. If the material is a PDF, the corresponding type is application/pdf; if the material is an image, the corresponding type is image/jpeg. Audio and video have similar entry styles. This field lets the viewer know what format the uploaded material is, and what they can expect when requesting the item for either publication or personal use. If you have questions, please refer to the Digital Projects Manager.
  • Example values: image/jpeg; application/pdf

• language:

  • a three-letter abbreviation or code for the language used in the material. Most items in our digital collections are in English, or have an English translation attached to them. For this field, always input eng unless otherwise instructed.
  • Example value: eng

• filename:

  • identifier PLUS extension (.jpg, .tif, .pdf, .wav, etc.) Our digital content management system uses this field to correctly link the digitized item to the corresponding metadata entry. When possible, a pre-set formula will add the correct extension to each identifier entered in previous columns to save from any re-entry errors.

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Other Metadata Fields

For this project we might also use the following fields:

• cabinet location:

  • Cabinet and drawer numbers

• source:

  • Source of the material

• tool type:

  • The type of tool

• material type:

  • The material used to create the item

• lenth:

  • The length of the artifact in millimeters

• width:

  • The width of the artifact in millimeters

• thickness:

  • The thickness of the artifact in millimeters

• weight:

  • The weight of the artifact in grams