Monday, May 20, 2013

Creating Metadata

The next few posts are going to focus on creating metadata. Creating metadata consists of filling in the metadata template with as much information as possible for your items. We will walk step by step through the process and explain each metadata category on the template.

** We do offer an online metadata and item submission form for single items if you prefer to create metadata this way. The information collected is the same regardless of which method you use. At this time it is still necessary to use the spreadsheet for compound objects. **

For our examples we are going to be creating metadata using a photograph and a postcard from the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library. You can view the finished items at any time by clicking on the links to the right under the heading "Our Links".




To start, we will need to download the metadata template and open it up using Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet program. If you ever need another copy of the template one can be found on the Resources page of the website. You may want to take a minute or two to look over the spreadsheet columns. The first row contains the metadata categories. Each row after that will represent one item, or one page of an item for compound objects.

There are a lot of categories listed in the first row of the spreadsheet but you will not have to fill all of them in. Some are optional, and some we fill in. As we go through the process of creating metadata for the above items, we'll let you know which ones are which.

This is what the template looks like in Excel.

A NOTE: Please do not physically rearrange the order of the metadata template!  When you submit your items, it is very important that the metadata you send us is in the same order as the template. We (unfortunately) have a very picky program that will not understand the information if it is out of order.

We recommend sending your items in batches (multiple items at a time). You only need to send one spreadsheet for each batch of files regardless of whether they are single items or compound objects. A new batch of files should have a new metadata spreadsheet with only the new files listed on it.

Now that we've got the basics out of the way, it is time to start creating metadata! We're going to save our spreadsheet template as "example" and use this for the rest of the metadata tutorials.


Image Credits:
"Roses with Water Droplets" courtesy of Columbus-Lowndes Public Library
"Postcard of McKinley Hospital, Columbus, Mississippi" courtesy of Columbus-Lowndes Public Library

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