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When worlds collide….

When worlds collide…. Ricky Erway, Digital Resources Manager, RLG VRA Annual Conference -- March 8, 2005 Session 5: Metadata: View from the Trenches. RLG – Where Museums, Libraries, and Archives Intersect. Often an orderly process. Sometimes a bit more confusing.

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When worlds collide….

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  1. When worlds collide…. Ricky Erway, Digital Resources Manager, RLG VRA Annual Conference -- March 8, 2005 Session 5: Metadata: View from the Trenches

  2. RLG – Where Museums, Libraries, and Archives Intersect

  3. Often an orderly process

  4. Sometimes a bit more confusing

  5. And sometimes things go wrong

  6. With disastrous outcomes

  7. RLG Cultural Materials – Where Museum, Library, and Archival Metadata Collide • Many types of contributors • Many different reasons for metadata creation • Many different practices • Minimal susceptibility to outside influence

  8. RLG Cultural Materials 101 • Alliance formed in 1999 • Resource available since Nov. 2001 • Today the resource contains 107 collections from 34 contributors • 230,000 works, representing 3/4M digital items • Available by institutional subscription

  9. What do contributors contribute? • We thought we’d get a number of standards and practices • What we really get • So what do we do? • And why?…

  10. Data conversion for Cultural Materials • Analyze the data, • Convert to XML, if necessary • Derive a URL list for image collection from the descriptive records and processing the images • Map to the Cultural Materials schema and creating a specification • Convert via XSLT • Verify against the schema, image validation

  11. Conversion objectives • Normalize work types • Derive item-level information • Separate places, names, and topics • Atomize data • Provide sort and display versions

  12. Challenges (1 of 3) • Normalization of required elements • Inheritance from collection- or series-level information • Subjects example 1 • Jackson County (Ind.) • Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826--Poetry • Land titles--Kentucky--Shelby County • Subjects example 2 • cloth, emery • Bath, Maine, manufacturing • Cook, Rymes & Co., Agents • Chase, Geo. W., Agent

  13. Challenges (2 of 3) • Atomizing data example 1 – EAD <unittitle> Poston, Ariz.--Florence Mori, evacuee of Japanese ancestry at this War Relocation Authority center, taking part in this CBS broadcast. Chet Huntley of the CBS is directing the program. Photographer: Clark, Fred. Poston, Arizona. 5/26/42 • Atomizing data example 2 <medium> • Photograph of painting, b/w, 16.5 x 11.5 cm. • Photograph of print: Engraving, b/w, 13 x 11 cm. • Print: Engraving, color, 11.5 x 9 cm. • Photograph of drawing, b/w • Atomizing data example 3 <who> Thomson, William, Professor (1824-1907) Sir William Thomson from 1866 and Ist Baron Kelvin of Largs from 1892 better known as Lord Kelvin

  14. Challenges (3 of 3) • Deriving sort forms • Boudreau, James C., Florence H. Fitch and Elmer A. Stephan • Snow, Bonnie E.; Froehlich, Hugo B. • Woolworth, Ainsworth & Co. • Perry, Walter Scott, et. al., eds. • Dealing with inconsistency • "1867, Jan." • 1875-01

  15. Ideal data • Standards-based XML • Use of data value standards indicated • Granular, differentiated – and labeled! • Consistency

  16. Descriptive Metadata Guidelineshttp://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=214 “[These guidelines] can inform and be used by a wide range of projects that depend on good metadata. [It] begins with defining terminology, then moves on to guidelines for data fields and structure, data content and values, data formats, and core descriptive fields … the section on data conversion for RLG Cultural Materials … is a fascinating look at the kinds of metadata transformations that are required to create a sensible union catalog. This document is chock-full of excellent advice, useful examples, and hard-won metadata wisdom. It should be required reading for anyone working with metadata." - Roy Tennant in Current Cites, January 2005

  17. It can be confusing at times….

  18. It’s a trip worth taking together

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