Where museums, libraries, and archives intersect

When worlds collide….

Ricky Erway, Digital Resources Manager, RLGVRA 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

And sometimes things go wrong

With disastrous outcomes

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

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

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?…

Data conversion for Cultural Materials

1.Analyze the data, 2.Convert to XML, if necessary3.Derive a URL list for image collection from

the descriptive records and processing the images

4.Map to the Cultural Materials schema and creating a specification

5.Convert via XSLT 6.Verify against the schema, image validation

Conversion objectives

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

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

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

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

Ideal data

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

“[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

Descriptive Metadata Guidelineshttp://www.rlg.org/en/page.php?Page_ID=214

It can be confusing at times….

It’s a trip worth taking together