Metadata Help

About Metadata

Metadata is data about data, or defined information about a particular thing. Library and museum metadata may look something like this:

Format: Greek Vase Date: 470 - 460 BC Height: 35 centimeters Title: [Greek Vase of Odysseus and Eumaiosthe Swineherd] Notes: from Homer’s story of the Odyssey

Good metadata is "constructed, constructive, and actionable" which includes being designed for sharing (Coyle). Library and museum metadata must ensure interoperability across a wide range of metadata standards to be useful. Those standards include:

• Bibliographic Description (e.g.; MARC, MARCXML, Dublin Core, MODS, VRA Core)
• Metadata “Wrappers” and Transport (e.g.; METS, OAI-PMH)
• Collection Descriptions (e.g.; EAD)
• Other Standards
  • Authority (e.g.; NACO, MADS, EAC)
  • Geographic (e.g.; KML)
  • Custom and Proprietary
  • Encoding (e.g.; for bibliographic description RDA AACR2)

dLOC ensures compliance with individual standards and interoperability across different standards. First, every item in dLOC is associated, upon submission into the repository, with a Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) file that describes descriptive, administrative, and structural information relevant to its display and long-term preservation. dLOC currently utilizes its own dLOC METS extension profile. The preferred descriptive metadata standard in dLOC METS is the MARC-based Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS).

From the METS/MODS records, dLOC automatically creates additional metadata files to support interoperability and access. dLOC creates MARCXML files for all items and simple and qualified Dublin Core. dLOC distributes records widely by sharing the Dublin Core records following the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). dLOC automatically adds MARCXML records for all items and adds them to a MARCXML feed, allowing all records to be easily imported into library catalogs in the native format for those systems. Additionally, dLOC follows best practices for search engine optimization by creating static citation pages for all items. These pages are easily read and indexed by commercial search engines, ensuring that materials in dLOC are easily stumbled across in regular web searching.

The METS Application and dLOC Toolkit contain simple, template-based, graphical user interfaces designed to automatically generate well-formed MODS metadata and METS wrappers from template-based user input.

Metadata Help Index

• Abstract
• Acquisition (Note)
  
• Affiliation
• Attribution (Note)
• BIBID
• Classification
• Collection
• Complex Abstract
• Complex Creator
• Complex Manufacturer
• Complex Note
• Complex Publisher
• Complex Temporal
• Container
• Contributor
• Coordinate point
• Copyright Date
• Creation note
• Date of Publication
• Donor
• Download
• EAD
• Edition
• Encoding level
• FAST Subject
• FDA (Account; Project, SubAccount)
• Frequency
• Full note
• Genre
• Holding
• Identifier
• Interface
• Language
• Main thumbnail
• Main Title
• Manufacturer
• Note
• Other titles
• PALMM Code
• Physical Description
• Place of Publication
• Publication Status
• Publisher
• Record origin
• Record status
• Resource Type
• Related item
• Related URL
• Rights management
• Scale
• Serial hierarchy
• Simplified spatial
• Spatial, Form
• Source
• Subcollection
• Subject, Form
• Subject/Scheme
• Target audience
• Temporal coverage
• Tickler
• VID
• Viewer
• Wordmark

The help pages above are linked from the terms in the online metadata editing system.

Contributors to these help pages.