1 Introduction to Metadata: The Role of the Metadata Editor Institutional Repository Workshop 1-3 April 2009 Marguerite Nel Metadata editor

2 Metadata Editing Metadata creation is one of the core activities of collecting and memory institutions Quality metadata creation is just as important as the care, preservation, display, and dissemination of collections Adequate planning and resources must be devoted to this ongoing, mission-critical activity Getty Standards Program, "Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information," Version 3.0, intrometadata/index.html

3 General Input Guidelines for Metadata Punctuation Avoid ending punctuation unless it is part of the content of the resource Abbreviations Common or accepted designations of functions are allowed e.g. “St.” for “Saint”, “ed.” for “editor” if abbreviated on the item. Don’t use abbreviations when it will make the record unclear. In case of doubt, spell out the abbreviation

4 General Input Guidelines (cont.) Capitalization Capitalize the first word of a title and proper names (place, personal and organization names) Capitalize content in the description element according to normal rules of writing Acronyms should be entered in capital letters Initial articles Omit initial articles at the beginning of the title such as: the, a, an, le, la, los, el, der, die, das, etc. Character encoding Have a clear understanding of how the database handles nonstandard characters and diacritics (such as ü, é, ñ, etc.) and input them so that they display and retrieve effectively

5 General Input Guidelines (cont.) Author names -Punctuation and spaces Examples: Jordaan, Donrich W. Smith, J.E. Maree, Kobus, Several entries for the same author Remember: Consistency and commonsense AACR2 rules

6 Controlled Vocabularies Not required, but recommended Can improve retrieval Facilitate cataloguing consistency Can interoperate collection with other collections Library of Congress Subject Headings Examples: Livestock -- Diseases -- Africa Early childhood education -- South Africa -- KwaZulu Natal

7 Statistical Purposes Add initials and year in description.provenance metadata field Example: mn2009

8 Hands-on Demonstration How to create a template Metadata editing

9 Templates Use where the same values for every item in a collection repeat e.g. author, subjects, technical metadata, etc. Automatically populate an item in the collection Separate templates for each collection in DSpace

10 Metadata Editing Verify information in all metadata fields - correct fields - spelling mistakes - capital letters - punctuation Authority control - verify author in Author list - Authority form Add value - keywords - subject headings (LCSH) Add initials for statistical purposes

11 Conclusion

12 Exercises