OHA 2008 - Making Sense of Metadata: A Practical Overview for Oral Historians

The Japanese American Legacy Project Preserving the past, inspiring the future

Making Sense of Metadata: A Practical Overview for Oral Historians Geoff Froh, Densho OHA Pittsburgh October 18, 2008

Today…
Metadata Basics
Metadata Standards for Oral History
Metadata in Oral History Practice

Metadata Basics

What Is Metadata?
“ Data about data”
“ Structured information that describes the attributes of an information package for the purpose of identification, discovery and management” (Taylor 2004)

A Simple Example Title Author Publisher Date Format Bitrate Subject Size Owner

What Are the Types of Metadata?
Descriptive
What is it? What is it called? What is it about?
Administrative
What format is it? When was it created? Who owns it?
Structural
What are the parts? How are they related?

What Is a Schema?
A definition of the structure and semantics
Elements/attributes
Documentation of intended meaning
Provide rules for the values
Syntax
Controlled vocabularies

How Is Metadata Recorded?
Together with the resource
Embedded in the file format
Wrapped into a single file
Separate from the resource
Database
Structured flat-file (XML)

What Is XML?
Text-based format for data exchange
Data definition bundled with the data
<Book> <Title>Listening Is An Act of Love</Title> <Author>Isay, David</Author> <ISBN>0143114344</ISBN> . . . </Book>

Why Metadata?
Resource Discovery
Help Users Find Things
Archiving and Preservation
Make Things Last
Interoperability
Allow Groups to Exchange Things

Metadata Standards for Oral History

What Are Standards And Why Would We Need Them?
Standards Are An Agreement:
To Use a Common Schema
To Participate and Collaborate
Standards Provide:
Interoperability (I can share what I create)
Guidance (I can learn how to create)

DC: Dublin Core
A generalized method for describing all kinds of electronic (and non-electronic) resources
Developed by broad coalition of users
Supported by a wide range of applications
Simple – 15 core elements

EAD: Encoded Archival Description
A method of encoding finding aids – a description and inventory of materials in an archive
From the archival and library science traditions
Complex
Archivists’ Toolkit

TEI: Text Encoding Initiative
A way of representing textual materials (monographs, performances, transcripts)
Used by a variety of disciplines across the humanities
Usually encoded by hand (oxygenXML)
Requires an application profile (TEI-Lite)

METS/PREMIS
A container format for digital objects
Focused on the exchange of resources and metadata between institutions
More for machines than for humans
Supported by a few applications (CONTENTdm); but usually custom solutions
Complex – modular structure

Why So Many Standards?
Different uses, different users
Same resource may be described in multiple ways
Mix and Match = OK
Sometimes, standards are not enough…

Metadata in Oral History Practice

Wayback Machine: Circa 2000
Legacy data
Created by non-experts
Trapped in silos
Standards still emerging
No good examples to follow
Very few tools
Roll our own…

Densho Archive Framework

Two Questions
Who Will Use Our Metadata?
How Will We Produce Our Metadata?

Who Uses Our Metadata?
Audience analysis
Staff
Densho Digital Archive & public website visitors
In the Future …
Partner repositories
Search agents

Metadata Tools

How Do We Produce Metadata?
Workflow analysis
When does metadata capture happen?
Who is responsible?
Custom web application – Densho Archive Manager

Metadata Tools

In Summary…
Metadata is about discovery, preservation and interoperability
Standards provide guidance
Metadata should serve local needs

Thank you! http://www.densho.org/ http://archive.densho.org/

OHA 2008 - Making Sense of Metadata: A Practical Overview for Oral Historians

by GeoffFroh

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