Generating metadata on a shoestring, sans programmer, with our good friend, Excel Jill Strass St. Olaf College Based on a spreadsheet originally developed by Jane Cullinane and Glenn Sherman at the Connecticut State Library

Jill Strass

St. Olaf College

Based on a spreadsheet originally developed by Jane Cullinane and Glenn Sherman at the Connecticut State Library

The Challenge Create a tab-delimited text file for uploading a digital newspaper (8000 pages) to CONTENTdm Users need to browse by month, day, and year. Filenames must determine the sort order of objects: we don't have a programmer to customize the search display Do this without doing manual data entry‏

Create a tab-delimited text file for uploading a digital newspaper (8000 pages) to CONTENTdm

Users need to browse by month, day, and year.

Filenames must determine the sort order of objects: we don't have a programmer to customize the search display

Do this without doing manual data entry‏

The tools Metadata generated based on user need. Filenaming convention allows for document description (month, year, page number) Facets are expressed as numerical values Excel spreadsheet commands: Generating values from filenames with RIGHT/LEFT Displaying values with text Displaying values with each other

Metadata generated based on user need.

Filenaming convention allows for document description (month, year, page number)

Facets are expressed as numerical values

Excel spreadsheet commands:

Generating values from filenames with RIGHT/LEFT

Displaying values with text

Displaying values with each other

Deriving Values from the RIGHT/LEFT Command Filename looks like this: v001 i02m12y1890p001 RIGHT/LEFT Command = RIGHT ( LEFT(A2;4) ; 3 )‏ End result is the display of the value 001

Filename looks like this:

v001 i02m12y1890p001

RIGHT/LEFT Command

= RIGHT ( LEFT(A2;4) ; 3 )‏

End result is the display of the value

001

Displaying Values and Text Together =Manitou Messenger: Volume “&B2&”, Issue “&D2&”, “&K2&” “&F2&”” Displays the Title as text, which isn't represented in the filename. Displays the text “Issue” with the issue number, month and year, which are derived from values that were derived from the filename.

=Manitou Messenger: Volume “&B2&”, Issue “&D2&”, “&K2&” “&F2&””

Displays the Title as text, which isn't represented in the filename.

Displays the text “Issue” with the issue number, month and year, which are derived from values that were derived from the filename.

Generate Metadata from Values Original Publication Date (YYYY-MM)‏ Take the value of the year and the month and display together with hyphen =G2&”-”&J2 Decade of Publication Take the year field, only display the first 3 characters, add a “zero” at the end of the field =””&G120&”0”

Original Publication Date (YYYY-MM)‏

Take the value of the year and the month and display together with hyphen

=G2&”-”&J2

Decade of Publication

Take the year field, only display the first 3 characters, add a “zero” at the end of the field

=””&G120&”0”

Summary of Shoestring Metadata Before starting the project, determine your user-based, metadata needs. Figure out how to name the objects so you can extract the metadata you need. Use a spreadsheet to extract the data from the filenames. Use the values extracted for your computation and display needs. [email_address]

Before starting the project, determine your user-based, metadata needs.

Figure out how to name the objects so you can extract the metadata you need.

Use a spreadsheet to extract the data from the filenames.

Use the values extracted for your computation and display needs.