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Digital Collection Projects

This guide is designed to assist students with completing digital collection class projects.

What is Metadata?

Metadata is descriptive or contextual information which refers to or is associated with another object or resource. This usually takes the form of a structured set of elements which describe the information resource and assists in the identification, location and retrieval of it by users, while facilitating content and access management (DCC, 2007).

For digitized objects, metadata could be the item title, the creator of the object and other descriptive tags or subjects.

Dublin Core Metadata

At the University of Calgary, we typically recommend using Dublin Core elements to describe your digital objects. This is the standard used by Omeka. 

What is Dublin Core?

The Dublin Core Schema is a small set of vocabulary terms that can be used to describe web resources (video, images, web pages, etc.), as well as physical resources such as books or CDs, and objects like artworks.

We have developed a standard metadata template for the Flywheel recordings that is based on Dublin Core, but contains some custom elements as well.  Descriptions of the various fields, plus examples, are below.  You can use this as a guide when you are uploading items to Omeka and entering metadata.

Metadata Elements for Flywheel Recordings

Metadata elements for flywheel recordings
Element Definition Example
Title A name given to the resource.  Audio recording of [poem name] by [reader name], Month Day, Year.
Poem Title A name given to the resource [Poem name]
If the poem is untitled, enter "Untitled."
Reader Name An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource. Last Name, First Name
Event name The spatial or temporal topic of the resource. Flywheel Reading Series, Month Day, Year.
Venue The spatial or temporal topic of the resource. Pages Books on Kensington
Location The spatial or temporal topic of the resource. Calgary, AB
Approximate Attendance   Enter the approximate number of attendees at the poetry reading, e.g. 25
Relation A related resource. [Name of published work]
If the poem has been published, enter the name of the published work here.  If it has not been published or you don't know, leave the field blank.
Recorded by An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource. Last Name, First Name
Enter your name(s) in this field. To enter multiple people, select the Add input button.
Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived. Archives and Special Collections
Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available. Calgary: University of Calgary
Date Recorded A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource. YYYY-MM-DD
Enter the date you recorded the original audio file.
Date edited A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource. YYYY-MM-DD
Enter the date you edited the original audio file.
Duration The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource. hh:mm:ss
Enter the length of the sound recording

 

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  • Last Updated: Dec 14, 2018 1:52 PM
  • URL: https://library.ucalgary.ca/guides/digitalcollections
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