Best Practices for Creating Metadata - mountainwestdl/mwdl-map GitHub Wiki

Introduction

The Best Practices below were developed by the Mountain West Digital Library Metadata Application Profile Task Force in 2018-2019*. The Best Practices coincide with the MWDL Metadata Application Profile Version 3 (2019). The Practices depict the current understanding of the Task Force and are subject to change. The Practices have been upgraded to reflect a more universal approach to various Metadata Schemas, including Dublin Core, MODS, MARC, etc. The Best Practices coexist with the Guidelines to provide examples and descriptions of select elements to enable better interoperability between MWDL Partners and Collections.

To reference this document, please point to “Best Practices” posted on the Mountain West Digital Library website at https://mwdl.org.

Requirement status

Required: Element must be included in record. There are six required elements:

  • date
  • format
  • identifier
  • rights
  • title
  • type

Recommended: If the data is known, we strongly encourage it be included in records. There are three recommended elements:

  • creator
  • description
  • subject

Optional: Inclusion of element is up to the discretion of the collection manager

Adding local fields not covered by this profile

This profile does not prohibit collection managers/metadata creators from adding other fields to their metadata records as needed to serve local needs. Some examples of fields needed locally may include:

  • fields for data specific to a particular discipline or user community
  • tags needed for customized searching
  • other optional Dublin Core elements such as audience or bibliographicCitation
  • transcription: this optional field may contain full-text data mapped from MARC:520 or transcribed by the metadata creator.

Use of the term resource

This profile uses the term resource to refer to the digital resource provided for direct access by users and described by the metadata record. This resource may be a born‐digital object, a digital object converted from another digital format, or a digital object converted from a non‐digital format such as text, taped recordings, slides, film, etc. Consult element table row “Describes” for more details.

Notes on format element

New media types and applications are always emerging. If the resource format being described is not yet part of the MIME type list, follow the MIME convention by selecting a broad category of object format (audio, video, application, etc.) for the first part of the MIME type. For the second half of the MIME type, use the file extension that is usually attached to files of this format.

Notes on URIs in elements

If a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is included in an element such as spatial, rights, or creator, please position it last. For example:

Notes on title element

Take title from digitized item when possible. Metadata creator may supply a title if none exists and does not need to put this supplied title in brackets. For further guidance on devised titles, consult the Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) on title creation.

Rights

Rights statements are a required field for MWDL and items harvested into DPLA. We strongly recommend the use of standardized rights statements as articulated on https://rightsstatements.org/en/. Usage of rights statements in metadata records should consist of a URL representing the applicable rights statement. Additional licenses such as Creative Commons can be used when applicable. Alternatively, a text-based rights statement can be used. Additional information about rights for the digital object such as copyright date or information about the holder of copyright can be placed in an additional rights field such as RightsHolder (http://purl.org/dc/terms/rightsHolder) or AccessRights (http://purl.org/dc/terms/accessRights). As a best practice, consult your institution’s legal department for assistance in creating the appropriate rights statement.

For example:

Geospatial Metadata

It is recommended that the MWDL partners use the GeoNames.org database as the primary recommended controlled vocabulary to create a geospatial metadata. In addition, geospatial metadata should present in a hierarchy from smallest entity to largest, with the hierarchy split by commas. Semi-colons should only be used to indicate separate and distinct places within the same geospatial field. Below is Salt Lake City as an example:

  • Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States

Additionally, MWDL partners are highly encouraged to provide the URI following the name hierarchy in order to begin laying the groundwork for future involvement in linked data initiatives. All place name metadata referring to the same place should be separated by commas only. An example entry for Salt Lake City, Utah would look like this:

If a partner would like to include latitude and longitude data, it should be listed after the country. Or if using URI’s after the URI.

  • Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, 40.76078, -111.89105
  • Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, http://sws.geonames.org/5780993/, 40.76078, -111.89105

There is extensive supplemental documentation on the best practices for geospatial metadata creation in the Mountain West Digital Library.

Additional guidelines

For additional guidelines from the Metadata Task Force, see also the General Guidelines.