General Guidelines - mountainwestdl/mwdl-map GitHub Wiki

Introduction

The Guidelines below were developed by the Metadata Task Force of the Utah Academic Library Consortium Digitization Committee in 2010-2011 as part of the revision of the MWDL Dublin Core Application Profile and revised in 2019 by the MWDL Metadata Application Profile Revision Taskforce. The Guidelines represent the current understanding of the Task Force and are subject to change. The Guidelines were developed to enhance the interoperability of digital collections within the Mountain West Digital Library.

To reference this document, please point to "the MWDL General Guidelines for Digital Metadata" at https://github.com/mountainwestdl/mwdl-map/wiki/General-Guidelines.

Please contact Mountain West Digital Library at [email protected] with the subject "MWDL Metadata Guidelines” if you have corrections or additions to these Guidelines.

Mapping to Dublin Core

  • Fields that are to be shared via OAI for harvesting should be mapped to Qualified Dublin Core (QDC) or simplified Dublin Core (DC). Mountain West Digital Library harvests QDC from servers where QDC is provided, and DC from other servers. Local fields that you do not wish to share for harvesting should be mapped to "None".
  • Multiple local fields may be mapped to the same QDC or DC field. These fields will be shared via OAI as distinct fields with the same DC/QDC tag. Keep in mind that the harvester may concatenate these distinct fields into one field in the harvested environment. Therefore, to avoid the values of those fields being run together illegibly, place a semicolon at the end of each entry.
  • You can view exactly what the MWDL harvester and other Open Archives Initiative (OAI) harvesters can retrieve from your digital assets management system by requesting the OAI stream via queries in a Web browser. Instructions for doing this are on the MWDL website page on Sharing via OAI-PMH: Tips for Member Repositories. You can test compliance of your metadata by using the MWDL OAI Metadata Audit Tool.

Placeholder Data in Required Fields

It may happen that information necessary for required fields is not yet known or not yet included when a collection is first uploaded, or even published. In such a case, enter a placeholder to both fulfill the entry requirement and be able to find records for follow-up. The recommended placeholder is the word "Pending".

Example:

Subject: Pending

Local field name vs. DC Mapping

Each collection can have its own local field names. The "labels" indicated in the MWDL Metadata Application Profile are just indicative, and you are free to name your fields as you wish. However, you have to map the fields correctly. Only the mapping matters when a collection is harvested. If a field is not mapped, it will not appear in the MWDL record. If it is mapped to the wrong "DC map", the metadata will appear in the wrong MWDL field.

Example:

The entity primarily responsible for making the resource has to be mapped to "Creator" (dc:creator). But the local name can be what you want: "Creator", "Artist", "Author", "Photographer", etc. If relevant to your collection, you may create several fields mapped to "Creator".

Identifier

The value of the required field Identifier is the URI of the resource. This field is automatically created by your local system. You do not have to create this field and enter a value. If you create additional Identifier fields in your collection, map them to "None", not to "Identifier". Only the automatically generated "reference URL" should be mapped to "Identifier".

No HTML tags within metadata

Metadata should be kept free of tags and formatting codes as much as possible since it is shared as text via OAI with MWDL. Because it is not predictable how metadata will be used, crosswalked, or formatted at the harvesting end, it is advisable to keep it "clean" of any tags.

Date Fields

When setting up the fields for your collection and starting to enter values, remember to treat Date fields differently. Here are some tips about configuring field properties and formatting dates.

Date Fields Setup

You can establish several different kinds of dates, if you like. The MAP requires you to enter the Date as the original date of the original object. For a photo taken in 1922 and digitized in 2019, the date would be 1922.

Date Formatting

Unsure how to format dates?

  1. These formats are all compliant with the international standard for dates, ISO 8601.
  • yyyy
  • yyyy; yyyy; yyyy; yyyy [date ranges are converted to semicolon-separated list of single years]
  • yyyy-mm
  • yyyy-mm-dd
  1. Non-standard dates: Label such non-standard dates appropriately. Examples:
  • BCE Date: 48 BCE;
  • BCE Date: 1000-800 BCE;
  • Date: 915 CE;
  • Date: 404-415 AD;
  • Hebrew Date: 5750;
  • Islamic Date: Hijri 1350;
  • Julian Date: 1849 AD;

If a collection consists of both standard dates and non-standard dates, it is recommended to only set up the standardized date field for harvesting.

Copyright

The Rights element in MWDL metadata records should contain information regarding copyright ownership not physical ownership. Physically owning a work of authorship does not always mean owning the copyright in the work. Physical ownership means to hold the work as physical property. Copyright means to own the intellectual content contained in the work. Making a digital version of a work also does not merit copyright protection because, according to the Bridgeman decision, it lacks sufficient original creativity (one of the tests to meet for copyright protection). The U.S. Copyright Office addresses this matter in the Compendium of Practices, 3rd edition (pg. 16-17).

Do you have rights to the material you are adding to your digital collection?

Copyright protects the creators of original literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works (Title 17, U.S. Code). The protection extends to both published and unpublished material. "Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following" (Copyright Basics, US Copyright Office):

  • To reproduce the work
  • To prepare derivative works
  • To distribute copies of the work
  • To perform the work publicly
  • To display the work publicly

Use these questions as an initial guide:

  1. Are you the original creator/author?
  • If yes, then you are the rights holder.
  1. Did someone else create the work?
  • If so, then you are most likely not the rights holder.
  1. Did someone assign rights to you through a written assignment?
  • If yes, then you are the rights holder.

If someone else created the work and did not assign rights to you, you will need to determine who the rights holder is. Determining a work's copyright status requires a bit of investigation, but there are many tools to assist with this.

Step 1: Research

Research U.S. Copyright Office registration records. The catalog contains records from 1978 to the present. For works older than 1978, use Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database. Search by author, creator, publisher, or title.

Step 2: Ask (if needed)

If you find a record, it usually means there's a rights holder and that entity (not necessarily the library) should be listed as the copyright holder and you may need to consider getting permission to digitize. See "The Basics of Getting Permission" for more information or consult the Fair Use Evaluator Tool .

Step 3: Use Public Domain Slider

If there's not a record, check the Public Domain slider, to determine if it fits the criteria for public domain.

Sample Statements

Once you've done some investigation and have an informed idea of the work's copyright status, consult the standardized statements at rightsstatements.org to find the best match.

MWDL strongly recommends using rightsstatements.org's standardized copyright statements.

The sample statements below also include wording in the case of unknown copyright status. In the sample wordings below, replace italicized text with applicable local information.

For copyrighted works with all rights reserved: © Personal/Corporate name, year, email/web address (if available). Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

For copyrighted works with some permission built-in (Creative Commons):

© Personal/Corporate name, year, email/web address (if available). Use of this file is allowed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

For public domain works: Material in the public domain. No restrictions on use. If you wish to purchase print copies or a high-resolution version of the image, see [local site].

For works where copyright status is unknown: Copyright status unknown. Some material in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction and/or commercial use of some materials may be restricted by gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing agreements, and/or trademark rights. Distribution or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. To the extent that restrictions other than copyright apply, permission for distribution or reproduction from the applicable rights holder is also required. Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Brief example

Let's say a digital collection contains a digital copy of an original photograph taken in 1907. The photograph is likely in the public domain (check the Public Domain slider). In this case the digital reproduction of the original is not eligible for copyright protection because it lacks sufficient creativity/originality. The Rights field indicates that the photograph is in the public domain with a statement like "Material in the public domain. No restrictions on use." However, the library that digitized the photograph offers prints of it for a fee, so the Rights statement explains that users can order copies of the digital image for a fee and provides a link to an order form and pricing information. The resulting statement looks like this:

Material in the public domain. No restrictions on use. To purchase print copies or a high-resolution version of the image, see [URL for webpage describing how to order].

OR

Rights: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/

accessRights: To purchase print copies or a high-resolution version of the image, see [URL for webpage describing how to order]