Here is the link to my screencast on Encoded Archival Description.

I wasn’t quite sure how to make a screencast of a metadata schema, so I showed examples of the schema itself and of an EAD finding aid.

Hope you enjoy!

David and Caitlin have asked some great questions about the Title Element, so I thought I would just do a quick blog post to clear the title up.

Title Element does not have to be unique to each picture.  Which means, if you want, you can name each of your pictures “Alabama vs. Auburn” and then some identifying element such as the date or like a one or two word description of the pic.  Nothing too in depth.

Example would include:

Title = “Alabama vs. Auburn, 1975″

Title = “Alabama Defense”

Please let me know if you have any more questions!

I was googling ‘digital preservation’ earlier and came across this gem of a website from the Library of Congress on Digital Preservation Education Initiatives.  Apparently knowing is half the battle, and the good people at the Library of Congress is armed with all kinds of knowledgeable suggestions when it comes to the preservation of their digital materials.

Thought this might be a good resource, or at least a conversation starter, for the digital preservation group.

Ok, here’s what i have so far for the Title Element.  Am I missing anything?  Thoughts?…

Label

Title

Element Description

The Title Element is the formal name given to a resource by the creator or publisher of the resource, or by the institution responsible for the resource; name most often used when citing the resource

Required?

Yes

Repeatable?

Yes

Guidelines for Creation of Content

Copy the title directly from resource when available. Omit initial articles from the titles and only capitalize the first letter and proper nouns within the title. Exceptions might include an instance where the initial article is essential to identifying the work.

In the case of multiple titles, write each title in the order in which they appear on the work using separate title elements, or use a space and a semi-colon to separate each title.

If there is not a title on the resource, use reference materials to search for a title, or create an identifying phrase that would describe the content and serve as the title. When creating a title, use punctuation common to the English language.

Examples

Title=”The Sound of Music”
Title=”Emma”
Title=”Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”
Title=”Game of Thrones”

Notes

Provide additional information about your element, including links to other guidelines with examples that clarify your entry.

This might be random, but I was reading David’s post about the Creator Tag and how the photographer could be credited as the creator.

I wonder if photographers would consider themselves the creator of a photograph.  Maybe the actual photograph, sure, but I know some that would feel humbly thankful to have caught the moment rather than proud to have created it.

I wonder at what point we include the photographers and even in some cases, the subject matter, in the great metadata discussion.

Is this a stretch?

Below is a copy of the description of ‘Title Element’ from the North Carolina ECHO page which Rorie linked in her blog earlier this week:

Title

Description: Name or label given to the resource by the creator or publisher; may also be identifying phrase or name of the resource supplied by the holding institution.

DACS provides a useful distinction between formal and supplied titles that will help in filling out this information. In DACS a Formal Title is defined as a title “that appears prominently on or in the materials being described” whereas a supplied title is provided by the metadata creator when there is no formal title. (DACS, 2.3, p. 17). In many cases, the metadata creator will be supplying the title using a brief identifying phrase or name of the resource.

Refinements: Title.Alternative

Schemes: none

Input Guidelines:

1. Transcribe the title if one is available from the physical copy of the resource or enter the title given by the holding institution.
   • Omit initial articles from the title.
   • Capitalize only the first letter of the title and proper nouns contained within the title.
   • In general, use the punctuation provided with the title or, if the title is created by the holding institution, use English language punctuation standards.
2. If no title appears on the item being described, create a brief identifying phrase that can serve as a title. This can include description, object name, creator name in combination to provide identification of the item and distinction for other similar items. Do not, however, be concerned with creating a unique title for the item.
3. The Title element is repeatable only with the refinement “Alternative.” The Title element should be used only once, and all other title information should be expressed as Title.Alternative. Title.Alternative can be used for other titles useful for access, i.e., caption title, former title, spine title, artist’s title, object name, translation of title, and other variations of the title.

** I think the most useful part about this little informative snippet is the part about what to capitalize and what articles to leave out.  One of the most confusing things (not that there are too many) about the title element is knowing when to count an ‘A’ or ‘The’ at the beginning of a title as part of the alphabetized title.  Note: it really hadn’t occurred to me until reading this description that this was an issue that might need to be addressed, so thanks, Rorie, for posting this site on your blog.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the title identifier.  Dr. MacCall asked a good question: “How do we title an image?”

That’s a good point.  Images don’t necessarily come with titles, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t give them one.

Think about it, every famous image has been given some sort of title.  Sure, sometimes it’s the photographer that’s giving the name, but a lot of times the photographer is unknown, so there’s no title that automatically comes with an image.

Take, for example, ‘V-Jay Day in Times Square’.  This is one of the world’s most famous pictures. You know it, it’s the one where the soldier is kissing the nurse in Times Square.  The photographer is unknown, it was years before someone figures out who the people in the photo were, but we have a name: “V-Jay Day in Times Square”.  We have this name, because one of the first things someone thought to do was give it one.

So no, images aren’t always automatically going to come with names, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give them some.

I was reading David’s blog post on the benefits of cloud computing in terms of digital preservation.  He discussed DuraCloud, a service provider that preserves digital data six different ways: replication, fixity, bulk image conversion, synching, multi-delete, and media access.

I’ll let you read his article if you’re interested in the specifics.  I was just surprised that it had never occurred to me that cloud computing was a great way to preserve digital collections.

Cloud computing is basically a way to back up and store all of your files on a remote server so that, God forbid, if your library burns down or something, all is not lost.  I realize cloud computing is a way to preserve one’s files, but I guess I never thought to translate that function to the greater scheme of preserving one’s digital collection.

When I think of preserving, I think of people in white gloves dusting off pages of a book.  When I think of digital preservation, I think in terms of taking what is on paper, making it digital, and then storing it somewhere.

I guess I’m just grateful to David’s blog post, because I feel like, with cloud computing’s recent renown in the world of digital preservation, it’s probably one of the primary ways that librarians and archivists will choose to preserve their data and their collections.

What’s in a name?  Wouldn’t a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?  Well, sure.  But when your Mom asks what kind of flower it is and where can she get some seeds so she can plant some, you’re out of luck unless you can give her a name.

Names are important.  They tell us what something is.  They tell us from where something came.  They tell us how to identify that something.

The ‘Title Identifier’ of a piece of metadata is almost so obvious that it shouldn’t need defending.  When we know the title of a book, we can search for that book with ease. When we know the title of an article, we can recommend that article to a friend without having to google it a thousand times just to find it.  Even the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set says “a Title will be a name by which the resource is formally known”.   In other words, if you want to find an object or a document or whatever, one of the first things you’ll search for will be the title.

Dr. MacCall shared this article from NYT yesterday and I found it quite interesting.

The only time I’ve ever really encountered metadata has been in a context of the library, so it never really occurred to me that other professions might have their own metadata standards.

This article talks about some of the standards that news organizations use and apparently, much like the library science world, they’re having trouble finding universal standards that everybody can agree on.

I guess it’s just nice to know we’re not alone in our quest for the perfect metadata.