Library and Information Science Commons^™

Metadata-From-Home: A Digital Collections Project During Covid-19, Scott Dutkiewicz, Jessica Serrao, Charlotte Grubbs

Presentations

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift to working from home (WFH) and online education proved a boon for digital collections. Not only can digital collections provide researchers remote access to rare and unique archival materials, but the metadata work that facilitates its discovery can be adapted to a WFH environment. At Clemson University Libraries, the metadata team facilitated a WFH project where 15 Libraries employees across two units are helping to describe a collection of over 2400 photographs. This project rose to the challenges of providing meaningful work to colleagues while working from home, empowering them to learn new …

Got Metadata In Your Future? Lessons Learned From Describing A Unique Image Collection, Scott Dutkiewicz, Jessica Serrao, Charlotte Grubbs

Presentations

This practical session covers how Clemson University Libraries’ metadata team describes their largest digital collection of historical images. It focuses on what the team has learned from this project thus far. This includes developing workflows and strategies for describing images, creating and using a controlled vocabulary of local headings, and leveraging expertise across the libraries to streamline metadata creation. The team walks through the metadata management tool CollectiveAccess, shares image examples from the collection, and discusses the benefits of metadata documentation. The team concludes with challenges they still face, such as selecting appropriate subject headings, managing entities, and describing images …

Connecting Collections With Equitable, Diverse, And Inclusive Metadata, Jessica Serrao

Presentations

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives are becoming commonplace as a strategy to address bias, racism, discrimination, oppression, and privilege in the historic record and improve discovery and access to rare and unique materials. SAA’s Statement on Diversity and Inclusion and Core Values of Archivists reflect the importance of these initiatives. This presentation will explore some of the practices archives employ to improve EDI in digital collections metadata, which may be the key to connecting related materials of underrepresented groups across disparate collections. Attendees will then learn about an in-progress quantitative research study that will evaluate academic archives’ practices aimed …

Describing Historical Images: Improving Access To Digital Collections With Local Subjects, Jessica Serrao, Janice Prater, Scott Dutkiewicz, Charlotte Grubbs

Presentations

Libraries are at the forefront of creating rich quality metadata to ensure communities can access, learn, and understand their shared histories. The Metadata and Monographic Resources Team (MMRT) is tasked with describing and providing access points to Clemson Libraries’ Digital Collections. Metadata decisions made by MMRT affect how community members discover, access, and use these materials. Photographic images, in particular, pose challenges if they lack descriptive information or historical context. If descriptions are provided, they often align with the historically white male majority, naming high level individuals and leaving out minority and marginalized peoples.

This poster covers challenges and decisions …

Moving Toward Shared Local Authorities, Jessica Serrao

Presentations

Clemson's digital collections team is exploring ways to improve the quality of our local authority metadata with an eye toward shareability. This lightning round will cover the steps taken so far to move toward controlled shareable local authorities, the collaborations necessary to accomplish this goal, and plans for the future.

A Road Taken: A Cataloging Team Becomes A Metadata Team, Scott M. Dutkiewicz, Jessica L. Serrao

Publications

This chapter describes the issues confronted along the “road taken” by a technical services team as it transitioned from traditional monographic cataloging to metadata for digital collections. To serve changing user needs, the team shifted focus to providing quality metadata. Along this road, the team confronted and welcomed a number of changes. These included a unit merger, off-site relocation, shedding the cataloging role, learning how to produce metadata, identifying areas for growth with a library-wide Metadata Summit, working with new stakeholders, and managing new staff and faculty. The chapter concludes with the lessons the team learned and its prospects.

Clemson Digital Initiatives, Digitization Authority Metro, Joshua Morgan, Rachel Wittmann, Jessica Serrao

Presentations

Workflow of Clemson University Libraries' digital projects team. Follow the trail of materials from partner/holding institution to scanning, metadata, and hosting.

Find Your Park Metadata, Rachel Wittmann, Christopher Vinson, Joshua Morgan

Presentations

The Open Parks Network (OPN) project digitized over 330k items from U.S. national and state parks. While the mass digitization effort was a logistically challenging operation, ensuring metadata for this material added another layer of complexity this offsite-managed project. In the best case scenario, the parks provided existing descriptive metadata, but this still lacked preferred elements. In many cases, digitized material had never been cataloged by the park.

To orchestrate adequate descriptive metadata, OPN employed tactics to catalog this large-scale project. This session encourages an exchange of experiences and ideas from others when faced with similar situations.

Open Parks Network Metadata Guidelines, Rachel Wittmann

Publications

Cataloging/Metadata guide for describing National and State Parks archival and museum collections.