Metadata Guidelines

You will be creating metadata for two types of items:

Both digitized and curated objects will be described using the same metadata template. To create your metadata for the project, you will first make a copy of the metadata template “metadata_template” in Google Drive:

Metadata Template

Describe your digitized objects and curated items in your copy of the template, following the guidelines below. Once you have items added to your Sheet, you can test your metadata if desired.

Once your metadata is finalized, you will copy your rows into our shared central metadata spreadsheet, and everyone’s items will populate the final digital exhibit–see Submit Your Metadata below.

For tips on using Sheets for metadata, see Working with Spreadsheets.


Metadata Fields

Each of the columns of our project’s metadata template spreadsheet are described below (i.e. this is how to fill in your metadata spreadsheet!). Please note required means not having a value will result in your metadata not functioning in the digital collection. All other fields are optional, but suggested!

Use the evidence available to you to best fill out the metadata values. The archival finding aid, notes in the folders, notes and contents of the items may help for digitized items. For curated items, use the existing metadata as a guide and starting point.

record_contributor

objectid

filename

title

creator

date

description

subject

location

latitude

longitude

source

identifier

type

format_original

format

rightsstatement


Submit Your Metadata

Once your metadata is finalized in your copy of the template, you will copy your rows into our shared central metadata spreadsheet. The link to the “hist454_metadata_final” Sheet will be sent out via email.

  1. Open both your copy of the template and the “hist454_metadata_final” in Sheets.
  2. On your copy of the template, click on the number to the left of your first item row (should be row 2). This will select the entire row, highlighting it in blue.
  3. Hold “Shift” key and click on the number to the left of your last item row (e.g. if you did 2 digitized items and 5 curated items, this would be row 8). This will select all your rows, highlighting them in blue. spreadsheet with rows selected
  4. Copy the rows by pressing “Ctrl + C” on your keyboard.
  5. Switch to the “hist454_metadata_final” Sheet.
  6. Scroll down to find an empty row at the bottom of the Sheet and click in the first cell of the row. Ensure the row is empty so that you do not over write someone’s work! Once you click in the cell it should be highlighted with a blue border as the active cell. spreadsheet with empty cell on empty row selected
  7. Press “Ctrl + V” on your keyboard to paste in the rows you copied from your sheet. Your rows should appear. (Remember, if you make a mistake, “Ctrl + Z” will undo your last action!)
  8. Below your newly pasted rows to the bottom right, click on the clipboard icon, and select “Paste values only”. This will avoid copying formatting quirks to the final Sheet. spreadsheet pasted cells, clicking clipboard icon

Once all the metadata and digitized objects are gathered, the Mining the Archives collection will be updated to use this spreadsheet!