McFall ALA 2014
Moving Beyond The “Back Room”:
The Expanded Role for Metadata and Catalog Librarians in Campus
Digital Humanities Efforts
Lisa McFallHamilton College
Clinton, NY
McFall ALA 2014
Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi)
• Formed in 2009• Received Mellon grants in 2010 and 2013•Working to develop models of supporting digital humanities on campus primarilyusing existing positions• dhinitiative.org
McFall ALA 2014
DHi’s Collection Development TeamAngel David NievesCo-Director, DHi
Janet SimonsCo-Director, DHi
Gregory LordLead Designer & Software Engineer
Peter MacDonaldLibrary Information Systems Specialist
Lisa McFallMetadata & Catalog Librarian
Steve YoungUnix/HPC Systems Administrator
McFall ALA 2014
DHi Repository LayersDisplay Layer (appearance)
Fonts, color, page blocksUser accounts
Application Layer (behavior)Connects Drupal and Fedora CommonsHandles data ingest, metadata editing
Data Layer (storage)Data filesMetadata
Slide by Peter MacDonald
McFall ALA 2014
Metadata Process
McFall ALA 2014
Working With Faculty
•Goals• Faculty develop an understanding of the role of
metadata in their archive• A customized metadata schema will be
developed• Use cases will be discussed•Method• Review sites they use and like from their own
discipline• Ask detailed questions to guide discussion
about metadata
McFall ALA 2014
Sample Questions For Faculty
• Who is the primary target audience for your collection?• How do you envision experts in this subject
interacting with the collection?• How will students use your site?• If you were to stumble upon this site, how
would you expect to find resources?• What are some of the key categories and
characteristics by which you would expect to be able to search?
McFall ALA 2014
Metadata CategoriesRequired for all DHi Projects:• Title• Creator/contributor (if
applicable)• Language used in item• Date of digital object
creation and any other relevant dates
• Tags/keywords• Publisher (if
applicable) • File size• Standardized file name• Submitter of object• Relationships to other
objects
McFall ALA 2014
Metadata Categories (cont.)
• Administrative and descriptive metadata fields that require specialized controlled vocabularies such as AAT and LCSH, as well as a genre field that uses a customized controlled vocabulary
• Custom fields that vary for each faculty project
McFall ALA 2014
Supporting Metadata Creation
•One-on-one metadata entry to serve as an example• Provide resources such as a wiki or built-in support on best practices for metadata creation• Be available to answer questions
McFall ALA 2014
Metadata Process
McFall ALA 2014
Building Connections Beyond DHi
• Classroom lectures:• How to organize information• Establishing good metadata practices• Methods of file organization• Specific tools used by digital humanists
• One-on-one work with students•Metadata training modules – coming soon!
McFall ALA 2014
Repurposed Skills
•Known metadata schemas•Controlled vocabularies •AAT• LCNAF• LCSH•User search habits
McFall ALA 2014
XML and TEI ResourcesXMLTraining:• www.Lynda.com (paid subscription service)• www.W3schools.com (free training modules)
TEI• TEI Lite: http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/Customization/Lite/• Training:• “Learn the TEI” http://www.tei-c.org/Support/Learn/
• TEI By Example validation site: http://www.teibyexample.org/xquery/TBEvalidator.xq
McFall ALA 2014
Other Useful Resources
• THATcamps: http://thatcamp.org/camps/• Conferences and training sessions• Journals• Email lists
• XML-DEV• System-specific• DIGLIB
• MODS Listserv• DC-General Mailing List• ACRL Digital Humanities
Discussion Group
McFall ALA 2014
Contact Information
Lisa McFallMetadata and Catalog LibrarianHamilton College,Clinton, [email protected]
Digital Humanities Initiativedhinitiative.org