Hello all!
For this
week, I’ll be talking about metadata again and some personal reflections now
that I’ve completed over fifty inputs. Last week, I discussed how putting
together metadata requires a balance between being efficient and concise but
specific enough. Defining the subject terms for items sometimes is easy. I find
that if the item I’m creating metadata for is particularly interesting, it’s
easier to scan through the document and extract terms that can be searched
within the Library of Congress authorities (subject headings, names, titles). Thinking about controlled vocabulary has taken over my life.
Sometimes,
however, it’s not easy sifting through these documents, simply because I am not
familiar with the contents within them. I have a familiarity with the topics in
the California Water Documents, but I do come across topics I am nowhere near
an expert on. Today, I needed to create metadata for an item called “An
Irritant in the Arizona-California Controversy” by Rex Hardy, a Los Angeles
city attorney (1947). In this document, he discusses water problems between
Arizona and California in regards to the two states legal relationship. Beyond
this, I am not familiar with legal terminology and laws in addition to being
unfamiliar with water infrastructure. Even though I struggle understanding this
document, I still have to create proper metadata. I may not be able to parse through
the content of this document, but others in the future will need to be able to
find and know if this document is relevant to their research interests. It
sounds like an easy task on paper, but doing it yourself, finding the correct
controlled vocabulary within the authorities is much more time consuming than I
expected. Don’t get me started on making sure I pick the correct name when it
comes to LOC authorities (especially when the document only gives you
first/middle initials and then a last name). It’s a good thing we can create
our own terms, sometimes!
So, this has
been a humbling experience, learning how to put together metadata. There is
still much more to learn about it, such as actually uploading the documents. We
will be learning more about GIS and geospatial metadata next week, so stay
tuned. I’ll also have to go through and make sure there are no errors within my
metadata.
I thought I could
pretty much tackle anything this work could throw my way, but metadata is a
challenge, one I didn’t expect. I admire my fellow workers here at CCEPs and
previous workers who have had to adjust to this learning curve.
It takes time,
but the knowledge gained is valuable!
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