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.
eyond 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!