Metadata Description
The metadata schema created for the collection follows the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1 and DCMI recommended metadata terms. As endorsed under the ISO Standard 15836, ANSI/NISO Standard Z39.85, and IETF RFC 5013, using a Dublin Core based metadata schema will allow for wide distribution of the metadata through the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. A definition of each metadata element and discussion of application, including use of controlled vocabulary and thesaurus where applicable, is discussed below.
Title: The title element provides the name of the item. Where applicable, the official name of the resource has been used; lacking this a descriptive name has been assigned.
Subject: The
subject element provides the topic of the resource in the form
of subject or name keyword. Following recommended best practices,
Library of Congress Subject
Headings, name authority heading, and Library
of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic materials controlled vocabularies
have been
used to provide this metadata.
Description: The description element provides details about the item in the form of a text account.
Creator: The creator element provides information about the entity responsible for the creation of the original object. This includes the person-creator (photographer or author) or organizational creator if no personal information is available.
Date: The date element provides information about the period of time associated with the item. Following recommended best practices, the International Standard for the representation of dates and times, W3CDTF ISO 8601 encoding scheme, has been used to provide data for this element.
Type: The type element defines the nature of the item. Following recommended best practices, the DCMI Type Vocabulary controlled vocabulary has been used to provide data about the item.
Format: The format element provides information about the file type of the item. Following recommended best practice, the Internet Media Types [MIME] controlled vocabulary has been used.
Identifier: The identifier element will provide a record number based on the physical location of the original item within the larger collection. A coding system based on that used by the Greater New Haven Labor History Association has been employed. The association uses a coding system to indicate the collection and physical location where each archival document is stored. This coding system has been extended to the digitized items to stay consistent with the local collection and facilitate further research and access to the original materials.
Language: The language element identifies the language of the item. While not applicable to all of the resources in the collection, items containing written words has been accompanied by language metadata. Following recommend best practices, the RFC 4646 controlled vocabulary for identifying language has been used. As described in RFC 4646 best practices, two-letter language tags from ISO 639-1 has been used.
Rights: The rights element provides information about the intellectual property rights associated with the resources.
Contributor: The contributor element provides information about the entity responsible for providing the item to the collection.
Source: The source element provides information that locates the original item in its physical location. For the purpose of the project, the source element will provide the series number and folder number where the original item is located in the GNHLA archive.
Coverage: The coverage element provides spatial information in terms of geographic location of the content of the item. A controlled vocabulary, the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic names, has been used to provide data for this element, following the Dublin Core recommended best practices.