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Creating metadata requires care and skill
As every MEAP project team knows, making metadata is hard work. First, there’s figuring out what each object is and how best to describe it. Then, there’s capturing that information in structured metadata. And finally, there’s making sure the metadata meets the technical requirements for online publication in the UCLA Digital Library.
MEAP relies on project teams to complete the first parts of the process, but to do the final part, we call on our graduate student assistants. These students, who work behind the scenes at MEAP while pursuing Masters degrees in Library and Information Studies (MLIS), bring their passion for cultural heritage collections to the unglamorous but important work of cleaning and refining metadata for publication.
One of the primary challenges with digitization is figuring out how to create structured descriptions that accurately represent digital objects while also adhering to recognized standards for descriptive metadata. Here, metadata is an opportunity to communicate with users about the contents of a collection. Beyond providing basic bibliographic information, descriptions provide context and keywords create connections. MEAP projects cover a range of material types and topics, so creating structured metadata for each collection’s objects requires care and skill.
Cleaning data enables findability
To support this work, MEAP meets with teams and provides written resources, like a detailed template(opens in a new tab) and metadata handbook(opens in a new tab). Project teams then adapt these materials to their collections, employing local knowledge and community expertise to produce robust descriptions. Once they've finalized that work, the MEAP team takes over to ensure that the project’s metadata meets the technical and formatting requirements for publication and follows MEAP's recommended best practices for findability. Here’s where our student assistants jump in.
MEAP’s student assistants address metadata cleanup with two objectives in mind. First, they must make sure that the data is properly formatted and will publish correctly when added to the UCLA Digital Library(opens in a new tab). Second, they must interpret the project’s descriptions, to ensure that the metadata represents each digital object fully and accurately. Meeting these objectives requires attending to minute details while also thinking broadly about each individual collection.
Ultimately, the changes they make are small but important. Sometimes they’ll recommend a more specific genre term or advise a team to include subject headings in another language. In other cases, they’ll reframe the data, moving it from one field to another, to make it more visible on the frontend. On the backend, these changes are minor—a comma here, a pipe there—but upon publication, these edits can make a big difference when it comes to organizing, accessing, and contextualizing collections.
Applying classroom work, building skills
Reflecting on the value of this work, long-time student assistant Alyssa Davis noted "Because each team’s needs are different, we must stay flexible and open-minded about what metadata can represent and how it’s represented, which I personally find the most interesting aspect of the job." Metadata must meet technical requirements, but as we’ve found, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. "Every project team requires different things, so each metadata sheet will look a little different and prompt a whole new set of questions we’ve never considered before," she continued.
As early career information professionals, the student assistants’ insights are key. Students bring their classroom knowledge to improve MEAP collection data and use their experiences with MEAP to kick-start their careers. "It’s been really exciting to learn new skills that I foresee being useful for the rest of my career," said first-year MLIS student Sam Stroud, adding "I took a metadata course last quarter and completed assignments that looked just like the work I already do for MEAP. It’s amazing to see how much my work with MEAP is enriching my graduate education alongside my MLIS program."
MEAP considers the process of preparing metadata for publication to be an opportunity to steward the information project teams have prepared into the format that will best communicate it to digital collection users. Cleaning metadata requires careful attention to detail while maintaining a clear vision of the overall collection—and our student assistants make the metadata shine.
Every project team requires different things, so each metadata sheet will look a little different and prompt a whole new set of questions we’ve never considered before.
With the school year coming to a close, we are thrilled to highlight the behind-the-scenes work they do as part of the MEAP team. Thank you Alyssa Davis, Jeanelle Wan, and Sam Stroud!