Metadata For Image Collections

Casso, Gillian

Metadata For Image Collections

Woodward, E. e. (2014). Metadata for image collections.  American Libraries, 45(6), 42-44.

Summary:  This article talks about digitizing materials and making them accessible on the Internet. While making these resources available to the public makes patrons happy and makes the library even more visible to the community it can also be a burden to library staff. Many of these resources haven’t been properly prepared and the quantity of these images becomes more important than the quality of the descriptive metadata. If the item is minimally described or the if it is tagged inappropriately then that makes the item difficult to find in search results. Minimally described images are easier and faster to upload, but when each item is unique then an item level description is more desirable.  Before any launch of a large collection low-level descriptive standards should be in place before the collection is launched online.

Evaluation: I believe that in an online environment materials should be tagged and described in the most comprehensive way possible. This makes each item fast to find. If an item is tagged in a way that I wouldn’t logically think of it being tagged then I won’t be able to find it, unless I just happen to chance upon it. Items that have little or no descriptive metadata aren’t useful to anyone because they won’t be found. Items must be described adequately if they are to be useful to those looking for them. The library that I work at recently digitized a photography collection and unfortunately the only easy way to find the collection is if a patron knows the exact name of the collection. This makes it difficult to find for our patrons. It is unlikely that a patron will just happen to come across the collection.