Last updated August 2022 by Xiaoli Ma
Batch Submission with Spreadsheets
This page introduces key metadata fields used for non-published items such as posters, archival materials, artists' files, field notebooks, etc in University of Florida (UF) Digital Collections. The Metadata Unit provides a customized spreadsheet template (a sample) for every batch of contributed data with the instruction on the use of each field that meets the needs of the dataset. Please contact Metadata Librarian Xiaoli Ma at xiaolima@ufl.edu to customize the template. This process does not only ease the preparation of metadata but also guarantees the consistency of the field use across all types of content. This page does not cover metadata requirements for self-submittal pages at UFDC, for assistance on self-submittal metadata decisions, please contact Metadata Librarian Xiaoli Ma at xiaolima@ufl.edu. For published items, eg. Books and Newspaper, please contact Principal Cataloger William C. (Hank) Young at wilyoun@uflib.ufl.edu for assistance.
Required and Recommended
Nine fields, listed below, are required to be collected from Data Contributors to guarantee the proper retrieval, discovery and sharing of the contributed data. DIGITAL FILENAME and FILE FOLDER NAME are only for ingestion projects, that is, projects with digital files ready for UFDC to include.
TITLE | CREATOR | YEAR |
FORMAT | SUBJECT KEYWORD | SUBJECT AUTHORITY |
SOURCE INSTITUTION STATEMENT | HOLDING LOCATION STATEMENT | RIGHTS |
DIGITAL FILENAME | FILE FOLDER NAME |
DSS staff assigns values for GENRE, MATERIAL TYPE and AGGREGATION CODE
Nine fields, listed below, are highly recommended to use for constructing complete description and increasing content's discoverability.
LANGUAGE | IDENTIFIER | IDENTIFIER TYPE |
CREATOR ROLE | PUBLICATION PLACE | ABSTRACT |
NOTE |
To know more details of each above fields, please scroll down the page or click field names. To have a full sense of the frequently used UFDC fields, here is a list. Examples of project/aggregation specific metadata templates and corresponding UFDC records are available here.
To contribute content to UFDC, please see details at DSS Project Planning page.
TITLE : required, display on UFDC, not repeatable. The function of the title is to tell the end users what the item is and also to distinguish it from other known similar items. If the object does not have a title, devise a concise one with no more than 300 characters, including the following as known: For music, additionally note (as appropriate and known): Medium of performance, Numeric designation, Key, Other distinguishing characteristics. For maps, additionally note (as appropriate and known):Geographic area covered. |
Examples: Diary of John Ward Scrapbook of Libbi Maltbie about Alaska vacation, 1909 John Cournos letter to Alfred Kreymborg, 1921 June 6 Portrait of President Abraham Lincoln Bookmark depicting Mount Fuji at sunset Lithograph showing exterior view of the market hall in Budapest, 1931 Painting of Madonna and Child, after 1867 |
CREATOR: required, display on UFDC, repeatable, in spreadsheets, one cell one creator. Put name in natural order, First name first. For archival materials whose creators are not identified, this field is optional. When creator is unidentified, please use "unknown" as the value for this field.
CREATOR couples with CREATOR ROLE, it is highly recommended that one role could assign to one CREATOR.
CREATOR ROLE: recommended, display on UFDC, repeatable, coupled with CREATOR.
Use values from Vocabulary Authorities: Relationship Designators, Art and Architecture Thesaurus
YEAR: required, not repeatable, used as the Date field. Follow ISO-8601 format YYYY-MM-DD to hold the year, the month and day information about the creation of the item. If not sure about the specific dates, use year range, for instance, "1934-1940" or terms like "ca. (circa), after, before" to qualify the date, for instance: "after 1611 or ca. 830 BC". Dates may also be recorded by century,for example, "12th century".(CCO: p.158)
SUBJECT KEYWORD couples with SUBJECT AUTHORITY. One SUBJECT KEYWORD, one SUBJECT AUTHORITY. Both required, display on UFDC, repeatable. In spreadsheet, one cell one SUBJECT with one SUBJECT AUTHORITY. SUBJECT AUTHORITY always holds abbreviations of authority names in lower cases, for instance, "fast" for FAST subject headings.
SUBJECT KEYWORD is the place to store project or collection names. The subject terms are hyperlinked so a project/collection name can group all items together. For project/collection names, the SUBJECT AUTHORITY is "local".
SUBJECT KEYWORD also holds the names of the places the described objects are about. If hierarchical structure is needed to capture detailed information about place names, DSS can provide more fields for this purpose.
UFDC's preferred authority for Topic and Form subjects is FAST subject headings. Wikidata is a good supplement to FAST subject headings.
SOURCE INSTITUTION STATEMENT: required, display on UFDC, not repeatable, the name of the institution that provides the metadata.
HOLDING LOCATION STATEMENT: required, display on UFDC, not repeatable, the name of the institution that holds the physical objects.
RIGHTS: required, display on UFDC, not repeatable, the rights statement of the content. If feel unsure about the statements should be using, please contact Scholarly Communication Librarian Perry Collins at perrycollins@ufl.edu.
DIGITAL FILENAME: required, for projects that each file is assigned with a metadata record.
DIGITAL FOLDER NAME: required, for projects that a folder of files is assigned with a metadata record.
AGGREGATION CODE: required, will be assigned by DSS staff based on the communication with the data contributor.
To request new aggregations/collections, please check LTS Libguide.
LANGUAGE: recommended to list the language of the item. UFDC holds content from many languages.
IDENTIFIER couples with IDENTIFIER TYPE, one IDENTIFIER, one IDENTIFIER TYPE. This set captures data contributors' local identifier to connect data contributors' local records with UFDC records.
PUBLICATION PLACE: recommended, repeatable, display as "Publication Location" on UFDC.
It captures location info that lists where the objects were created or discovered etc. It does NOT refer to "aboutness" of the objects that is captured by SUBJECT KEYWORD & SUBJECT AUTHORITY set. For instance, an artwork made in Paris could be about London. That is, the creation location of the artwork is Paris and the SUBJECT KEYWORD is London.
As the label "Publication Location" cannot be changed, please specify the location type in brackets appending the place name, for instance, Paris (creation location)
VRA Core 4.0 Restricted Schema Type Values provides a list of Location Type, pasted below; Besides this list, another commonly used location is: interview location.
creation: The place where creation, design, or production of a cultural work or its components took place.
discovery: The place where a cultural work was excavated or discovered.
exhibition: The place where a cultural work was exhibited.
formerOwner: Former owner of a cultural work.
formerRepository: An administrative body or a building that formerly housed a cultural work.
formerSite: A former geographic location for a cultural work.
installation: A place where a cultural work uses the exhibition space as part of the design.
intended: Location where work was intended to be built.
owner: Location of the owner of a cultural work or collection. May not necessarily be the same as the repository location that houses the work.
performance: A place where a time-based cultural work is performed.
publication: Geographic location of the publication of a work, collection, or image.
repository: An administrative body or a building that houses or displays a cultural work. May not necessarily be the same as the location of the owner of the work or collection.
site: The geographic location for a cultural work. Use primarily for architecture and archaeological sites.
other: When none of the other type attributes apply, use other and where possible specify the other value in the notes subelement.
ABSTRACT & NOTE: both recommended, displayable at UFDC. Good places to put scope notes, links related to the specific items or the whole project/collection.
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