Anna Rogers

Allison Smith

Colleen Layton

Metadata Creation Group Project Report

Name of Imaginary Institution: University of Make Believe Art Archive

Name of Imaginary Digital Collection: Independent Artist Collection

Our digital collection contains work from independent artists. The works contained in our

sample collection are specifically by artists known to our group members. Users of the

collection would be individuals interested in undiscovered or independent artists. The target

audience would primarily be art students and professors interested in the work of contemporary

artists but might also potentially include buyers and collectors, as well as members of the general

public.

The metadata schemes used in the collection are Dublin Core (DC), Qualified Dublin

Core (QDC), and VRA 4.0. VRA 4.0 was selected as it was designed specifically to describe

works of visual art and their corresponding images and allows for the connection of a work to its

collection as well as images of the work. It allows for easy implementation of the one-to-one

principle (which we followed in Dublin Core by creating separate records for work and image) in

a single record and goes beyond that to allow for a one-to-many entity interchange (Library of

Congress).
 The photographs in this collection were taken by the members of this group, who are also

the creators of the metadata. This was possible because those involved in the creation of the

collection have close relationships with the artists, which also aided in the creation of accurate

metadata, as those creating the records had direct access to both the creators of the images (our

group members) and the creators of the works (the artists). This relationship was particularly

helpful as none of the artists involved have Library of Congress Name Authority Files, and their

works are not well known or even published outside of private social media channels.

Our group decided upon the institution and theme during our initial Zoom meeting, where

we discovered that we were all interested in art, and each counted professional artists amongst

our close friends. Based on this decision, VRA 4.0 seemed like the obvious metadata schema

choice for the aforementioned reasons. A preliminary schedule was created to set deadlines for

the creation of the application profile, DC records, VRA 4.0 records, and the report. Each

member of the group supplied the first draft of metadata records for their own image, which was

then reviewed by the two other members of the group. The comments feature on Google Drive

was used to pose questions and concerns about each record and make subsequent changes to the

Metadata Application Profile (MAP); this facilitated easy collaboration.

We divided the work in a way that would permit all members to contribute and edit, but

all group members volunteered to initiate various tasks. Colleen started the draft of the MAP

(with all members contributing), Anna started the draft of the report (with all members

contributing), and Allie volunteered to ensure the finalization of the report and corresponding

documents were complete, in order, and ready for submission. The MAP was begun, and its

initial rough draft was largely completed by Colleen, with areas most in need of debate

highlighted for discussion through Google Docs or in our Zoom meetings, which were held
regularly throughout the project’s timeline. The MAP was edited and discussed numerous times,

with the original plan being to finish it within the first week. However, we soon realized that it

would have to be updated and discussed regularly as we progressed beyond our individually

completed DC and QDC records to VRA 4.0, at which point we finalized the MAP. When

element mappings were contested or unknown, we discussed examples from our resources and

reviewed the schema Websites until we reached an agreement.

Among several items up for debate, we considered whether the source of the image

record in VRA would map to the location of the image or to the work record. We all checked

our resources until we could agree that image source would indeed be the work and that

‘Relation’ in DC with the qualifier ‘Part Of’ should map in VRA 4.0 to the image ‘location,’

with a local element name of ‘Collection.’ We also pondered the correctness of DC “Format”

element mapping to VRA 4.0 “Technique” in the VRA 4.0 work record through several

iterations of the MAP, along with whether it would have a qualifier in VRA (noting that we

already had separate elements for extent and medium). We eventually agreed to map DC

“Subject” to VRA 4.0 “Technique,” which we noted should be reserved for a description of the

artistic method. This led us to change the mapping of VRA 4.0 “WorkType” from DC “Subject”

to DC: “Type.” It was also discovered after we believed our VRA 4.0 records were complete that

we had missed mappings for VRA 4.0 “Cultural Context”, as well as for the URL, which was

remedied in our ultimate drafts.

We made sure to follow the application profile by using it both in the creation of our

records and in checking each other’s records. This entailed following along with the application

profile to write the record initially, then cross-checking the written record against the application

profile before uploading it for review, at which point fellow group members did a similar cross-
check. If we found someone’s record to be missing an element or otherwise contradicting the

application profile, we flagged it for review within Google Docs and suggested changes.

Overall, we felt that all schemes were well suited to displaying or containing our local

elements without loss of information, but VRA 4.0 was, unsurprisingly, the best matched and

most thorough. VRA provided greater granularity than DC and accounted for relationships

between agents and objects in a way that local elements alone would not. To address issues of

metadata quality, we attempted to make records thorough for all schemes, writing input

guidelines to clarify any potential confusion and used controlled vocabulary terms where

appropriate. The sources referenced during the creation of the application profile included

Metadata for Digital Collections by Steven J. Miller (2011), as well as the Dublin Core and

VRA 4.0 websites. This project helped us sharpen our skills in these schemas and to get an idea

of how much collaboration and remediation goes into creating even a few records for a

collection. As a result, we have all become significantly more familiar with MAP creation as

well as with the artwork and artists we shared.

Images and descriptions:

"The Hypocrite" by artist Katie Hay is a pen and ink drawing that depicts a man holding two knives. He is pointing one

toward the sky, and with the other, he stabs himself in the stomach.

--
Portrait #7 by Milo Bue is a watercolor portrait of an anonymous female model.

--
Sees Pizza, Big Boy by Robert Adams IV is a painting on raw canvas with polymer/acrylic paint, depicting shapes and

colors.
Cited:

Library of Congress (2014) An Introduction to VRA Core https://www.loc.gov/standards/vracore/VRA_Core4_Intro.pdf

Sources:

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative website https://dublincore.org/

Getty Research Institute, Art & Architecture Thesaurus http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/

Library of Congress, VRA Core Official Website https://www.loc.gov/standards/vracore/

Miller, S. J. (2011). Metadata for digital collections: A how-to-do-it manual®. New York: Neal-Schuman.