Perian, My eyes tend to cross too when people much more knowledgable than I explain meta-data. Here's my basic understanding, at least as it applies to museums
Each field in a collections database is a discrete piece of information about an object. In different databases that field can have different names, but still refer to the same piece of information; e.g, catalogue number = accession number = number. So that databases can "talk" to each other (and people can share information between databases), there needs to be an overall description of that piece of information. In this case it might be "unique identifying number". Various metadata systems (like MARC, Dublin Core) have set out lists of those pieces of information (more easily understood as database fields) and definitions of what they are. Another example would be author = maker = artist; here the metadata descriptor might be "original creator of object". You may (not) want to keep in mind that many museums do not use standardized vocabularies, particularly ones with anthropological, archaeological and historical collections. I have worked in institutions where curators from different collections didn't even use the same set of fields within the same database, let alone vocabulary :-) Hope this helps, janice Janice Klein Executive Director, Mitchell Museum of the American Indian jklein at kendall.edu www.mitchellmuseum.org -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Perian Sully Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 1:48 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: [MCN-L] metadata for dummies Hi list of smart people much more knowledgeable than me: I'm trying to wrap my brain around the technical aspects of metadata sharing and structures, reading though (and not entirely comprehending) a lot of different sources. As I am a visual, hands-on type learner, I'm trying to put everything I'm reading into non-technical language this neophyte can understand. I'm pretty sure I've got #'s 2-4 wrong, but can anyone help me unravel this....? 1) You have objects. You apply vocabularies to the objects in order to describe them. The vocabularies facilitate how your object information is seen by other computers. Examples of Vocabularies are: AAT, ULAN, Chenhall's (I understand #1 pretty well. Here's where I start to get lost...) 2) In order for the other computers to understand what you're giving them, the information needs to be arranged in a specific way. These are the element sets...? these are MARC, LOC, VRA, Dublin Core 3) Because very few institutions have "pure" collections that fit into one of the Vocabularies, we can use multiple Vocabularies. Do we use multiples of #2 as well? These are defined and plugged into the element sets. They are tagged as belonging to a specific Vocabulary (I think there's a middle piece in here I'm missing) 4) There is an umbrella structure, the Harvester, which can read #2 and serve it to the user in readable form. Examples: OAI, MARC (also fits as a #2), XML So as you can see, I'm dreadfully muddled. I know it's important to understand it, but I'm just not able to wrap my head around the various resources out there. I'm starting to think that Ask A Ninja is more my level... Help! and thanks in advance -- Perian Sully Collection Database and Records Administrator Judah L. Magnes Museum 2911 Russell St. Berkeley, CA 94705 510-549-6950 x 335 _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.10/541 - Release Date: 11/20/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.11/543 - Release Date: 11/20/2006
