Metadata is descriptive information about digital objects such as images, audio recordings, videos, etc. Metadata answers questions such as What is this? Who created it? and When was it made? Metadata is structured in specific ways.
Metadata serves two important functions:
Metadata is structured into "Fields" and "Values."
Track your Items, links, and metadata with our Omeka Metadata Tracking Spreadsheet (google sheets). Make a copy of this worksheet to use for your own file and metadata tracking.
Dublin Core is a structured metadata standard with defined fields and field values. This standard helps to improve metadata consistency across collections and projects.
Omeka uses the Dublin Core metadata standard. When you see "Dublin Core" in Omeka, this means metadata.
Metadata is required for all Items in Omeka. Some metadata fields are essential for describing and crediting Items, while other metadata fields are optional. Focus on the below "Essential metadata fields" when adding metadata to your Omeka Items.
If you are adding an item from another archive or collection, copy the metadata exactly as it appears in the original archive or collection.
If you are adding a new or unique item, add as much description as you can. A new or unique item would be something that you created or an artifact that you're contributing to an archive or online collection for the first time.
Title
A brief description of your Item. Examples would include a caption under a photo or a painting title.
Creator
A person or organization who created the Item. Examples would include a photographer, a community organization who created a flyer, or an artist.
Date
The date the Item was created. Be as specific as possible. Examples would be a specific date, a year, or a date range.
Subject
A broad one or two-word phrase that captures the main subject of the item. Examples would be "Crows," "UW Bothell Wetlands," "Sunset"
Description
A longer description of the Item, possibly several sentences. The Description describes the Item in more detail and provides more context than the Title.
Source
The Source field is required for any Item you're adding from another archive or collection. Always include the archive, collection, and institution names. Always include the URL link to the specific artifact.
Rights
Copyright or Creative Commons information about the artifact. For items from other archives or collections, carefully scan the website and item page to find copyright and Creative Commons information. Record that information exactly.
Item Type Metadata is optional unless you're working with one of the following circumstances:
Embedding is linking to an external file in a way that it will be playable or viewable in Omeka without uploading it into the Omeka site. Embedding is an alternative to downloading the file from the original site and uploading it to Omeka. Omeka uses Item Type Metadata to embed content.
Follow these steps to embed an Item:
Your faculty will let you know if you need to add Item Type Metadata for a specialized project. If not, you can ignore this tab when entering metadata.
University of Washington Bothell & Cascadia College
Campus Library
Box 358550
18225 Campus Way NE
Bothell, WA 98011-8245
425-352-5340 (Voice & Relay)
Text on this page created by UW Libraries is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License. Images and video are not included.See details.
Land Acknowledgment: The University of Washington Bothell & Cascadia College Campus Library occupies Land that has been inhabited by Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial. Specifically, this campus is located on Sammamish Land from which settler colonists forcibly removed Coast Salish Peoples to reservations in the mid-19th century. Today, descendants of the Sammamish are members of several Coast Salish communities.
