Example of good metadata for items

When creating an item good metadata is important for archival purposes, informing users and allowing it to be found easier in search results. In this article we show examples of items with good, comprehensive metadata. Of course you can add more or different metadata.  

Below is an example of good metadata:

The Great Gatsby
https://archive.org/details/the-great-gatsby-fitz

1. Identifier

• 5-80 characters.
     - Do not use special characters. Letters, numbers, dashes and underscores are acceptable

• Use dash-separated meaningful terms
     - Helps SEO in search engines like Google

• Use the identifier as the name of the uploaded pdf file:

2. Title

• Have it match exactly the title of the book
     - Helps select the correct title page
     - Helps search to find correct book

3. Creator (author)

• Use name as it is printed in the book
     - Helps filtering using facets in search results

• Add birth-death dates if you know them

4. Date (publish date)

• Use the date the edition was published, not the original copyright date
     - Helps filtering using facets in search results

• Use a preferred format (YYYY or YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD)

• For approximate date use e. g. 192?

5. Licensurl (Creative Commons license)

• When possible select a Creative Commons license to better define usage.
     - Helps users and search when looking for specific usage permissions

6. Subject

• Add good tags. 10-12 good ones should be sufficient.
     - Do not add many unspecific terms. That will harm search results.
     - Helps search
     - Helps filtering using facets in search results

7. Publisher

• Use correct name

• Add location if possible such as: Publisher : City, State

8. Collection

• Be sure the correct collection is selected as they are mediatype specific.
     - Flip books only work if they are uploaded to “Community Texts”

9. Language

• The correct language help books be OCRed correctly

• Helps search

• Helps filtering using facets in search results

10. Description

• A concise meaningful description helps users identify items of interest
     - A truncated description appears in search results in tile view so, the first few words matter

Facet filters on search results pages use the metadata in the item