Describing the Collection
At the start of our metadata process, we took an inventory of the folders, counting faces and recording the front and back annotations. We believed (and still do) that these will be useful for scholars to identify dates and sets. Once we had this information, we re-arranged the collection according to the set number included in the front annotation. Each item was assigned a unique identifier based on the set number, its position in the folder, and whether it was a print or a negative. Digital images of prints were assigned -R or -V at the end to signify the face of the print. As we digitized, we wrote descriptions, assigned identifiers, and recorded annotations in a spreadsheet.
Since the collection is still being digitized, we have not yet migrated this metadata to a standard. However, we plan to create Dublin Core records for both the physical and digital objects. We have created an example Dublin Core record for 37-01-P-R.One challenge in creating descriptive metadata is that we do not know who took the photographs, and therefore we cannot use the dc:creator term. Due to the collaborative nature of the film, it was difficult to identify one person who could be considered the creator of the photographs. We chose to record Welles, Toland, Ferguson, and RKO as contributors rather than creators.
Each record will also contain technical metadata according to the NISO standard.
We intend for this metadata to be included in the digital collection once the digitization process is complete.
The next page details our digitization workflow from start to finish, as well as the challenges we faced.
