Metadata Creation and Organization

Special thanks to Dr. Nebiolo's Spring 2025 Introduction to Digital Humanities class (HST 307) who organized and cleaned the metadata for the initial oral histories for this collection.

The metadata for these oral histories were collected using the Dublin Core format. Below is the table of data these students collected and then organized into a Google Spreadsheet. This data table was created and shared by Evan Miller, the Digital Initiatives Librarian at Butler.

*Brackets [] signify that there is either 1. an entry option to choose contained with the brackets or 2. A description of what is to be entered. If there are multiple options to choose from, the options will be separated by brackets. If it is a description, it will be in “all caps” (i.e. FULLY CAPITALIZED). When entering your information, always remove the brackets and do not fully capitalize entries.

**YYYY-MM-DD is a common format for entering dates that allows for chronological sorting: YYYY is a four-digit year, MM is a two-digit month, and DD is a two-digital day (e.g. 1900-01-01 would be January 1, 1900 or 2010-12-10 would be December 10, 2010).

***For multiple entries, please all of the entries on the same line and separate them with a “pipe” (|) (e.g. Indianapolis, IN|Crawfordsville, IN|Lafayette, IN)

Field to Create	Description
Filename	Filename of the file being described.
Title	Explanatory brief description of the item being described. These should be written in a common, human-readable format. Please follow the following format for consistency: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] Oral History [Audio Recording/Transcript]*
Alternative Title	Explanatory brief description of the item being described. Slightly different than the field Title, these should be written in a format that potentially helps search systems (e.g. Last name first for alphabetical sorting, putting any dates in a number format, etc.) Please follow the following format for consistency: Oral History [Audio Recording/Transcript] of [LAST NAME], [FIRST NAME] *
Interviewee	Name of individual go gave an interview. Please follow the following format: [LAST NAME], [FIRST NAME]*
Interviewer	Name of individual asked the questions and recorded an interview. Please follow the following format: [LAST NAME], [FIRST NAME]*
Date of Interview	Please follow the following format: YYYY-MM-DD**
Date of Assignment Submission	Please follow the following format: YYYY-MM-DD**
Medium of Interview	[In-person/Virtual]*
Location of Interview	If the Medium of Interview is In-person, please include the city/town/vicinity. If more specificity is known (e.g. Jordan Hall or specific coffee shop), include that information in the field Interviewee Biography. If the Medium of Interview is Virtual, please include locations (if known) for both the interviewee and the interviewer.*** Please follow the following format: [CITY], [TWO-LETTER STATE ABBREVIATION]*
Keywords	Common topics or themes that appeared in the interviews. Create a list based on your takeaways and highlights from reading the interviews. These can be in your own words.***
Subjects	Using the keywords you created, use the Library of Congress Authorities website to find specific terms for your topics or themes—when searching, be sure you are searching under Subject Authority Headings for general things and Name Authority Headings for people (and note that not every person will have an entry). Create a list based on what you find in your searches.*** This is an example of a controlled vocabulary that helps with consistent searching across systems and institutions. The Library will review your work in this field before it is publicly available. Feel free to explore while searching and don’t feel pressured!
Resource Type	[Sound/Text]*
File Format	The tag for the file format of the file (e.g. .wav, .mp3, .pdf, etc.)
Language	English and/or any other languages used***
Rights (Rights Statement)	Enter the following: https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ This comes from the Rights Statements website. This is an example of a controlled vocabulary that helps with consistent searching across systems and institutions. This explains that the item is under copyright but that any use for educational purposes is OK
Rights Holder	[INTERVIEWEE NAME]\|Butler University*
Bibliographic Citation	[TITLE], COVID-19 Oral History Collection, Special Collections, Rare Books, and University Archives, Irwin Library, Butler University.*

Further cleaning and organizing of the data was done by Dr. Nebiolo before being uploaded to the Butler University Digital Exhibit by Allison O'Keeffe, which uses Omeka as a platform for the site.