Best practices
Instructional video: DCMI: Centering LGBTQ+ voices in catalog research
This Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) one-hour webinar reflects a commitment to the ethical creation and sharing of metadata. It is not necessary to watch the entire webinar.
Be ethical
Metadata is structured data about data and should capture the true facts ethically as well as purposefully. Consider the following:
- what is included and what is ignored and why;
- the words (etymology) chosen to describe the resource;
- how the resource may be interpreted;
- the cultural context of the resource and if it is acknowledged, respected, without judgement, prejudice, and respect data sovereignty.;
- the bias and/or positionality of those creating the metadata.
Be effective
Put yourself in the role of the user and ask yourself:
- What does the metadata tell you about the data?
- Is the metadata misunderstood?
- Are the terms effective and necessary?
- Is additional metadata needed to improve discovery?