Ornamental Clichés: The Cultural Impact of Staffordshire Dogs

Metadata

To catalog the items on my site, I created a resource template of 14 metadata fields derived from Dublin Core elements. Because the amount of information available about my individual resources varies considerably, I wanted my template to be highly flexible and made only three fields required. I referenced Cataloging Cultural Objects as the descriptive standard for all fields, and used controlled vocabularies as indicated below to facilitate discovery and interoperability. 

Title: The name of the resource, as given in the source. Required. 

Identifier: A unique reference for each individual resource. In my naming convention, identifiers are formatted as JCSD##, where "JC" represents my initials, "SD" represents "Staffordshire Dogs" and the two-digit numeric value indicates the order in which the item was added to the collection. Required. Private.

Description: A brief description of the resource, providing additional details and context when possible. Descriptions are either taken directly from the source (in which case, this is indicated with quotation marks and an attribution) or created by me. Required.

Creator: The entity primarily responsible for making the resource. Controlled vocabulary: Getty Union List of Artist Names (ULAN). If a creator was not listed in ULAN, I followed the naming conventions outlined in Cataloging Cultural Objects.

Contributor: An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource. Controlled vocabulary: Getty Union List of Artist Names. 

Date Created: Date of creation of the resource.

Dimensions (Dublin Core: Format): The physical dimensions of the resource.

Medium: The material of which the resource is composed. Controlled vocabulary: Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus.

Type: The nature or genre of the resource. Controlled vocabulary: Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus.

Subject: The resource's topic. Controlled vocabulary: Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Associated Location (Dublin Core: Spatial Coverage): Geographic location associated with the resource. Controlled vocabulary: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names. 

Source: The institution where the described resource is held. For my collection, this was typically either a museum or an antiques dealer.

Source URL (Dublin Core: Publisher): The web address where the resource can be found online.

Rights: Information about the resource's rights. Controlled vocabulary: Rights Statements.