Metadata & Databases

 From my understanding in my reading of chapters 4 and 5 from The Digital Humanities Coursebook, metadata can take many different forms, being descriptive, administrative, and operational. To quote the book, "...metadata is information used to describe data, objects, or records" (Drucker, 53). Alternatively, the text also provided me with my own understanding of databases, which are essentially a means of managing data (i.e. in a table or a spreadsheet). This management aids in keeping information more "consistent and error-free" (Drucker, 71). Databases specifically are designed in many different formats to collect and manage content in the most effective manner for the data at hand.

In terms of where they fit into my own ever-evolving understanding of Digital Humanities, metadata provides context to the organization and formatting of information in DH, whereas databases provide background as to how the data is managed in the first place, which leads to the development of information, and information leads to the creation of DH projects... and so on. It really showed me how these processes are interconnected and all play an important and intricate role.

Bringing this back to my own DH project I am analyzing, I think metadata relates the most. Maine Sound and Story uses metadata in several ways I didn't necessarily realize before, such as organization and cataloging. Most prominently, I believe metadata shows up operationally, through photo, video, audio, and archive display within the website. Another honorable mention would be bibliographic metadata. In terms of future DH projects such as our pending work with Museum L/A, I believe databases will prove themselves to be exceedingly important, as there will be large sums of data to be managed, rather than personally-told stories from residents of Maine.

Comments

  1. Dr. MSeptember 19, 2022 at 11:54 AM

    Great! Metadata and database structure will both play a role in your work with the museum! Maine sound & story is the most similar to the audio collection we will be putting together for them.

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  2. KaitSeptember 23, 2022 at 2:44 PM

    HI Jordan! Metadata played a huge role in the website I choice too. It's very interesting to see the many ways that it appears in all of our digital humanities projects. I liked how you explained the main differences between Metadata and Databases. Thinking about how databases manage the data overall helped was a great way to differentiate the two. It really shows how the different aspects of digital humanities fit into each other as a whole.

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