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• Adding Metadata

NJVID - Adding Metadata

Metadata – literally "data about data" - is textual information used to describe a video in a number of areas, including intellectual content, container format, technical information and rights status. This data is used to preserve your video and to make it retrievable via a browse or search at our Web site, www.njvid.net. Metadata also contains information specific to each version of your video, plus origin information that describes the relationships between iterations of your video referred to as "provenance" (e.g. the contributed analog tape sourced an archival master file, which sourced a QuickTime streaming file). By recording metadata, we will be able to retrace our steps if we ever need to generate new presentation files from a file identified as your video's archival source.

Metadata is also used to facilitate browsing and searching for videos. The text that you enter as metadata is indexed so that you can use that same text in a search to locate the video.

Currently NJVid provides two methods for entering metadata: fill out our Metadata Deposit Form and mail it to us with your video and signed Deposit Agreement, or enter metadata directly into the Workflow Management System.

• Metadata Deposit Form

  Please use our Metadata Deposit Form to specify as much information about your video as you can. The more thorough your responses are, the better we will be able to service your video. Once finished, include it in your mailing package with your video and Deposit Agreement. We will enter the metadata for you into our Workflow Management System.

• Workflow Management System

  Metadata is entered into the Workflow Management System (WMS). Each contributor to NJVid is assigned an account in the WMS with which a “collection manager” appointed at each contributing institution can log in and add metadata for each video contributed by that institution. Once your collection manager grows comfortable with entering metadata directly into the WMS on a regular basis, you will no longer have to mail us a completed Metadata Deposit Form. Using our WMS User Manual as a guide, we recommend that your collection manager gradually build up his/her acumen for operating the WMS before ceasing to use the Metadata Deposit Form. Please note that you must fill out the fields marked with a red asterisk in the WMS. You may Contact Us for assistance with adding metadata.

  You probably have noticed that at the NJVid Commons you can browse videos by subject matter. You can assign subject(s) to your contributed videos by making appropriate selections from the dropdown box of the Subject metadata field within the WMS. You can choose multiple subjects for your videos. NJVid has predominantly adopted the Moving Image Collections’ listing of subjects for moving images. On its web site, MIC (Click here fot the website) provides an explanation and scope for each subject for your reference. NJVid offers two additional subjects to choose from:

  Biography – Materials that cover an individual’s life, accomplishments or contributions to human history. Includes materials that give an account in biographical form of organizations, institutions, corporations and animals. Includes historical events resulting from human endeavors or circumstances. For materials covering groups of individuals, select instead Society.

  Languages and literature - Materials pertaining to human languages and other forms of communication, including materials pertaining to written or printed works such as poetry, novels and essays. For works that are biographical in nature, select instead Biography.

If you have a MARC record for your contributed video, you can import it directly into the WMS to automatically fill out certain metadata fields. However, you still will have to manually enter metadata into some fields of the WMS since the MARC cataloging schema does not account for all of the metadata that the WMS asks for.

When you have entered all of your metadata, make sure to save your work before exiting. Your metadata will index upon saving. Once we have ingested your video, it will be accessible through NJVid.


Thank you for contributing to NJVid Commons !