Metadata Matters
This is what we call the data that describes other data, helping users find and understand digital objects.
What is metadata?
Digital curation involves selecting, describing, and preserving materials, but it's fundamentally this type of work, not just technical work.
What is intellectual work (or what is interpretive work)?
This is the first step in digital curation—deciding what materials are worth preserving and making available online.
What is selection?
According to Karin Hansson, metadata is never this—it always makes arguments about what matters and whose voices are heard.
What is neutral?
The Green Book was a travel guide created for Black Americans navigating this system of racial segregation.
What is Jim Crow?
Curators must balance preservation, access, and this ethical consideration—deciding whose stories to tell and whose voices to privilege.
What is representation (or what are curatorial ethics)?
HERITRACE tracks this aspect of metadata over time, showing who made what changes and when.
What is provenance (or what are changes/modifications)?
These types of materials—like social media posts and dynamic websites—challenge traditional archival principles because they're constantly changing and collaborative.
What are born-digital materials (or what is web content/social media)?
Pharo, Borlund, and Liu found that effective digital curation requires this type of knowledge, not just technical skills with computers and software.
What is domain expertise (or what is subject knowledge)?
When you create metadata for a digital object, you're doing this—making decisions about categories, keywords, and how users should understand the material.
What is interpretation (or what is making an argument)?
When curating textile collections, you need to describe fabric construction, color degradation, and maker techniques: this is why generic metadata standards aren't enough.
What is the need for specialized/domain-specific knowledge (or what are unique material requirements)?
When curating ephemeral social media content, curators must rethink these two fundamental archival concepts about fixed objects and permanent keeping.
What are "collection" and "preservation"?
This happens when metadata evolves over time as multiple curators work on the same collection across years or decades.
What is metadata evolution (or what is the history of description)?
The North Carolina Green Book Project demonstrates this type of curation, which engages descendant communities in collection building and centers marginalized histories.
What is community-engaged curation (or what is participatory curation)?
The curatorial choices made today determine these three things that future researchers and communities will experience tomorrow.
What are: what can be discovered, what stories can be told, and whose heritage gets preserved? (accept any reasonable combination of these three)