Peel’s Prairie Provinces: University of Alberta Library, a Division of Learning Services

Each digital object accessible through the Peel’s Prairie Provinces website is accompanied by descriptive metadata. Metadata provides the context that helps us understand the items individually and collectively, enables browsing and searching within and across the collections, and makes items discoverable through search engines and aggregator services.

Standards

Peel descriptive metadata follows the Metadata and Object Description Schema (MODS) maintained by the Library of Congress. The information on metadata conventions, controlled vocabularies and authorities found below relate to the textual collections (newspapers, books, etc.). Similar information on the postcard images can be found on the About the collection page.

Conventions

The content of the metadata records for Peel textual materials follows conventions developed by Bruce Peel and others who worked on Peel’s Bibliography of the Canadian Prairies to 1953. (For more information on the relationship between the Peel website and the print bibliography, see ‘About the Site’).

Controlled Vocabularies and Authorities

The use of controlled vocabularies and authorities is extremely important when striving to create high quality, consistent metadata. Peel makes use of several, including:

• Library of Congress Authorities
• Canadiana Authorities
• Canadian Subject Headings
• Répertoire de vedettes-matière

Other Collections

Also available through the Peel website are several collections that were digitized and described early on in the development of our digital programs. These are:

• Alberta Digital Royal Commissions
• Alberta Folklore and Local History
• Alberta Folklore and Local History Photographs

The descriptive metadata for these collections follows the Dublin Core Metadata Standard (Qualified) maintained by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and follows conventions developed for the projects. (For more information see ‘Alberta Digital Royal Commissions Project Procedures’ and ‘Alberta Folklore and Local History Metadata Authority Guidelines’).

Future Metadata Directions

Convert Alberta Digital Royal Commissions and Alberta Folklore and Local History collections metadata from Dublin Core (Qualified) to MODS and integrate with the other collections.

Enhance metadata to include genre terms.