TCC Archives Metadata Standards: Home

Tulsa Community College’s College Archives and Heritage Center is a mixed-media collection with both a physical and digital archive component. It is the job of the TCC cataloger to catalog items in the digital collection, as well as to determine which Dublin Core elements, Library of Congress Subject Headings, user tags, and additional descriptive standards should be utilized and implemented for the current and future digital collections. 

History of the Cataloger and the Collection 
The pre-2017 cataloger helped to select initial Dublin Core elements for the collection, but with his retirement, was unable to help select or implement any additional standards. The archivist and the 2017 cataloger determined that the collection did not need all of the Dublin Core elements as the previous cataloger had indicated, since the digital collection was representative of a physical collection and should be aimed at the user.  
Preparing for likely future system transition and wanting the collection to be as adaptive to whatever that future system may be, the 2017 cataloger opted to incorporate archival description standards, Library of Congress Subject Headings, user tags, and only eleven Dublin Core elements. Much of the information necessary to complete the surrogate records for the collection was gleaned from the items themselves, as metadata on many of the older items was scarce. Additional resources to this project include a controlled vocabulary list and a naming convention document.  

Cataloging Workflow 
With the help and approval of the collection’s archivist, the 2017 cataloger developed a work flow to quickly and accurately complete any cataloging for the Heritage collection. Beginning the week of May 15, 2017, the archivist began sending five or more images, videos, or PDFs a week to the cataloger to be cataloged. On or before the first Monday of the week, the archivist will choose the items to be cataloged and upload them with a brief title or description into the online collection tool (currently Omeka). Once these files are uploaded, the cataloger will standardize titles and fill in element information. The cataloger can expect to catalog at least five files weekly.