Pella Community Memory Database
December 2019 - volume 1 number 2
Successful Survey Comes to a Close
At the beginning of November, a survey was sent out to all cardholders of the Pella Public Library with a valid e-mail address in our system. The survey asked for opinions regarding the new Pella Community Memory Database and ways in which it might be used.
461 people responded to the survey! The results were enthusiastically in favor of this new resource. 87.5 percent felt either positively or very positively about then new project overall. 99.3 percent believed that the new database would make local historical materials easier to access. Please look over the full November 2019 survey results, including comments on the project from respondents.
Volunteer Opportunities Coming Soon!
Meet Sandy!
What is Metadata?
You've probably heard the term "metadata" tossed around a lot these days. From websites to books to this project, more and more people are using that term. But what does it actually mean? In the simplest definition, metadata is information about information.
Let's use a cookbook as an example. The book itself contains information (data). But how do people find the book on the shelf and know what it contains? Metadata could be information about the size of the book, the name of the author, the number of pages, the title, and a brief description. Metadata describes the document in question so it can searched and accessed readily. Metadata has always existed in libraries (card catalogs were just gigantic metadata files!) but today's metadata is even more useful because it is electronic and searchable via computer.
In the digital world, we describe our scanned documents in much the same way, with some additional fields. Who authored the document? Who is the document about? What physical locations (cities, countries, etc.) are referenced in the document? When was the document created? What is a brief description of what the document contains?
Some of our volunteers will soon be assigned to the metadata improvement team. They will review the metadata records we have so far and make recommendations for improvement. Additional description, persons of interest in the document, topics the document covers, and more may all be suggested by our volunteers.
Featured document of the month: Invoice from G.H. Wormhoudt & Co.
For More Information
For more information, please contact:
Chris Brown
Project Director
641-628-4268
cbrown@cityofpella.com