Creating a catalog record is expensive — some estimates range from $50 to well over $100 per record. It’s also not easy to create good metadata that is consistent enough so that queries across repositories (or even across different catalogers) return precise results. Discuss briefly the challenges you are having cataloging your items in terms of subject listings, key words and tags, categories and other facets. How are you approaching the problem of consistency (or are you)?
Consistency is a goal that is pretty difficult so far for me, especially because I tend to not be very systematic when it comes to creating taxonomies and tagging data. I am learning about the value of good metadata in this course, though, so I’m trying to be better at it. But it is difficult to be consistent when each repository program has its own way of adding and labeling metadata. Because the fields are not consistent and not very customizable, I find myself having to make the data fit existing fields and categories. A controlled vocabulary is very helpful when I am tagging, so I think that I would prefer to find a program that lets me define my own–or that at least keeps track of what I have already used and suggests it.
I realize that I need to learn more about cataloging — another course later on in the program, I imagine.