The Metadata Working Group works to establish best practices for metadata creation and management within the Emory University Libraries, Libraries and IT Services, and broader campus community. Our goal is to establish baseline standards to support Emory digital collections. These guidelines are developed with final review and approval by the Emory University Libraries Cabinet.

Our first set of guidelines focuses on descriptive metadata; future work may include recommendations for additional types of metadata (technical, preservation, rights, structural, administrative).

See our Core Metadata guidelines for more information.

Digital Collections Context

We define digital collections as "unique, Emory-created collections of digitized or born-digital content, intended for delivery to an Emory Libraries-supported repository or discovery tool".

For units with established digital collections metadata, we encourage you to adopt these guidelines and make sure your projects/collections include these core information points, which can be mapped to major standards and local systems' schemas.

For units without established metadata practices, these guidelines can be adopted for new work. The Emory Libraries' Digital Collection Development Policy (approved in 2014) requires that digital collections adhere to these guidelines as a baseline standard for descriptive metadata.