Thus far in this Digital Public Humanities course, we have thoroughly explored the nature of digitization and its related practices, and this module elucidated the role of metadata in the modern humanities. The transcription of analogue sources to digital formats are, as have been showcased with the photography of kitchen items, limited by their respective mediums, such as still images or videos. Key information may be lost or altered in the process based on these limitations: for example, without context a viewer would not know there was water in the tea kettle, nor that the bucket of potatoes was only labeled on one side. This is where metadata is needed to fill in these gaps in understanding; the digitized versions do not replace the original, so context is needed for the subject to be fully presented in the new electronic format. Using the common definition of “data about data,” Itza Carbajal and Michelle Caswell in the reading describe metadata as an important mode ” to find, contextualize, discover, manage, analyze, search, design, and distribute records in digital archives” because it provides the details on its origin, digitization process, source, and much more (Carbajal, Caswell 1108). This was complemented by the DPLA video from the module, which stated the importance of metadata in recording contextual information for digitized media, and especially how that information is used by archivists and others to sort through and find digitized sources.
This module’s activities in both Tropy and Omeka demonstrated the principle use of metadata: to provide necessary contextual information about the digitized photographs that would have otherwise been left behind in the process. Harkening back to an earlier module’s discussion on what is and isn’t easily depicted with photography, I was able to use metadata to describe qualities of the subjects, such as weight, texture, and overall dimensions, that are usually only measurable with the original source in hand, not the digital version. Thus, metadata is an essential component of Digital Humanities because it helps preserve information and understanding of digitized sources, so that future viewers will not be lost regarding context of the original. Digitization cannot capture or preserve everything about an analogue source, so metadata will continue to be integral to the practice of digital archiving.