BEST PRACTICES FOR LIBRARIANS & ARCHIVISTS

The California State University Japanese American Digitization (CSUJAD) Project has developed resources to guide new participants in getting up to speed quickly.
These CSUJAD technical specifications and metadata standards have been formulated, developed, vetted, and continue to be updated to enhance the uniformity and accessibility of the digital objects. They are intended to provide workflow consistency and quality control for the digital objects produced as well as the descriptive metadata associated with them across participating CSU campus libraries and partner institutions.

Technical Reference Guides

The digitization specifications and guidelines below incorporate best practices for digitization and are intended to provide workflow consistency and quality control for digital objects produced across participating CSUJAD institutions. The following 2015 original edition and 2018 updated edition are both valid.

Metadata Guidelines

Metadata that is consistent with other collection records improves the integration and discoverability of archival items in CSUJAD. For guidance on developing metadata for items submitted to the CSUJAD see:

The guidelines above have been in effect since October 2018. Although the previous guidelines are no longer applicable, metadata created prior to the current guidelines’ implementation may retain the standards guided by these earlier versions:

controlled vocabulary

The controlled vocabulary lists for items submitted to the CSUJAD are intended to provide consistency across the participating institutions as part of the CSUJAD and retrieve focused and relevant search results.

DATA DICTIONARY

This data dictionary briefly defines the scope and characteristics of the data elements used in the CSUJAD as well as rules for usage and application. Project partners can use this reference to ensure consistency as we share metadata from multiple institutions.

For detailed guidance on developing metadata for these data elements, see the CSU Japanese American Digitization Project Metadata Guidelines.

Metadata Template

The CSUJAD participating institutions use the metadata template (a formatted Excel worksheet) to submit descriptive metadata along with the digital object files.