Metadata is considered “data about data” (Carbajal and Caswell). According to the Jisc article, metadata “is usually structured textual information that describes something about the creation, content, or context of a digital resource—be it a single file, part of a single file, or a collection of many files.” (Jisc) Metadata describes every part of an image. It is essential in the field of digital humanities. If there is a picture of an object but no information attached to that object, people would not be able to use that digital item. Not only that, but the item would not be discoverable (DPLA). For example, with my kitchen item, if I did not add any metadata to those images, other people would not be able to search and use them.

Several different metadata categories are essential in the realm of digital humanities. The first category is the description of an item. The Carbajal and Caswell article states, “For archivists, preservation and description are key ingredients in making a collection of records ‘archival.’” (Carbajal and Caswell). A digital item should have a thorough description so that a person will know what that item is. If I did not put a description on my kitchen items, people would not know what the image is. Two other metadata categories are equally essential and coincide: creator and rights. People can find all kinds of digital images. However, one must know how to find the rights to those digital images. For example, I cannot just find an image on the internet and decide to use it; however, I want to use it. I need to make sure there is no copyright claim on the image. This goes right into the creator element. With rights, there is the correlated element of the creator. Some rights claims require people to ask the original creator for permission to use the image, so it is essential to include the creator when creating metadata.

Tropy is an excellent way to help digital humanities practitioners work with metadata. Tropy is a program that people can use to help input and describe sources using metadata. I found it helpful and easy to use in the kitchen items assignment. Tropy made it extremely easy to input the pictures and describe the images using metadata. Omeka is another program that can help digital humanities practitioners work with metadata, especially combined with Tropy. Omeka is a web platform where people can create digital exhibits. While using Tropy, researchers can export and import their data into Omeka. After that, they can then create exhibits using that data. I could do that with the items I exported from Tropy and then imported into Omeka. I could add information, change the layout, and add pictures of the kitchen items.