When metadata first came up in this class, I would be lying if I said it didn’t confuse me immensely at most. I think I was overthinking what it could possibly be, but by watching the intro to metadata video, I realize the definition of metadata isn’t the confusing part, but the application of it can be. Trying to figure out how to tag the subjects of an item takes a lot more thought then most would think. When I was coming up with the subjects for my own item in Omeka, a parking permit, I found myself overthinking if a subject was too similar to another or if it didn’t even describe my item correctly at all. This process sort of reminded me image descriptions, which is something I learned how to do in a digital publishing class I took a couple years ago. Similar to the process of inputting metadata, I think a lot of people would believe image descriptions are extremely easy, but they actually take a lot of thought. For people who don’t know, image descriptions are really just an explanation of what an image is depicting and it is coded into an image; it’s often something you will see on Twitter or other social media if the poster has used that future. When it comes to image descriptions, one has to realize what the purpose is for—people with vision impairments. Something I remember my professor specifically pointing out is that a descriptor like color is useless in an image description because it is useless to blind people who are the main users of this feature. When writing an image description, you really need to take the time to think about what is essential to describe and what is able to translate to the audience it is for, and I found metadata to follow the same criteria. When thinking of subject tags, you really need to think about the most important identifiers of your item and make sure the tags you do use are as accurate as possible so as not to confuse users who are looking for a specific subject.
